But all my days are cheat days

I’m not sure if podcasts are designed to put you to sleep, but they certainly do a good job of it for me. I fail to learn anything new meaningful from podcasts but that’s probably because I’m a proper Gen-Z’er – all of my knowledge comes from social media. Recently, I read a post about success and the direct correlation with discipline as opposed to motivation. Images of a bootcamp flashed through my mind. Lets just say that i would much rather someone throw me in a cage with snakes than ask me to go through a bootcamp.

Discipline requires routines. Routines are built upon regularly-executed healthy habits. Every morning I used to wake up with pretty much the same routine – humongous amounts of time on my phone and humongous amounts of coffee. I think I reached the stage where I was so used to my eyes physically hurting from the excessive glare of the screen (is this the infamous “blue light”?), that I didn’t even question it anymore. In my effort to listen to Instagram influencers who had me treating them like my personal Yoda, I recently made the switch to matcha from coffee. Up until now, Starbucks had properly convinced me that matcha was the grossest thing on earth – but I guess that is what I get for going to Starbucks. In addition, I started journaling. Being the Myers-Briggs INTJ that I am, my journaling rapidly turned into a shoddy-looking list of things to do with misshapen boxes before them, but it’s the effort that counts. I also started meditating – although I don’t know if daydreaming about breakfast counts as meditating, but, again, baby steps. With a strict bedtime and a variable snooze-dependent wake-up time, I have already started finding myself more in control of my day.

I realized that while I crave and sometimes thrive in spontaneity, routines keep my mind clear to think about other things that require more brain space. Too many choices and options leave me confused and make me spend copious amounts of time trying to predict the future for a best-possible outcome situation. Unfortunately, I still don’t have any That’s So Raven magic up my sleeve. 

Word of warning: it’s easy to get stuck in a dreadful routine. You know it’s problematic when Siri always has UberEats in your suggested apps no matter what time of the day it is.