Ashley Brown 0:00 [Intro]
Routines my absolute favorite word, but you either love them or you're working on getting there. But either way, I strongly believe routines can be a springboard for improving your home, yourself and your life. I'm Ashley Brown. And this is the routine and things podcast. In each episode, I'll share practical tips and simple ways to help you consistently live your happiest life, one routine at a time. Trust me, you're going to want to keep listening, because you're well on your way to getting and staying happy.
Ashley Brown 0:49
One of my least favorite memories as a mom happened when I was a stay at home mom. This day in particular, I had so many things to do. I was behind on laundry I needed to schedule my daughter a doctor's appointment, and the house was a mess. I mean a hot mess. And Funny enough, even though it's not funny, when I got to the end of my day, nothing had been done. You know those days. Thankfully, I had a God moment and realize I have fallen out of routine. Yes, this routine oriented girl had fallen out of routine. And honestly, it took me a while to get back on track. Because routines are always naturally falling into place for me in the past. But this was very different. I had to intentionally rebuild my routines one by one. And although it took time and patience, the impact routines had on my life was incredible. And I learned so much along the way.
Ashley Brown 1:44
This is why I'm so excited to share with you that your girl did a thing. I wrote a book, The Routine Building Handbook, you're all in one habit builder for increased productivity inspired work and lasting success. The Routine Building Handbook is an easy to use Practical Guide for starting creating and maintaining routines to help you decrease stress, improve your sleep and build a productive, joyful life. It gives you all the tools you need to introduce structure predictability, and stability, including a customizable habit building roadmap, ideas for weekday, weekend, morning and night routines. plenty of examples of realistic daily and weekly routines, and advice for staying flexible. You can now preorder the book which comes with some amazing bonuses for a limited time to preorder The Routine Building Handbook, you can go to routineandthings.com/book, or click the link in the show notes.
Ashley Brown 2:48
Hey, welcome back for another episode of a routine and things podcast. I'm your girl, Ashley Brown. And I am excited to talk to you today because I see a lot of people making mistakes in routines and making mistakes when they are building routines. And so I am here to set the record straight, to give you some tips about how to not make these mistakes and to show you what mistakes you are making. So if you are making any of these mistakes, you can remedy them right now. And you can get back on track. Because I want for you to thrive I want for you to thrive using routine. And the one way to help is by informing you of mistakes you're making when you're building routines. Because if you don't know what mistakes you're making, how can you fix them. And so we're going to dive into this. And it's going to be a short and sweet episode, you know, I'm here to give you the Tea and then we leave and go on with our day because we have things to do.
Ashley Brown 3:47
So when it comes to the mistakes that you are making, these are big mistakes that are being made when you're a routine building. The first one is you don't fully buy into routine. I'm going to repeat that, again. You don't fully buy into routine. What does this mean? This means that you don't believe routines actually work. Or you don't believe that routines will work for you. You see them working for other people and you're like, but they don't work for me. You don't fully buy into them, you don't think that they will improve your life. Or you believe that routines aren't really your jam. Because when you believe that routines aren't your jam, you're not going to buy into them. Right? And so this is a huge mistake. Because if you don't think that routines can really help you. They're not going to help you, right? what we believe is what comes to fruition.
Ashley Brown 4:48
So if you don't believe they're going to help, they're not going to help. And this is something that I have seen, you know where you will see someone else doing a routine and you're like Why is this not working? For me, or I don't know if that's even feasible if that's even possible. And so you don't really trust that a routine is going to work for you. So this is this is one mistake. And what I want you to do if this is you, and you don't buy into routines, I want you to start getting curious about why you don't buy into routines. And why you don't feel like they won't work for you, maybe journal about that journal about that tonight, because it's a reason why you don't buy into routine. And if you stay here, then you're not going to make any progress towards improving your life, especially if you want to use routine to do that. So that's the first big mistake.
Ashley Brown 5:46
The second big mistake that I've seen is that your view of routine is skewed and limited. So what I mean by this is, you either don't fully understand what a routine is, or you have the wrong perception about what a routine is. Or you feel like a routine can only be one way. So when you have a view that is skewed, or when you think routines only fit in a certain limited space, or can only be done a certain way, this isn't going to do you any good when it comes to building a routine. And I see this when it comes to how people think about routines. So sometimes we can believe that routines are supposed to be done every day, which is not the truth. Or we believe they're the only routines that exists are morning and evening and bedtime and exercise. Or when we believe that a routine has to have a certain amount of steps in order for it to be a routine. Or that a routine has to be done the same time every day, we can sometimes believe that routine is boring and restrictive.
Ashley Brown 7:05
These types of views about routines are not helpful. Because what they do is they minimize routines, they don't maximize routines, they minimize this view minimizes routines and makes them less of what they are. And it's the wrong perception to have, especially if you want to use routine and your life to dramatically impact and improve your life. And so having the right information, accurate information is really important. The routine is a series of actions done regularly. And in that definition, I do not hear every day. And I do not hear boring or restrictive. So with that being the case, you know, understanding whatever routine is is going to serve you better. And so that's a big mistake that I see often.
Ashley Brown 8:02
The next mistake is not taking your time with routine and not being intentional. This was something that I did in the beginning, because I was like I need a routine now. And so I rushed it. Now I had a whole bunch of trial and error with routine when I first started becoming really intentional about creating them. And I rushed the process and me rushing the process didn't help. So I see this happen when time isn't really man taken out to really be thoughtful about the routine you're creating. And being thoughtful and purposeful and how you're creating your routine is key to having a routine that actually works for you and having success with the routine that you create.
Ashley Brown 8:45
And so be sure to take your time. You know, you may need a routine that's helping you in a certain area of your life. But if you've rushed through the process is not going to be helpful, you're going to be back at the drawing board trying to figure things out again. So I would say just first take your time. And really think through how you're creating the routine, what create what routine you're creating, you know how you're going to maintain this routine, really think through these things before you just throw something together. And then it's not helpful. So that's another mistake.
Ashley Brown 9:22
And then the last mistake I want to share is that you're caught in the comparison trap. This comparison trap, I just want to just throw it out the freakin window. But when you get caught in the comparison trap, this can really lead you astray when it comes to routine building. This many times happens when either you have friends that their lives kind of resemble your life or even those who you follow on social media. Their lives might resemble yours. You could be following somebody that life doesn't resemble yours and you will start to get sucked into the comparison trap. I was talking to this woman the other day. And she was like, Yeah, I follow this lady on Instagram. And she has this really beautiful morning routine. And I would love to have a morning routine like that. But I think to myself, like, Oh, she doesn't have children.
Ashley Brown 10:17
I'm like, Yeah, there you go, comparing so because she realized that she was comparing her morning routine to the latest morning routine, but it's like that ain't got no kids. So we can get caught in the comparison trap. And that's not going to be helpful when it comes to building routines. Because you need routines to meet you where you are. And if you're so concerned with what somebody else is doing in their life, and you're thinking that you are supposed to have a routine that the person on Instagram has, or your neighbor down the street has that's, you're not in their shoes, just like they're not in your shoes, your routines may look the same, they may not. But don't get caught in the comparison trap, you run your own race, period, okay.
Ashley Brown 11:06
But these are the four mistakes that I usually see, I wanted to call those out. Because if you feel like you have been making any of these mistakes, you know, now to do away with them, and to actually make a different choice. And this is mainly the reason why I wrote The Routine Building Handbook because I want you to build routines in a healthy way I want for any person, including you that picks up this book, that you know how to create routines in a way where you can actually thrive and be successful with them, versus wasting your time and energy and effort towards building routines that aren't going to be helpful. And in the book, I'll give you really practical tips for how to build routines that actually move the needle forward in your life.
Ashley Brown 12:01
The book is available for preorder right now you can do that by going to routineandthings.com/book, or there is a link in the show notes. And if you preorder you will get some really beautiful bonuses that go along with preordering. And I promise you if you get the book, you're going to be flipping through this and you're going to have a resource that is going to last year for a lifetime. To end today's episode your routine wisdom is take your time with routine building. Take your time, okay, it's no rush. Build that routine. be thoughtful about it. And take your time. Be sure to rate and review the show before you hop off and also share this episode with someone you know today. But until next time, continue to enjoy wherever you are, whatever you're doing, stay happy and I will talk to you later.
Ashley Brown 12:59 [Outro]
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode, take a screenshot and share it on social I would love to know you're listening. And for tools to help you start maintain and enjoy your routines. Be sure to head to routineandthings.com. Here's to staying happy