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The Risk of Routine We faced a problem. When my brother and I were living in New Zealand we really wanted skimboards. The challenge was finding the skimboards we wanted--and this proved to be impossible.
However, we also knew that in every problem there is an... opportunity. This is was our chance to start our own business. At ages 14 and 15, our first company was born: Reactor Board Technology.
The business started growing very fast--probably because we had a monopoly over the market (we had no competition in New Zealand at the time). Within only a few months, we had turned our garage into a small assembly line to keep up with demand. We produced up to a dozen boards at a time.
We were having a blast, especially when we worked out the bugs and developed a smooth system. But when we got too comfortable, our system turned into mindless routine. Dangerous territory! Our excitement distracted us and we didn't test the boards as well as we should have. As a result, some of the boards were returned with manufacturing defects. That's when we learned:
When we get too comfortable with daily routine
we risk becoming careless.
We did take care of the problem, but it was very costly. Perhaps the worst thing was knowing that it all could have been avoided in the first place if we hadn't become so careless. Developing a system to improve efficiency is always good--no matter what you're doing--but when actions turn into monotony we put ourselves in danger.
On a very simple level, it's easy to get in the routine of living life one day to the next without questioning what happens or how we act. The minutes turn into hours, the days turn into weeks, and months soon become years. Time can completely pass us by until we "wake up" one day and find ourselves somewhere we don't want to be.
Then, when we do try to change our routine that we've worked so hard to keep the same, we face internal resistance. In other words, the longer we do something, the harder it is to change.
As humans, we naturally want to do what's easiest. Unfortunately, however, this does not automatically translate to behavior that is best for us or what makes the most sense. We focus, instead, on doing "whatever works" (at least in the short term). It's easy to understand why we get upset when we inevitably have to change things.
Even our physical body works in the same way. Going to the gym and repeating the same workout day-in and day-out soon causes our muscles to adapt to the exercises (routine) and our progress quickly stalls. Sometimes we need variety to stimulate growth and improve our results.
However, please don't misinterpret the message. Developing routines can be useful when it helps us consistently do healthy things we don't always want to do such as brushing our teeth, doing our homework, eating healthy, exercising, doing the laundry, etc. But even then, without testing and questioning what we are doing, our technique and processes may get sloppy.
The danger comes when routine causes us to:
1. Get too casual with our work
2. Lose sight of our initial intentions
3. Forget how our environment is still ever-changing (even though we're not)
4. Unknowingly turn our unhealthy routines into poor habits
5. Lose our curiosity, our intuitive desire to explore new ways of effectiveness
Becoming too comfortable with the way things are in life can lead us to ignore what is happening around us. Once this happens, we risk losing our ability to see new opportunities that make life more interesting.
Old beliefs and procedures do not bring new solutions or opportunities.
Letting too much mindless routine seep into our daily life makes it difficult to grow as individuals because we subconsciously avoid challenges. And it's the same challenges that we try to avoid that often help us to grow and expand intellectually. I love what Gail Sheehy once said, "If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living."
She's exactly right. We can't become more of who we are if we do the same things in the same way we've always done them. Said differently, if you act the same way you always have, then you can only expect to have what you've always had.
Much success to you,
- Kent
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