Five Advantages of Getting Out of Your Routine
Sometimes, it seems impossible to make changes in your life. Your life is perfectly planned out. You get up in the morning, go to work and come back tired, not wanting to do anything else. Occasionally, you might make some time to go to the gym. However, one of the advantages of getting out of your routine is that it makes it possible for you to introduce some changes.
It doesn’t take long to get used to repeating the same habits every day. Nevertheless, this can end up generating feelings of apathy or disinterest. In this sense, it’s helpful to know the advantages of getting out of your routine. Furthermore, you’ll enjoy it.
1. Your inspiration increases
Inspiration is one of the first advantages of getting out of your routine. It allows you to have new ideas, be more productive in your work, and enjoy what you’re doing. Because it’s impossible to feel inspired if you do the same thing every day.
Manuela Romo is a professor in the Faculty of Psychology at the Autonomous University of Madrid. She makes it clear in her book, Psychology of Creativity, that dedication and effort are key for inspiration to appear. You might achieve this by, for example, attending a conference, presentation, or a talk with your colleagues (or alone).
2. You avoid getting stuck
One of the second advantages of getting out of your routine is that you avoid getting stuck. Surely, at one time or another, you’ve had the feeling that you’re not going anywhere. It’s in these moments that you begin to lose your motivation and your passion for what you do. To prevent this from happening, you must frequently get out of your routine.
Of course, not everything has to be work-related. In fact, you can also feel the stagnation in your life in general because you no longer have any goals to meet (at least, you think you don’t). How about you sign up for a course to learn a new language? What if you try to take a five-minute walk every day after leaving work? With these kinds of activities, you’ll feel that you’re really progressing.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
-T.S. Eliot-
3. You enhance your creativity
It’s true that some occupations are more creative than others. Perhaps, if you work in an agency in which your tasks are to make invoices and budgets, the climate isn’t conducive to being creative. Furthermore, you may even think that you don’t possess this quality. However, it’s not true.
Everyone is creative. Nevertheless, it tends to get forgotten. How long has it been since you last drew something or at least colored? Make a puzzle, play that instrument you’ve been allowing to gather dust for years, or start embroidering. All this will unleash your creativity and make you feel really good about yourself. If you have a creative job, like being a web designer, that’ll also be of benefit.
4. You overcome laziness
A fourth of the advantages of getting out of your routine is that you’ll be able to overcome that feeling of laziness that you often seem unable to shake off. In fact, even getting up in the morning becomes a huge effort, because you already know how the day’s going to unfold. Fortunately, this can change.
Running through the countryside, for example, can make you feel great. This change may seem insignificant, but it’ll have a major impact on your feelings of laziness. You’ll feel more eager to face each day.
“Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.”
-Jules Renard-
5. You reduce stress
Finally, you mustn’t forget the important aspect of stress. Excessive work, child care, or problems you may have in relation to money, your partner, friends, etc., can cause you a great deal of stress. As the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) indicates, this can cause several long-term problems that affect your health.
For this reason, you should get out of your routine on a regular basis. You should set yourself a personal goal like doing something different every day. It could be learning a new recipe, planning to watch a documentary every week, starting to practice yoga (at home or by taking classes at the gym), organizing an unexpected weeknight outing…the list is endless.
The ideas in this article will allow you to benefit from getting out of your routine Your attitude will also change. You’ll have more energy and desire to get up in the morning. It’s all too easy to fall into monotony and find yourself maintaining a pretty unbearable routine. However, starting today, you can ensure that this doesn’t happen.
What will you do differently tomorrow?
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
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- Engram, B. W., & Allen, N. S. (2010). Cinco claves para salir de la rutina. Nursing, 28(1), 33.
- Lacueva, A. (2010). Buscando salir de la rutina: ideas y acciones de practicantes de docencia integral en/sobre sus clases de ciencias naturales. Revista de Pedagogía, 31(88), 61-96. http://ve.scielo.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0798-97922010000100004&lng=es&tlng=es
- Palmero, F. (2005). Motivación: conducta y proceso. Revista electrónica de motivación y emoción, 8(20-21), 1-29.
