Positive Psychology Column for 10-12-03 By Tom Muha, Ph.D. Routine Satisfaction Like a lot of people, Linda was trapped in a lifestyle that didn’t make her happy.  Over the years she’d made choices that were expedient in terms of getting immediate results, but which had little consideration for their long term consequences. Linda usually skipped breakfast because she wanted to get into the office as soon as possible.  She compensated by drinking caffeinated coffee to pump up her energy, which also helped her counter the pattern of inadequate sleep that she’d developed. Linda never had the energy for exercise because she always felt drained by all of the demands she faced.  She couldn’t even imagine that working out might actually give her more energy, especially once she’d developed some endurance. Then those long hours at work wouldn’t be so exhausting. If you tried to talk to Linda about her lifestyle you got her patented impatient and irritable response.  She was easily frustrated, and saw suggestions about healthy habits as more demands on her already overburdened energy reserves.  She never even considered the toll her negative reactions took on her relationships. Linda primarily used food to deal with stress, along with a couple of drinks at night to help her unwind.  She kept a certain distance from her family because she felt that her husband and kids were putting too much demand on her limited stores of energy, which was preventing her from getting enough emotional nourishment from her close relationships. Linda became increasingly disengaged, which helped her to conserve her energy because she wasn’t invested in creating anything really great in her life.  She just wanted to survive, and didn’t think too much about the choices she was making. On the surface Linda’s approach made sense because they allowed her to push herself to get a great deal of work done.  Over time, however, they made her a prisoner of her own negative routines. Occasionally Linda did make attempts to change her patterns, but her half-hearted efforts were short-lived and unsuccessful.  She was a victim of the New Year’s resolution syndrome - trying to radically change her behaviors only to find herself falling back into her old routines. A person can change the patterns of his or her life, but only by taking it slow and easy.  The goal is to establish precise behavioral routines that are followed at specific times during the day, which takes away the need for conscious effort and self-control by making the behaviors automatic.  Since self-discipline is a much more limited resource than most people imagine, it’s critical to harness the power of positive rituals in order to achieve success.  Setting up positive routines is powerful for three reasons.  First, automatic routines conserve our energy, preserving our conscious efforts for dealing with the unexpected challenges that present themselves.  Second, instead of needing to push ourselves into action, a well-established ritual pulls us, leaving us feeling worse when we don’t follow our normal routine.  Think about how you feel if you don’t brush your teeth. Third, rituals help us to live our values because we can choose to establish precise patterns of behaviors that are fueled by what matters to us most in life.  Setting up rituals requires looking at our priorities, and then carving out specific, recurring time frames for those activities to occur. Having charted a daily course of actions for yourself, the next step in creating success is to hold yourself accountable.  If you want to change your eating patterns, for example, plan your food intake at the beginning of the day and then evaluate how well you did at the end of the day.  Keep a simple checklist on your bed stand to record a yes or no for having met that day’s goals. It’s essential that you learn from this feedback.  Judging and criticizing creates negative emotions, which only produces discouragement.  Instead, remember the mantra, “There are no mistakes, there are only lessons.” When you have not met your goals, something needs to be modified in order to start seeing success.  For instance, people often set a goal that is too ambitious and must learn to start with small steps and ease into a slower progression toward their ultimate outcome. By building daily accountability built into your change process, you can use the initial struggle to establish your new ritual as a means of learning how to be successful during the 30 - 60 days that it takes to institute a new routine.   Tom Muha is a psychologist in Annapolis. He welcomes your comments and questions. To contact him call (443) 454-7274 or email him at tom@achievinghappiness.com.