The habit habit
(When do habits become hindrances?)
One of my habits is to start writing one thing and then end up writing something else. Often the words waiting in the wings are not the ones I intend. Funnily enough that is also the theme of this post: structure versus flow, planned versus unplanned.
As I was writing the post I was supposed to be writing—my 90 Day Edit, which is all about my goals for the first quarter of the year—I got to thinking about the nature of goals (again) and the routines and habits required in order to achieve them. I probably should have been a therapist of some kind because I also have this incorrigible psychoanalysis tendency.
Here’s what I have determined so far in my 34 years on this planet: habits and routines are a double-edged sword.
Used wisely and they can be frameworks for growth and change, but left unexamined for too long, or allowed to become too rigid, and they become cages that do just the opposite: stifling growth, resisting change.
The ‘what got you here, won’t get you there’ adage beloved of online personal trainers and influencers encapsulates one of life’s great ironies: there is no formula (no matter how much these people would like to sell you one) for success that lasts forever or works 100% of the time. Change really is life’s only constant, and just when you’ve got one thing down to a fine art, something almost always comes along to relieve you of that assumption and forces you to find a whole new way of doing it again.
I’ve been engaged in a push-pull battle between these two states for a long time. Structure vs. un-structure, or structure vs. intuition, is how I sometimes think of it. Structure feels like applied external logic, a rational framework for organising time, versus intuition being an internal logic, or an emotional framework for organising time (which from the outside often doesn’t look organised at all!).
{Side note: There’s an interesting connection here with ‘flow state’—seen by many as the optimal state to be acting from and within, where you naturally flow from one activity to another, creating and working in a way that feels effortless. I have by no means nailed this but I believe this state can be achieved through either i.e. both structure and intuition can get you there. Indeed I think that the flow state is actually the perfect/harmonious combination of the two.}
A part of me loves routines and habits, and the structure they provide—the certainty of a plan, a spreadsheet, or a list of things to do, reassures and calms me like nothing else. Indeed I think this part of me is addicted to the (in many ways false) sense of security they offer, like safety nets of spiders web.
Then there’s the other part of me that completely resists routine of any kind, or will only tolerate it for so long, and finds the idea of doing anything repetitively stifling and boring, craving endless variety and novelty in all things. This is the same part that developed a festering resentment to the corporate world, with its monotonous, endless cycles and blind adherence to the status quo.
Obviously there needs to be some kind of compromise, or treaty, between these two things in order to make positive progress in any direction of life. Skills must be practiced in order to be learned and mastered. Habits must be formed in order to achieve goals however trivial, or stasis and listlessness sets in.
The answer of course, as it usually is with binaries, is not either/or but both/and.
You need some structured time and you need some unstructured time. The right mix can change from day to day, week-to-week and month-to-month (again, nothing can be set in stone for too long or it will probably stop working). I guarantee if you’re over-indexing on either you will be headed for burnout or disappointment. Not enough structure and you probably aren’t getting things done or are procrastinating too much; too much and all the progress you’re making will start to feel like drudgery and no amount of it will satisfy you.
I think I’m probably left of centre towards the unstructured end of the spectrum; I know that many people’s tolerance for routine is a lot higher than mine, but I also know others for whom any structure at all is total anathema. I guess I should count myself lucky that I don’t fall at either end because extremes can be difficult places to operate from (I definitely have my fare share of those in other behaviours/traits).
One way that I’ve found to satisfy the novelty-craving part of me is in cooking. It’s a low-effort, flexible way to include some variety in my daily routine. I can genuinely say I have never made the same recipe twice. Even for dishes I repeat, I change them every time. No two of my bolognese sauces have ever been the same. No two lasagnas. No two banana breads (and I’ve made a helluva lot of banana bread!). It helps that I’m very confident in the kitchen and can make things up as I go.
Interestingly it’s the only area of my life that has resisted or repelled my addiction to optimising or commodifying as I have done with almost every single other hobby or interest. I have never been tempted to start a cooking blog or instagram account even once.
I could write a whole other post on my strategies for attempting to stay organised and instil a semblance of a routine, to satisfy that other part of me. It’s a rather byzantine collection of apps, digital and paper to do lists and planners, intentions and sheer force of will. It’s definitely not perfect and it has a tendency to shift quite often (unsurprisingly)…let’s just call it a work in progress.
And with that, I can finally start work on the thing I was actually committed to finishing today: my 90 day edit. Probably.
I would love to know what you think about flow state, intuition vs. structure, routines and habits. Leave a comment and tell me where you fall in terms of your tendency towards one or the other below: