3 Micro-Adjustments In My Daily Routine That Drastically Reduced My Level Of Stress
One of the benefits to quitting my regular day job was, I no longer had to wake up at 5:30 in the morning, rush to get ready and feel the stress of the morning commute. Although I may have traded in the morning commute, the morning still seemed to be a source of stress that could really offset my mood for the rest of the day. So, I took a step back and realized, maybe it wasn’t the alarm clock or the morning commute that was stressing me out. Rather, it was a faulty system I created around those aspects of my day that lead to a negative response.
Anything that’s triggering a negative response in my mood, is simply based on my own perception. You’re in control of your mood and the way you respond to stimuli, and in this instance, we’re talking about an alarm clock. It’s utterly insane how many things I would give power that could change the course of my day. In essence I was allowing myself to be triggered by an alarm clock, traffic, or a phone call from a client at 6:30 am that would routinely come in when I was a Project Manager.
The beauty in this realization, and what I hope to portray in this article, is that the difference in space between the version of you that’s easily triggered and the version of you that’s patient and adaptable is a microadjustment away. The scenarios and actions I changed in my day-to-day routine were so minimal in effort, but made such a major difference for me. Now, you may think to yourself, “yeah ok, that’s so easy I already do all that.” We all have different triggers. Pay attention to your own mood, jot down a note in your phone the next time you get stressed, feel anxiety or get frustrated and you can focus on solutions to handle these situations moving forward. Now, onward to the micro adjustments I’ve made that have helped me stay more present in my daily routine.
Like I mentioned before, I wasn’t handling my mornings much better now that I was home all day. I get bombarded every morning with the baby waking up, my 4 year old waking up, the dog needing to go out, being begged for food and desperately fighting for 2 minutes to make a pot of coffee. This inevitably happens at the same time every single morning and I spent WAY TOO LONG trying to manage my mood and just deal with things as they came up. I’d tell myself, “I could handle it, it’s not that big of a deal.” And in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal. Most mornings I’d handle it just fine and move on about my day. However, I did notice that it was starting to become a habitual source of frustration as the chaos seemingly became routine. I had to switch things up just a bit in order to be on top of my game in terms of being focused, present and mindful.
So, with the stress of mornings being the issue we’re attacking here, what I’ve employed are two super simple ways to stop my frustrations dead in their tracks. First, I’ve employed a morning walk routine for me, the kids and the dog. Feeling the sunlight on your face and moving your body first thing in the morning is an amazing way to find your circadian rhythm and practice gratitude. It’s hard to find enough time in the day to sit quietly and meditate for any long period of time, but I can surely appreciate the small moments on a walk through our neighborhood. Listen to the birds, pay attention to the breeze blowing the leaves in the trees and just take a deep breath before you get your day going. It really helps us get on the same page and once we get back to the house, there’s a greater sense of peace felt by all. We normally do one little lap and it takes a maximum of 10-15 minutes.
Second is as simple as realizing that making a pot of coffee would sometimes take a back seat to the other chaos going on around me. And when coffee gets delayed, things start to get tense. So, realizing that coffee is super important to me, I just take that step the night before so amidst any chaos in the morning, I can just push BREW and get on about my day. By the time our morning walk is over, the coffee is ready and I can have a cup as I make breakfast and all is well.
Another source of frustration throughout the day is the fact that my kids are home all day and they’re WELL aware of the snacks in the pantry, they’re aware of the cereal on top of the fridge and all of the fruit we have in the house. For so long I would find myself getting frustrated as I catered to each kids cry that they were hungry. I would get frustrated because it felt like my system was essentially preparing and cleaning up food constantly as my kids ate all day. Add to the fact that these little garbage disposals can eat a mortgage payments worth of whole foods in a week… No more, something had to change.
What I did was over the course of 2-3 days I would positively reinforce that we would sit down and eat meals together. No more snacking throughout the entire day. We were going to have set times for meals and snacks throughout the day. The kids adjusted fine as I took the time to make them what they wanted as we’d compromise on healthy well-balanced meals. The transition was pretty seamless. It’s amazing how one small shift in the system I employed in feeding the kids, can change the dynamic of a whole day. Now, there’s more enjoyment in the meals, we all sit and eat together, preparation and cleanup is systematic and it’s now a source of positivity rather than stress.
The third example I’m going to use is a little different and a little niche. I homeschool my daughter and there have been plenty of things to learn about how to maximize her output when it’s time to sit down for school. I found that I’d get a little frustrated in her response to school time if she wasn’t focused and ready or energetic about it. I love the fact that I can teach my daughter at home and watch her mind grow, learn and flourish. It’s a major source of joy for me, but my daughter would say otherwise. She’s 6, and school means I’m taking her away from playing with her brother and having fun. But still, I had to get over trying to force her to sit up and focus and do school so we can move on… It simply wasn’t working.
Instead, I’ve accepted flexibility. After all, that’s one of the main reasons we chose to homeschool our daughter, due to the flexibility of our time. We can handle school whenever we have time based around the activities we have going on for the day. When we were on the road, we’d inevitably do it earlier so we could get out and go for a hike or see the sights. Now that we’re back on the east coast, we may not sit down to do school until 2pm. I’ll monitor my daughter’s mood and energy and I won’t create hard line schedules for her. I’ll let her play, set timelines, give her 10 more minutes of play if she’s in the middle of something and having fun. I find that school is so much easier when it’s not forced. I’ll find the correct time to get her to sit down for school and it always ends up better than trying to force school upon her when I’m ready. I’m mindful of my time but also I’m mindful of her time and her mood. When I’m open and flexible to her needs as well as mine, everything goes smoother, school is more enjoyable and we remain in the flow state of our day.
These are all very simple and menial tasks in my day-to-day life that I’ve made more enjoyable by identifying the source of what was bothering me. I found the triggers, I switched up the systems surrounding these tasks and they’ve been much smoother as of recent. So, take some time, take a walk (with your phone off) and ask yourself why you’re getting upset or stressed out over certain things in your day-to-day life. I couldn’t continue to blame my stress on the morning chaos of everyone waking up at the same time. The stress is simply my response and perception of the situation. Once I worked through a few kinks in the system, I became less stressed and my kids are very perceptive of that. Yours are as well, I guarantee it. So, take some time and find what frustrates you and how you can change the way you approach these aspects of your routines to become a happier, less stressed and more mindful version of yourself.
Hope you all have a wonderful week!
- Jay Melvin
