Why We Need Reflection and Routine?

I can’t say that my life is miserable. I have a lot of things to be grateful for, that other people can only dream about. I am in my final year of University, I am having good grades (not top of my year, but still good grades. I’ve been part of the executive board of an international youth organization in my city and accumulated an experience that most of the people my age will probably never have on their resumes. I’ve been landed my dream internship, working in web development, a field that I’m really fascinated about and in which I want to start my career. I’ve got a handful of people that I can easily call “my friends” because I know they would help me whenever I would need their help and that have supported me a lot in my last year especially. My family is not broken. My parents love me and even though they don’t always agree with my choices, they support them.

Yet, there are times I feel all my life is falling apart. There are days when I can hardly manage study time, working time and volunteering time all in the same time without falling back on my sleeping. I am waking up early in the morning to go to school, then I go to work immediately after, and then stay awake until 2–3 am just to finish some tasks for this organization. I fall behind in my relationship with my best friends from over 10 years and with my family, just to have it all in this moment, not to waste precious time on something else rather than building up my career or what I tend to call “a life”. All of these, and some insecurity issues and self-conscious problems that maybe sometimes “I am not good enough”added on top.

But lately, there’s been a big change in my life. I started to back down on volunteering (not because it wasn’t helping, but mostly because my term as Vice President ended and I didn’t want to take a position in the national team). So now I have more free time. Before this, I though I will not know what to do with this free time. I was wrong.

This was actually a game-changer for me.

Why? Because now I have time to think about it a bit. And I realized what I’ve been missing in my life in the last period and that is routine & reflection.

Routine — (noun) a sequence of actions regularly followed

You might say that routine is the enemy of creativity, time, life, etc. Actually, for me it was the friend of those.

I realized that having a hectic schedule, with no time for myself, no time for proper sleep and random eating and sleeping time every day was taking me nowhere. I was doing everything just to get it over so I can move to the next task. I didn’t have time to process what was happening to me or what am I learning from this thing that I am doing.

Now, I get up in the morning at almost the same time everyday. I spend about half an hour reading and half an hour getting ready for school. I go to school. Then I go to work. Then I come home and have a proper meal. I have then about 2–3 hours to do whatever work I feel I still have to do. Then, about two hours for myself : time to exercise, meditate, reflect, read or watch a movie, catch up with my friends. Later than 10 pm, I’m not doing any more work. I go to sleep at around 11–12 pm. I get about 7–8 hours of sleep per night. And that is perfect. I finally feel that my life is not breaking apart anymore, but sticking back together. I am not stressed anymore, I am not losing my focus so easily anymore. I feel more creative and I finally have time for personal projects.

I needed structure in my life. And now I kind of have it. And I know that not everyone is all about structure and being organized and stuff like these, but I am sure that everyone should have a structure in their “unstructured” life. It actually helps you do more.

I am not saying that you should have your whole life planned out. Don’t get my wrong. I have no idea where I will be in a year, or 5 or 10. But I am taking life one step at a time, one day at a time. And so far it wasn’t a wrong choice.

And yes, I am still in for unpredictable change of plans, like an out-of-the blue weekend trip with friends or goings out for the whole night.

Reflection — (noun) the return of light or sound waves from a surface; a thought, idea, or opinion formed or a remark made as a result of meditation; consideration of some subject matter, idea, or purpose

The other game-changer of my life was reflection.

I’ve always been that kind of person that keeps a journal and uses to write down everything that happened in her life, like important moments, or feelings, or something nice that happened one day. But again, having a hectic schedule I cut down on that a lot. For some time I didn’t even use an agenda or journal anymore. There were a lot of things happening to me, both good and learning points that I didn’t pay attention to, because I was always in a hurry. I used to take a lot of wrong choices because I wasn’t thinking them through.

(The funny thing is, in this organization I am part, there’s a lot of taking about reflection and how important it is in one’s life.)

But now I got back to having reflection time for myself. I reflected on my 2015. And I wrote my thoughts down. I started then to take a 10 minutes reflection time at the end of each day, week and month, all written down on paper. Did it helped me with anything? Yes, it did. I realized what I care about, what I stand for, what I want from my life and how am I getting there. It helps me clear my mind and put my thoughts in order.

Yes, routine and reflection changed my life. It wasn’t an overnight change, but it’s a change.

I recommend you try at least these two. It might not work for you, but it might as well do. After all, you know better what’s best for you. And what you want from your life.

But always, always have your life-goal in mind. Whatever you do, should be a reflection of where you want to get. And make it count. Whatever you do, make it count.

Originally published at siimplicitea.wordpress.com on February 12, 2016.