I Can’t Stick To A Daily Routine, Help! - Q&A

Hey, Dr. Aziz here. And it's time to answer another question from a viewer. This is from Hussain and it's about morning rituals and how to sustain them. He said to create a routine. He said there's a problem. Aziz. To create a routine you must have clear goals. I'm at a place in my life where I don't know what I want to do anymore. I can do many things. Sometimes there's something which I think is the best goal for me. So I set it as a goal and, and create a routine for a few weeks. It goes well, I gain momentum, it feels good, but only up until a point where I just crash. This happens because I start to get depressed. The thing I'm doing is actually not satisfying me. That's what I notice. What satisfying me is the feeling of achievement. But that's not enough. So I feel like I'm on the wrong path. Start questioning and then the routine collapses. How many of us can relate to this? Have you ever done this? I. When I was reading this question, I was like, oh man, I've been there where you're all excited about it and you start to do it and then all of a sudden you're just like, ugh. And you lose all that momentum and it doesn't have the same. I've done that with like. I remember I got really into eft tapping and I was like, I'm going to tap. Tapping is my solution to everything. And then I was all excited about it. It was really working. And then all of a sudden it kind of like I didn't have the same effects from it. And then I got discouraged and I just sort of stopped it entirely. Which is a shame because it has a lot of benefits. But we got kind of all or nothing with this stuff. He's like wants to share that six to seven years ago he did have a routine. He could keep it. He had clearer goals. But then he achieved these goals and he realized that's not really what I wanted anyway. Probably felt success without fulfillment, which is another common challenge that people feel. I've felt that as well. He says now I don't have a routine anymore. Whatever I do, not long after, I feel like I'm on the wrong path. And I think it's true. That's the bad part. Even though I'm into self development for many years, I'm still not able to figure out what I really need. I also have a lot of existential crisis going on. Creating routine for people with clear goals and dreams is much easier. Actually. It's easier. This is where he gets into a little bit of like, it's not fair mode, which I get because I've been there too. Actually. It's easier when you're so naive that you purely believe in your dream and don't question it. I think successful people are people whose pure and naive dreams somehow lead them to happiness by luck. So now we're getting a window into his model of the world. You're one of them. He's talking about me. What you pursued for years, which is becoming a confidence expert. This dream of yours may have crashed and then you would have been lost in life. And that is my state. Any suggestions? So struggling. I get it. And I really appreciate your honesty and your sharing kind of context as well for your question. So let's dive into it. Achieving goals and feeling dissatisfied. That happens, right? So I don't know what your goals were, but they might have been sort of the standard society goals. Money, career success, and maybe even getting a relationship. But usually it's a lot of material possessions. But even sometimes we think of, I got to get a relationship. But then the level of depth and connection that we have in that relationship, we don't cultivate, so we don't feel the satisfaction. But a lot of people achieve career goals and success and then they're not satisfied. And here's the thing. When it comes to these morning rituals and these routines, I don't see them as about the attainment of a goal. I see them about a process. It's about being able to engage in a process. And anytime that we're doing something as a means to an end, we. We're not going to feel satisfied. So if I'm working out to get big muscles, and that's what I'm focused on, or I'm working out to get lean abs or whatever you're working out to get thinner, whatever. I'm working out to lose weight. If that's like the way you're holding it, you're going to be dissatisfied most of the time. And I know this from personal experience because when I started working out, it was like, I'm going to get ripped, you know? And then you're measuring your weight. I was measuring my body fat. And that's like, ah, it's up today, it's down today. I'm good, I suck, I'm satisfied, I'm not satisfied. And you're just all over the map emotionally. Scales, man. Look at anyone who's trying to lose weight. If you're weighing yourself a lot on A scale. It's terrible, isn't it? Like, you get on the scale, one day it's down. You're like, I'm the best, and it's working. And the next day, you're doing everything the same, everything, right? You're totally on your diet, totally on your exercise plan, and you get on the scale and it's gone up like a pound or two, and you're like, ah, I'm a failure. And even if you try to have it not affect you, it still affects you, doesn't it? So that's because we're attached to the outcome. And when it comes to the morning routines and these practices, I'm really about seeing it as a process. And I got that probably about five months, about. Maybe about. Maybe even shorter. Maybe about three or four months into my consistently going to the gym, I realized, like, oh, the way I'm holding this, I'm going to suffer a lot. I really am trying to get to the end. So I was like, you know what? It's got to be just about the workout, not about the goal. But I couldn't do that. I was still focused on the goal. And so for me, in another almost eight months, it was like, okay, I should really let go, but I really want it. I want it, I want it. And then eventually, something really snapped in me, and I was like, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if I have abs or muscles or this. It's just like. It's about the workout. It's about showing up every day that I'm working out. I work out four days a week without. With discipline. I'm gonna run maybe two or three. But, like, with discipline, with consistency, it's about building your character. It's about building a virtue. Virtue in yourself. Of discipline, of strength, of consistency, of showing up. That's what it's about. It's about sculpting who I am. And the byproduct of that is gonna be these glitzy, flashy things, whether it's money or, in this case, muscles. Yeah, I'm gonna get that stuff. More and more of it, sure. But I don't. That's not. That's not my focus. And so picking a routine that's like the end is in and of itself. So I would really focus on. So how do you do that? Well, when you're doing the routine, you want to be focused not on what it's going to get me, but on mindfulness, on being grounded in the moment, on being in your body as much as Possible when you do any of this stuff. And then I would pick a routine that is a self care routine, not trying to achieve something routine. And so the self care routines are an end of in themselves. So working out is one and you're working out for your. Not to get to an end result but to be strong. I don't mean like so you can lift a certain weight. I mean to feel that strength in that moment in your body, to feel good in your body during and afterwards Meditation is a really good one. And again you're not doing it to become the best meditator. I'm going to fucking win at meditation. No, it's like to practice. To practice if you're doing a concentration form of meditation or if you're doing like a more heart centered like meta is a really good meditation if you want to create love and connection in your life, more fulfillment. Check that out. You can find out guided ones for both of those on YouTube but you're doing them as an end and itself. Another thing which I love is I've been studying Wim Hof. You've seen my recent videos. I'm into his stuff, cold exposure and all this stuff. So I do some of his morning things. I do a 10 minute cold shower every morning and I do his I guess power breathe, I don't know what he calls it, deep breathing exercises. I do four rounds of that every morning. And again that is not to get somewhere. That is just to give my body what it needs. My body needs those things. It helps my whole nervous system, helps me feel good. And it's not like I'm doing this to be the best at ice showers or cold showers. I'm not gonna break any world records and I'm just doing it for the process of it. Now in these things there is growth, right? So like I am experimenting with like well how long can I hold my breath after doing this stuff? Can I hold a little longer? What else cold can I expose myself to? That's a challenge. So there is some sort of growth in that area. It's not like you have to do, you have to. You don't care at all about that. And same thing in the gym, right? It's like oh can I lift more here? But it's very different. It's very much about. It is an end in and of itself. Journaling is another great routine and that's just again a process of being more self aware, connecting yourself, supporting yourself, learning how to love yourself better. Talk to yourself more kindly. So Hussain for you. I Would suggest picking one of these, not all of them, because sometimes we want to be the hero and we're like, I'm going to do 87 things starting tomorrow morning. And then we sustain it for a day or two and we're all excited about it and. And then it drops off. So I would say focus on one thing and make it short. Maybe it's just 15 minutes. One thing that you could do every single day, even on weekends, right when you get up, that's going to start to build and it's going to be ending of itself. And you're not tracking. Is this worth it? Is it giving me what I want? Look, the ones I gave you, working out, whether that's going to the gym for you or going for a walk or going for a run or going for a bike ride or going for a swim, whatever your thing is jumping on a rebounder, working out, that's moving your body, meditation of any kind, a cold shower, doing some sort of breath work, whether it's Wim Hofs or look up pranayama or yoga breath or something. And journaling, any one of those is good. You could look up all the research you want online and YouTube and the Internet and books and everything. Like every. Everyone's pointing out this stuff's good, right? It's just so you don't need to assess, is this the right thing for me? Is this the best thing for me? Is this working or not? Just let it. Just take it like a vitamin. And the key here, if you're looking for what's my motivation? Your motivation is not to get some crazy thing in the future. Your motivation is to cultivate this identity. I am a disciplined person. I am a disciplined person. You know how I know? Because I get up every morning and I journal for 15 minutes every morning, no matter what. Or I get up every morning and I do this breathing and then I meditate for 10 minutes every morning. And I know that I'm a disciplined person. And you develop this sort of sense of self esteem, the sense of power, of like, look what I can do. So that's why I would suggest pick one of these and stick to it for 30 days and start super small. So if you get into meditation, make it five minutes at first and then during the 30 days after, like a week or two, you want to up it to 10 minutes, but you never want to go higher. You don't want to go higher and scale back. You want to go lower and build. Think about, like working out. You want to start with a low weight and build up so you can get stronger and stronger. So that's what I suggest for you. And then, you know, looking at bigger things like life goals and other stuff like that, that's a bigger process. We're building out Confidence University right now, and we do a lot of stuff in there about what's your ultimate vision for your life. So that might be a program you want to check out when it comes out soon. But in general, though, I would say stick to the fundamentals. And if you want to study someone who's really good at teaching the fundamentals, his name is Brian Johnson. Optimize Me. I've learned a lot from him recently in the last couple months, so you may want to check him out as a resource as well. Optimize Me. He'll teach you all about the fundamentals of breathing, moving, sleeping, meditation, all this stuff. So hope that serves you and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon.