Mindset Monday - Routine Rituals for Success

This is episode 189 of the Empowered Team Podcast.

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Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast, where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now, your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Oh, yes. Hey guys. Welcome to Mindset Monday. Today is the day that we're gonna charge into a new topic called routine rituals. That's right, those rituals that are routine. So this is one of those scenarios that, you know, maybe you've had a result that was so outstanding you wanted to replicate everything that led up to it so you can somehow have that same result again. Sometimes we create something magical or incredible by accident. We don't know all the ingredients that went into it. And oftentimes we can replicate those ingredients with a ritual. So this might be in a race. Maybe you had an incredible race result or a business sale that you landed. You're not quite sure how you did it. It was one of your best, or a fantastic social gathering. You threw the party of the year. Or maybe it was an amazing, connected, ideal romantic date that you've had. Whatever it is, what happened that was amazing, so outstanding that you'd love to have it happen again. There might be some rituals that you can do in order to replicate your best. Replicate those outcomes that you want to see more frequently. Make it your norm, not just a magical way, one time event. So what are routine rituals? Routine. If we look at the definition of routine, it is a sequence of actions regularly followed, a fixed program, or as an adjective, it's performed as part of a regular procedure rather than for a special reason. So that's our definition of routine that we're using. It's part of a regular procedure. It's repeated. It's a regular action. However, ritual, this is the definition that we have as ritual. It is your how it's always done in a particular situation and in the same way each time. So ritual also has a definition of a ceremony. And that's one of the reasons that this ceremony, it's almost ceremonious this way that you do Something is very particular in a space, particular situation, but done in the same way each time. So why would you want a routine ritual, something that happens on the regular and is done in a particular way each time? Why would we want that? It's smaller than a system, yet can be more powerful. It's these rituals that we insert regularly into our lives. But what's incredible about a routine ritual is that it can create a particular state within us that we can rely on every time. Once we've anchored that routine ritual, even if we've only anchored it powerfully once, then when we go back to it and do it again, and we've done it a number of times, we can very quickly create that same state or outcome that we're looking for. We can replicate what we had before by ritualizing it with this routine, we've anchored the feeling, the mindset, the action, the intention that can create this incredible desired outcome. High performers do this all the time. Think of an athlete going into game day, even into practice. There are certain things a high level athlete will do the same every single time. They've ritualized ways of doing things before their events so that they can rely more on not only how they feel, but the quality of result that they're getting from what they're doing, from what their actions are. So consider I think of, I used to race a lot more than I do right now. But if I think of about 15 years ago, I went into my normal pre race rituals and when I look back on it, there were quite a few of them. I would make sure that I was up a certain. Most of the events I would do as a race were morning races. So they would usually be 8 o' clock in the morning. So I would make sure I was up at least two hours before race time. So I had time to eat, time to use the washroom, time to get my things together, time to get to the event, all of this time. So that would be one of the parts of my rituals, making sure I was up two hours prior. Another one would be making sure I was at the event at least one hour prior to the race starting. And the reason I wanted that is because I wanted to check into the event. I wanted to make sure all my gear was in the right spot. I wanted to make sure that I had time for my specific warm up. But before I even left for the event, I'd eaten my breakfast. And my breakfast would be the same thing. I learned over trial and error that I could eat, you know, this certain cottage cheese mixed with A bit of extra protein and some flax seeds and some berries and that felt the best on my stomach and it lasted long enough and it was great for my energy. And that's what I ate at the time as a pre race meal. All of this was very ritualized. The time I went to bed the night before, how I set my race gear out, the pins already being done on my race bib onto what I was wearing for racing. All of that would be all done ahead of time. But then this one day, I had gotten to the event and part of my ritual was going through my warm up, usually the same exact way. And I was as part of that ritual as well. I'd always have music. It helped me with my state, it helped me with all kinds of things. And this one day I chose this one song, Little Less Conversation by Elvis Presley. And it was this remix, it was really upbeat. And I got so into that song in my warm up. My head was in the right mental space, my body felt like I was in the right physiological state. I was focused on my race. Everything was coming together and I went and I raced and I freaking crushed it. I ended up with, I think I got second in this eco adventure race, meddling. And any of these races I go into, I wanted to for sure place top 10. I was always in that kind of fitness going into a race, but I was hoping for or training for a top podium performance. So there I was, I'd achieved this podium performance and the next time I was racing again that same summer, I looked back at my ritual and my ritual was still going to be roughly the same. But there was this one standout thing and it was that I chose this song. So that song I chose again, it became part of my ritual. It became something that I replicated in this routine and made sure that was still in there because it made such a difference for my state at the time. I loved how I felt when I got it into that song. So much so that I didn't even want to listen to that song unless I was in a pre race scenario. I didn't want to listen to the song in the car. I didn't want to listen to the song at home only for pre race because it was so tied to my physical performance and my mindset for that race. So that would be an example of this one area that I've added something to make the ritual more powerful and how it came to be as part of the ritual. Now to look at almost the opposite, something that didn't work as A pre something ritual was a time that I was presenting. Now I am very particular about when I intake caffeine because as you notice, my pre race ritual, that would be one of the only times that I would have caffeine. It's a performance booster. I don't normally have caffeine, so I'll notice a big difference when I go into a race. And so I'd use caffeine. Well, another time when I was presenting a research abstract, I chose to have caffeine before my presentation. I almost would treat presentations like a race kind of scenario. I want to be in the right physical and mindset state in order to deliver my best for the presentation. So I'm delivering this research abstract. But I had had caffeine ahead of time. And what I didn't realize was that because I so rarely have caffeine and I was already in this very highly elevated state to present that that caffeine was actually bringing my state too high into not a peak state, it was actually beyond a peak state. So I learned from that pre presentation ritual that I don't want to have caffeine prior to any of my presentations because I'm already bringing a massive amount of energy to the presentation and I didn't need any more. I didn't need something that would take me so far beyond that. It actually gave me the jitters. And it was only a cup of tea. It was a mug of tea. So those would be two examples of pre event rituals. Something that's bringing you to the state that you want to be in. The routine is the when. The ritual itself is the how. The routine is when does this ritual happen? Is it every time before you have a race? Is it every time before you do a quarterly sales report? Is it every time before you go to bed? The routine is the when. The ritual is the how. It's the what is done specifically in order to create the result that you want. So in this case, we're repeating what we know works really well. It eliminates what we call the tyranny of how. It eliminates the tyranny of how. When we can create the ritual based on what we've already experienced. Experienced. That works. If something went really well, we can figure out from what happened prior whether we want to include some of those same actions. So whether it's your own creation or something that someone else does, who is the master in that area, those are ways you can create your own routine rituals. Here are three ways to create optimal optimal routine results. One is or rituals. I Should say one is your retrospectives. Your retrospective is your look back. It's the look back to see what actions you took specifically prior to your best outcome. That's what I did in that race. When that race went so well, I looked back to see what had I done prior. Were there some things that contributed to the outcome of that race. Now, maybe my ritual didn't contribute, but a really incredible ritual does. An incredible ritual helps you be in that optimal state for what you want to accomplish. That's what the optimal ritual is for. That's why we do it routinely prior to that desired outcome. So number two is a mentor. Tony Robbins always says success leaves clues. Look to see who has had that success that you want. Watch, ask, model, learn what they did or currently do. When you do that, you can model after what they do. You can create a ritual that maybe is their ritual, but then try it on to see if it works for you and the result that you're looking for, even if it doesn't quite work for you, at least you're a little closer to what you want and you've got something that you can base some trial and error on. And number three, routinely quality check. Your ritual change is a constant. It is one of the only things we can count on consistently. So to keep growing, it's imperative that you have perspective on your own ritual. I can't tell you how many times I've seen business leaders try to continue to do a same way of leading, a same way of communicating, a same way of completing a system and not adapting to what the current environment or employees or business demands are by completing the same thing over and over that hasn't adapted. That's a recipe for not the desired outcome, but rather failure. So we want to always quality check our routine to see if it still is current and applies to what we want. Because chances are your desired outcome has shifted. Chances are something that contributes to that desired outcome has shifted. So your routine ritual might have to adapt as well. Consider a routine ritual that you had for going to bed before you had kids, or a routine ritual going to bed after you had kids, or when those kids are toddlers versus when they're teenagers, it's completely different. So adapt to what the environment is around your desired outcome. So now take a look. I'm going to repeat these three ways to create optimal routine rituals again, our retrospectives. So looking back to see what actions you took specifically prior to your best outcome, Number two is finding that mentor, that success that they've left clues for you to pick up on, pick up those clues. Watch, ask, model. Learn what they do or or did or currently do so you can model after that and create your own rituals and three Routinely quality check your ritual. Make sure that you keep it growing to adapt to what's really important for your outcome. Everything changes. So now take a look at what is a crucial activity in your life that could use the support of a ritual to prepare you for your best in that activity. This might be in your work and what you deliver at work. This might be in your family environment, in your relationships. This might be in your personal self care, your own health, your physical performance or training. But take a look at where there's a crucial activity in your life that you really want, a desired outcome that might be a little different than what you're currently getting. And it can use the support of a routine ritual that will help you be in the exact state that you want to be in. Every great professional does Routine rituals Create yours to create your best have a powerful rest of your Monday. Kick this off into an amazing week. Keep becoming your best so you can keep giving your best. Go for it. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To learn more about our Empowered Leadership Coaching for business, our custom online physical training plans, and of course the Empowered Team Group coaching, head to www.theempowered.ca empowered learn more. That's www.theempowered. ca empowered learn dash more.