Podcast Episode #11
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[00:00:00] Hi, this is Crystal from Crystal Obregon Coaching. And this week I am going to talk about the downside of routines and habits. We know that many of our routines and habits can become unconscious. And sometimes this is helpful. For example, as adults, we usually don't forget to brush our teeth or wash our face at night.
[00:00:26] And. It can feel like we it can feel like our unconscious routines can free us up for more important tasks for ideas, for thoughts. And then of course our routines or habits can be unhelpful as well. So for example, my old habit of eating ice cream every night before bed, it was not necessarily And so what happens is that we actually, whatever our routines are, whether they're good or bad and helpful or unhelpful, we get used to them and our body actually [00:01:00] looks forward to them. Even if they're not necessarily helpful or if they are helpful, So a good routine can help us accomplish our goals.
[00:01:10] I go on about my morning routine and how important it is to me and that it helps me feel good. It keeps me focused on my short and long-term goals. Unloading the dishwasher while my coffee bruise helps me with the goal of having a tidy kitchen. My meditation helps me become more aware of my thoughts and and being more in control of them and my reactions.
[00:01:37] My gratitude journal helps train my mind to focus on the good in my life. While writing my 10 dreams for 10 years from now helps me to focus on taking the actions to get me there. And then. And then on the other hand, going through your routines, unconsciously can also be a detriment or have not good results.
[00:01:58] So over the [00:02:00] weekend, several examples of how not to do routine or how a routine can set you up for some kinds of failure came into my world and that I'd like to share, and I just really find it amazing the places and people I learned from sometimes. And usually if I see something similar two or three times then I know that I have to write about it.
[00:02:24] And that's what happened. So I will share those and basically these are three reasons not to rely on unconscious routines and what to do instead. So first of all, first. The first example came. This past week I took my daughter to college. She's all the way on the other side of the country.
[00:02:45] And the last night that that I was there she stayed back with me one night in the dorm and then one night back with me since I was leaving in the morning. And so we watched Grey's [00:03:00] anatomy an old episode on. Netflix. And usually I don't watch a lot of TV, but that was an old favorite of mine.
[00:03:07] And so in this particular episode, there had been a fire and one of the interns was examining a woman. And and while she was just as she was getting ready to finish up the exam somebody goes on a stretcher.And sorry to be graphic, of course he has an ax in his chest or something like that.
[00:03:30] And so she, she loses focus, looks over as this goes by and then goes back to, to finish the exam. And she'd been almost at the end and she said, okay, it looks like you look good. So the intern leaves and what happened was that she had, and a little while later, she, all of a sudden the woman, the patient was having trouble breathing [00:04:00] and everybody's, rushes in to try and save her and can't, and they're trying to figure out what happened.
[00:04:06] It ended up that what happened. Was she sorry, daughter from college. So what had happened is she was almost finished and she was about to examine the woman's throat. The last thing to make sure that everything was fine or her actually her airway and. There had been some soot that had gotten, or Ash that had gotten into her airway.
[00:04:38] But she could not she got distracted and she didn't do that last little bit of the examination. And obviously this is just a story, but it was a bad outcome. And And then I thought about that, like she had this routine and didn't [00:05:00] think anything else of it. And then yesterday I was watching a briefing for firefighters that are that are on this fire.
[00:05:10] That's, it's not super close to me, but it was close to my family and close to the mountain area that I have spent a lot of time in. There's a habit that probably isn't helpful anymore to watch these these updates and briefings, but I was watching and the safety officer came on and she told this story about how she once a year she would get her rig looked over.
[00:05:39] So basically the engine, like making sure that everything is okay with it, that the tires get rotated, oil changed all those things, and somebody goes over it. And so she went to pick it up. She did a once around making sure that everything looked fine and she drove away and she didn't get very [00:06:00] far before.
[00:06:01] She all of a sudden sees out of the corner of her eye in the side mirror attire bouncing on the road and she suddenly feels her the back of her rig hit the ground. So she goes off to the side calls in and To get the guy to come out and help her out.
[00:06:23] And he's just appalled. And that this happened and what had happened is he was, he had rotated the tires. He was going around. He did the lug nuts of all three tires. And then when he was about to do the fourth one, the ups, a ups driver came and set some packages down. And by the side of the left hand, And he he got distracted by that.
[00:06:48] And then basically he forgot to tighten that last wheel on. And so the lesson was that while routines help us, they also can [00:07:00] hinder us because when we're taken out of that exact routine, We really lose our we lose our awareness and our situational awareness of what is going on.
[00:07:15] And so her advice was to. Be more aware and, do things outside your routine., so maybe drive a different direction or in this case hike a different way. She's talking about firefighters. But but the lesson for me is that yes, you become complacent, you lose your situational awareness.
[00:07:41] When when this happens.
[00:07:44] So basically by walking a different direction or driving a different direction, You are seeing things a slightly different way, even if you're getting to that same objective. And her advice was also to really look and [00:08:00] try and find the things that are new and different and be open to new experiences.
[00:08:06] Cause you, otherwise, you literally can miss out. And I, it also made me think of the quote from my mentor. Brendon Burchard, that " only two things change your life, either something new comes into your life or something new comes from within." So if you want something new to come into your life, then you're going to have to do things a little bit differently.
[00:08:33] So I. I even, if you feel like you have a great routine that works for you, try changing it, try changing little pieces of it to do things differently. For example, I had an early morning dentist appointment today. And on my way back, I was going to come straight home. I've got things to do, and I decided to stop at [00:09:00] this coffee place.
[00:09:01] That's on my way home. And so I stopped, I ordered my coffee and then I turned around and I saw a friend that I had not seen for probably a year or so. And and he's an old friend. And so we were able to chat for a little bit while I was waiting for my coffee. And it was really nice that I got to catch up and, hopefully him and his wife we'll try and get together and do something, but that's something, he's not necessarily something new that came into my life, but it brought something
[00:09:37] to my day good memories and all of that. So the second part of that is something new coming from within. And I think this one is really important because really, if something new is coming from within generally, it's because you are changing your [00:10:00] thoughts in some way.
[00:10:01] So becoming aware of what you're doing and how you're thinking about what you're doing can bring change positive change into your life. Something that Something that's interesting. And what's also interesting is that my dentist is about a half an hour away, 40 minutes away. And so I decided to start listening to this it's a course, but it was part of my training for becoming a high-performance coach.
[00:10:33] And so it's literally been three years. Since I've listened to it. And I just decided that I would, there was one part that I was interested in. And so it's really amazing how it's not that I hadn't studied or read any books or anything about psychology before that, and it's not that I haven't studied anybody else.
[00:10:57] Or read any books since then, but [00:11:00] it's just really amazing how different it is the second time around. And I think I'm going to listen to the whole thing because getting that new perspective with more experience is amazing. So anyway, there's this idea. I've heard it in different ways now in the past three years, but basically when you are thinking about something , your body produces chemicals that cause you to feel a certain way.
[00:11:29] It can make you feel good or make you feel bad or anxious or worried. Or happy. All of these are actually, these feelings are caused by a thought. And so you have the thought your body produces the chemicals that cause you to feel a certain way. And then when you feel a certain way, you, it goes back to thinking a certain way.
[00:11:54] So you actually create a feedback loop called a state of being.. [00:12:00] So I really want you to note that it starts with your thoughts, this feedback loop, not your feelings. So basically if you change your thought, then you can change your feeling. If you're not liking how you feel, you can change your thought. So you are actually, your thoughts are.
[00:12:25] Are really completely responsible for how you feel. So nothing or no one makes you feel a certain way. It actually is your thoughts. Now, the thing is that's where the routine comes in because you see, you can create this feedback loop, the state of being and. It can basically become ingrained.
[00:12:47] It can become a memory. So becoming aware of your thoughts and how they make you feel can actually wake you up to new [00:13:00] possibilities and a new reality simply by changing your thoughts. And I have a couple of examples of this one. One is a little bit more of a simple one. I've told you that I write down my 10 dreams as if they had already happened.
[00:13:16] And one of them is I live in a quiet, peaceful, comfortable home, and I actually live in a great house. Not that there isn't anything I want to change about it. But. I have this thing of looking at other houses that come up on the market for sale. And the more I do that, the more I realized that I actually really like my own house.
[00:13:43] But it's up on a hill. We have a beautiful view. I will admit that beautiful view. But with that, there's a low hum of traffic noise that we hear. Even though the highway is, I don't know, probably a mile away or so. [00:14:00] And it's something that, that annoys me and I would love to just hear the birds and have it be a lot quieter.
[00:14:12] And so yesterday I was sitting on my deck and I've been working on this a little while. But I thought, okay, I can change my thoughts about this. I can change my thoughts about the sound that I'm hearing and I can not exactly ignore it, but really just focus more on the view, focus that I can see birds flying around big birds that it feels like we're in a Treehouse sometimes.
[00:14:43] And so then that creates more of that feeling of peace and quiet, even though the sound actually isn't changing. And then and it's just an also just the gratitude journal. All of that is [00:15:00] just making me love where I live a lot more. The other example I have. Is really with my daughter, , I did a post about creating better relationships.
[00:15:11] And this goes with that a little bit, a lot. And so just simply changing there, she's a very strong personality, which is awesome because it will really get her places in life. But as a parent it can be hard to live with that strong personality. Because I write down my dreams every day, one of them is I want, I am an extraordinary mom and another one that's related is that I go on a family trip with my kids every year, and I know that.
[00:15:48] If I want those things to happen. If I want my daughter to, to want to spend time with me on an actual trip, we need to have a certain type of [00:16:00] relationship, a certain closeness. And so I started thinking about that when I started writing this every day. And so there are things that that would annoy me.
[00:16:13] About her, whether it's, having to pick up after her or maybe she comes, comes in late or whatever it is. I would have a thought about not liking it and it would create the feeling of being annoyed. And it'd be great if I could pin that. That feeling on her causing it.
[00:16:38] So saying she causes me to be annoyed when she doesn't clean up after herself, but in reality, I'm responsible for that feeling. And so I started thinking with, maybe the messiness oh, I'm not going to be picking up after her forever. And at some point I'm actually going to [00:17:00] miss picking up after her.
[00:17:02] And she'll also go off where she is now. She has she's off in a college dorm and she'll have housemates later and it'll be their job to be, to say something or not like my job is done. And I could be annoyed or I could appreciate, not that I don't ask. I didn't ask her to clean up, but I could appreciate what I had and spend time with that.
[00:17:30] And I could focus on many of her positive attributes that are going to serve her and also create a different feeling. And over the past year and a half, I can say that our relationship has changed measurably, and we just spent five days together taking her to college. And we had a really good time.
[00:17:55] And yes, there were times when I wanted to feel annoyed [00:18:00] and about little things and I was able to change my thoughts and change my feelings so that we continue to have a good time. So those are three ways that that you can change those routines and habits to create really a better new life in future for you.
[00:18:23] I hope that you enjoyed them. So just as a quick recap you are changing the way that you think so that you produce a different result. You're changing little things about your routine so that you don't become complacent. And you create more awareness around your routine. So that if you get distracted, you still do the things that you need to do.
[00:18:52] So creating that awareness so that even if your routine gets [00:19:00] disrupted, you're still aware of what you need or don't need to do. All right. If you would like to dive in more to some of these topics and get some more perspective. Please do join my upcoming Success Habits Reboot because we will go more into the different things that you can do in your daily life to
[00:19:32] create an extraordinary life, whatever that is for you. So have a great rest of your day and I will see you in here next week. Bye. For now.
