Have you questioned why you’re still doing your routines lately?
It probably doesn’t surprise you to know that I have many daily routines. I’ve followed many of them for years. Day after day. But I had a strange thought recently as I started to page through my morning website check routine: why am I still checking these same websites every morning many years on?
That prompted more questions: why do I check social media at the same times every day? Why do I open those apps in the same, specific order every time? Why do I prioritize a workout first thing every morning? Why am I still writing and publishing these posts every Thursday?
When I discuss motivation in presentations and with clients, I always talk about Expectancy Theory. This theory says that people are motivated to exert a given level of effort to achieve a commensurate level of performance to receive a commensurate reward IF the reward is valuable to them and aligned with their personal goals.
A key to remember, though, is Expectancy Theory applies to us, too!
If inspiration and motivation tend to FOLLOW action (not precede it), then routines are critical to generating and sustaining motivation.
But if we never question and review our routines to make sure they are generating action to create and sustain motivation for the things we actually care about and want to achieve, then we’re just spinning our wheels.
The question I ultimately asked myself down this rabbit hole was not “Why do I open social media apps in this order every time?”, but rather, “To what valuable end is opening and scrolling social media apps contributing?”
Question some of your routines, as soon as possible. See if they’re still serving valued ends. If not, change them or cut them.
And that’s probably a good idea for ALL of us for social media!
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