Routines are very helpful and are something different than Planning.
You can have daily, weekly or even yearly routines that are providing you some guidelines on what to do next.
Good Routines look like your morning bathroom routine. You don’t need to think when to brush your teeth and when to dry your hair. This can be very helpful, because you don’t loose your energy on thinking what to do next. At the same time, you understand that it’s not possible to do these actions without thinking, automatically. You have to stay focused to have your hair done the way you wish.
At the same time, following your routine do not create boundaries in your life. You can always decide to do something different if you wish. Routines are always about what to do, not about the outcome. Following a routine is only the guideline what to do when, you can follow it but you can change it on the way without feeling guilt and that you have “abandoned” your plan and without feeling guilty.
Routines are guidelines what to do and when.
The most important difference between Routine and Plan is that in the routines we don’t have goals and deadlines. And that is why they do not produce any stress and you can be really open for any possibility that will pop-up. For example: if you have plan to teach your horse piaffer in next 4 weeks, you will focus only on this. And this can close you the way to notice other things that your horse will present you that he is ready to do during this period.
Planning, in the contrary, is focused on the outcome and has time frames, and thus is based on creating the stress.
Planning can be very helpful if you need to do something complicated and to do it now. For example: if you have dinner for 20 persons, it’s good to sit down and plan what to buy, what to cook and when.
Planning is very good on the defensive side of life, following the plan can give you a feeling that you will avoid problems. Depending on how much you are open or not – this can be true. Sometimes you really need a plan. But you need to stay open. When in your plan there are goals and strict deadlines, openness is very difficult and the way to progress is closed.
Planning for the longer periods, even for one week, can be very harmful because it closes all your actions in the plan and transfers your current fears and worries to the future. It is like colouring pictures in the colouring book. Your creativity is limited. You don’t think creatively. You just follow the lines and shapes.
In the real life things change very fast and each situation can change for a better in every single moment. If you are focused on your plan you even don’t see these new opportunities and you don’t have enough flexibility to change.
And when you cannot change, you cannot improve.
