You’ll know that I have a thing about conscious living. My blog’s title, heroes not zombies, is a call to step out of autopilot and get involved in the conscious creation of the unique story of your one precious life.
Habits and routines can easily allow us to switch off and just keep doing what we’ve always done. However, they can be both useful and enjoyable.
They can connect us to certain rhythms and cycles in life. We can relax into them, basking in feelings of familiarity. They can be the unchallenging, comfortable stepping stones across ever changing, even threatening rivers of everyday existence.
This photo represents one of my favourite habits, or routines. It’s a Saturday. Market day. I’ve stopped off at a boulangerie, picked up a croissant or chocolatine, and I’ve ordered a “grande crème” at a little cafe or bistro where I’ve chosen a seat in the sun.
Now, this isn’t going to happen every Saturday. It’s a good weather choice. (I’ll sit inside if it’s cold and wet!). And some Saturdays I’ll do something else. But it’s still a pleasing, comfortable routine.
I think that’s the trick with good habits and routines – becoming aware of them, and choosing them consciously.
Do you have some particular habits or routines which you’re happy to keep choosing? And are there some which, now you think about them, have become constraints which you’d rather shake off?
Heroes Not Zombies 
I find a lot of my habits change seasonally because of the weather. I will walk less, although still daily, in the freezing, snowy cold of winter. And I will read more in the darker mornings in winter instead, and walk later. I am currently shifting habits to walk more earlier before the heat of the day and take some time in the afternoon to rest. I keep track of habits I want to cultivate that are good for me and that I enjoy. And I give myself rewards or incentives to help bolster the habit.