Resetting Your Routines: How to Create Habits That Support Your Life

Issue 181, August 28, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨

When we started exploring transitions and resetting routines this month, we began with what happens when life doesn’t go according to plan.

We’ve looked at how something that initially feels like adversity can lead somewhere you never would’ve chosen for yourself. Then we explored how transitions can change your sense of who you are and actually make you more recognizable to yourself. And last week, we talked about aiming for the target instead of the trophy (i.e., building your life around what matters to you rather than becoming overly attached to one particular outcome).

There’s one more piece I want to explore before we leave this theme behind: How do you build a life that supports who you are now?

Because change doesn’t just ask us to adjust to new circumstances. Sometimes it asks us to reconsider the routines, practices and structures we’ve built our lives around.

And I’ve learned that the question isn’t always, How do I get back into my routine?

Sometimes the better question is, What does the life I’m living now need from me?

A routine isn’t just something you do

For a long time, I thought about routines primarily in terms of consistency. You figure out what works, and then you keep doing it.

I still believe there’s tremendous value in consistency. Some of the practices that have supported me most profoundly have been part of my life for years. But I understand their value differently now.

A good routine doesn’t just help you get things done. It helps you become and remain the person you want to be. For example, for years I did my gratitude journaling at night. Now I do it both in the morning and at night. I also read from several daily meditation books for years, and have dropped that practice in the last few months.

Good routines can help you hear yourself more clearly. They can remind you what’s important when everything around you feels urgent. They can help regulate your nervous system when you’re activated and they can help create internal safety. They can also make it easier to have your own back when guilt, fear, uncertainty or somebody else’s disappointment makes you want to abandon yourself.

That’s a very different definition of success than simply being disciplined.

And it’s one of the reasons our routines matter so much during transitions.

When life changes, your old routines may not fit anymore

Transitions disrupt things.

Sometimes they’re enormous transitions: a relationship ends, you start a new job, someone you love dies, your health changes, your children leave home, you retire, you move.

Sometimes they’re ordinary ones: summer ends, the school year begins, your work schedule changes, you start traveling more, or something that used to happen on Wednesdays now happens on Tuesdays.

Even positive changes can throw us off because our routines are usually attached to the structure of the life we had before.

That’s where I think we can get ourselves into trouble: We assume the goal is to get back to what we were doing before.

But what if you’re not supposed to go back? What if the question isn’t, How do I get back into my routine?

What if it’s, What does the life I’m living now need from me?

That’s a question I couldn’t have asked early in my recovery when I was establishing a more structured life because I was still learning how much my routines had changed me.

My routines aren’t rules I use to control myself

I’ve spent much of my life trying to control things – other people, outcomes, what people thought of me, what might happen next. Even my own feelings.

I know now that control doesn’t create the kind of safety I was looking for. And my routines can very easily become another form of control if I’m not careful.

You can create an elaborate morning routine and then feel like you’ve failed because you didn’t complete it. You can turn exercise into another obligation. Meditation can become something you’re “bad at.” A spiritual practice can become another item on your list of things you should be doing instead of a way to connect to something greater than yourself and the relief that comes from knowing you’re not alone.

That’s not what I want my routines to do for me. I want them to support me. That’s a significant distinction.

I didn’t develop supportive routines so I could prove I’m disciplined enough, productive enough or good enough. I developed them because I’ve learned something about what helps me function well.

I’m not trying to force myself into submission anymore. Instead, I’m learning how to take good care of myself.

Some of my foundational practices haven’t changed

My spiritual life is still foundational to how I live. I make consistent conscious contact with my Higher Power throughout the day. Prayer, meditation, gratitude, journaling and reflection aren’t things I do because somebody told me I should. They’re things I’ve learned help me remember that I don’t have to run the whole damn universe!

That’s particularly important for someone who spent a lot of years believing it was her job to manage everything and everyone.

I also still move my body. I’ve always liked that phrase better than “exercise” because so many of us have ideas about what counts as exercise or what we should be doing. Moving my body helps me physically, of course, but I understand much more now about what it does for my nervous system, my energy and my ability to think clearly. Sometimes what I need isn’t to figure something out. I need to get out of my chair. The often repeated phrase from recovery comes to mind: Move a muscle change a thought.

And recovery remains woven into my life.

Recovery is the best paying part time job I’d ever had. The return I’ve received on the time and energy I’ve invested in recovery is immeasurable. But even here, something has changed. Recovery isn’t simply something I do anymore, it’s how I live.

The deeper routine is returning to yourself

This may be the biggest thing I’ve learned since in the last few years of recovery.

There are the routines we can see: meditation, meetings, prayer, movement, journaling, reading, sleep, meals, whatever practices support us.

And then there are the internal practices underneath them. 

• Noticing when I’m activated and pausing to stabilize my system.
• Asking myself what’s actually happening rather than immediately believing the story my nervous system is telling me. 
• Separating what belongs to me from what belongs to someone else.
• Recognizing when I’m analyzing, predicting, fixing or managing another person instead of paying attention to my own behavior.
• Allowing someone else to be disappointed without making their disappointment an emergency.
• Paying attention when something inside me says “nope!”
• Letting discomfort be uncomfortable without automatically interpreting it as danger.

These have become practices too. In fact, they may be some of the most important routines I have. Because I don’t want to build a life in which I’m incredibly consistent about meditation and exercise while continuing to override myself in my relationships.

I don’t want a morning routine that looks fantastic on paper if I spend the rest of the day abandoning myself. The external practices are there to support the internal ones.

Your routines should serve your life, not the other way around

Everyone has to find their own constellation of daily habits. There’s no perfect morning routine that works for everyone all the time. There’s no magic combination of habits that will make you emotionally healthy. And there’s certainly no prize for doing what works for somebody else.

You have to pay attention to yourself.
 

• What helps you feel grounded?
• What helps you hear yourself clearly?
• What makes it easier to respond rather than react?
• What helps you remember what’s true when you’re activated?
• What helps you take your own needs seriously?
• What helps you come back to yourself after you’ve gotten knocked off course?

Those answers are information. And they may change. In fact, they probably will change over time.

This is especially important to remember during a transition. A routine that supported you beautifully in one season of your life may be completely impractical in another. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed at the routine. It may mean the routine has finished doing its job and you get to create a new one.

Resetting doesn’t mean starting over

I think that’s what I most want you to take from this month’s exploration of transitions. We tend to talk about getting “back on track,” and I understand why. Sometimes we really do need to recommit to practices we’ve let slide.

But sometimes there isn’t an old track to get back onto. You’ve changed. Your circumstances have changed. What matters to you has changed. What you know about yourself has changed.

So resetting a routine isn’t necessarily about recreating the version of your life that existed before the transition. It’s about taking everything you’ve learned and asking what will support the person you are becoming.

You aren’t starting from scratch. You’re starting from experience. And that’s very different.

Maybe your next routine is smaller than the old one. Maybe it’s gentler. Maybe it’s more structured. Maybe something that used to be essential isn’t anymore. Maybe you’re finally ready for something you couldn’t sustain before.

The point isn’t to create the perfect routine. The point is to create practices that help you live in alignment with what matters to you. I realized in the last couple of years that I’d become hypervigilant about person development, spiritual development and business development. So I’ve backed way off on all that stuff. I’m doing more resting, relaxing and reading for pleasure instead of constantly needing to learn stuff.

Ultimately, the habits that have changed my life aren’t valuable because I’ve been doing them for a long time. They’re valuable because, again and again, they help me come back to myself. And that’s a pretty good place from which to build whatever comes next.

If you’re in a season of transition, consider looking at the routines and practices you’re carrying with you and asking whether they’re supporting the life you’re living now.

You might also ask yourself: What helps me come back to myself when life knocks me off course?

You don’t need a ridiculously long list. Start there.