Student Blog: Struggling With Routine

Routine is a weird definition, everyone has a different routine they work with, so while everyone knows a routine, by definition, is what someone does on a daily, weekly, or regular basis, but everyone can have a vastly different routine from one another. Every time you break your routine it feels weird, something is off and you know it's part of your routine, but your brain can't shake it until you actually do it. My morning routine can have a different first step than my best friend, my routine has an entire skincare regimen in it, but someone else's routine may not. However, personally, I have struggled with adding to my routine, when I put my mind to something I can, but with certain things, I struggled. I've been doing my skincare every day since I was about 13 or 14 years old, but if I wanted to add something new it throws me off. Despite this, my plan this summer was to add to my routine. I wanted to have to go to the gym be a regular part of my routine before I went back to school.

I was very active before college, I did a lot of sports since I was very little, and once college started, the sports stopped and theatre picked up. Don't get me wrong I do a lot of physical activity especially backstage for theatre (because I am the furthest thing from a dancer), but it was not the physical activity I was used to. Now with the world having been shut down and slowly reopening, I lost any kind of physical activity I had. Being home for three and a half months, I decided my best bet was to make the gym a routine for me now. I am proud to say, so far, that I've been succeeding. I've found activities I enjoy at the gym and have become more familiar with the machines and different movements at the gym. In addition, I have friends who also go to the gym and it makes it so much easier to go because it becomes an enjoyable activity when you have friends who push each other to do better.

Four of my other friends like going to the gym, but only two of them are females who enjoy doing weights with me, and we will constantly share when we broke a personal record of ours and celebrate because of it, which is always such a great feeling to share. I have fallen in love with weights because it reminds me of when I played basketball and all the physical strength that came with it, and while I am far from perfectly in shape, I feel better and stronger.

I am not saying you need to go to the gym and make it your routine, you do whatever you want. However, I am saying that if you want to make something routine, it will not be easy, but it is doable. You just need to stick with it, you need to throw yourself into it and just keep going for it. Even on days when you do not feel like doing it, do it, you'll feel a whole lot better than you did at the end of the day.