Results Require Routine. Success is Built on Habits, Not Moods.
“I just need to get motivated.”
How many times have you said that?
I know I’ve said it throughout my 36 years of working out. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that motivation has probably gotten way too much credit.
Because motivation is a feeling. And feelings change (“It’s not you, it’s me 😂).
There are mornings when I wake up ready to go. I want to work out. I want to take Journie for her walk. I want to cook something healthy. I want to sit down and work on my business.
And then there are days when I just don’t wanna!
If I waited until I was motivated every time, I wouldn’t have gotten my Fast Like A Girl Fasting certification. I wouldn’t have started the Coach with Confidence course I’m going through now. I wouldn’t have designed (and then redesigned) my website, blog, or newsletter. I wouldn’t have begun building my coaching business. And I wouldn’t have completed or even started creating The 7-Day SHIFT.
And then there’s consistency. I’ve said it over and over again…Consistency is Key! But this is where I think we can get that wrong too.
Consistency doesn’t mean forcing yourself to do everything no matter how you feel. That sounds a whole lot like the pushing harder I wrote about last week — and we already know where that got me.
For me, consistency looks different now. It’s having certain things in my life that I come back to again and again. Not because I’m always motivated to do them, and not because I execute them perfectly, but because I know they support the life I want to live.
And I think that’s where routine comes in.
I Hated Routine.
For a long time, I defined routine as doing the same things at the same time, day in and day out. Whether I felt like it or not. If you told me I needed more routine in my life, I would have fought you hard on that. Insert eye roll, smirk, head shake.
I didn’t like schedules. I didn’t want every part of my day planned out. I didn’t like showing up at the office at 8AM, taking my lunch at noon, and leaving for the day at 5PM. Someone telling me what I was supposed to do at 10AM on a Tuesday was not for me. I’m very independent and I like to make my own rules. 🤣
Even my workouts weren’t scheduled. I may have gone to the gym seven days a week, and I usually went around the same time, but I went because I wanted to go. Working out is something that I love, so I didn’t need to put it on my calendar to make myself do it.
How many times have you heard “Put it on your calendar?” or “Schedule your workouts just like you would schedule a meeting or a doctor’s appointment?” There is something to that, but I just couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do it.
And maybe that’s why I never gave much thought about the difference between motivation, consistency, and routine. When you already want to do something, you don’t really have to think about what keeps you doing it.
That’s where my thinking about routine has started to change. I still don’t want every minute of my day dictated by a schedule. That’s never going to be me.
But I have learned that having some routines doesn’t take away my freedom. In a lot of ways, it’s actually given me more of it.
So, What Changed?
Funny enough, I don’t think I woke up one morning and decided “Melissa, you need more routine today.” It happened little by little.
I started getting better sleep. I started enjoying slower mornings and getting out in the light more. I started reading more and scrolling less. A lot less. I started walking (I used to think walking was useless. Push harder in the gym instead 😂). I became more intentional about my workouts and what I was eating.
Most mornings now start slowly. I get up, take care of the fur babies, mix up my electrolytes, take my supplements, grab my “mobile office” and head out to the gazebo to read or listen to something educational.
Then I get dressed, take Journie for a walk, and come back to settle in to work on my business.
This has been my morning routine pretty much every single day since the pavers and gazebo have been up. For as much as I used to hate routine, I love this one!
And as those things were changing, I was also putting more energy into building my coaching business.
Suddenly there were blog posts to write, a newsletter to send, programs to create, certifications to work on, people to follow up with, and about 47 other things floating around in my head at any given time. “Calgon, take me away!”
Waiting until I felt like doing something wasn’t going to work anymore. And neither was trying to do everything whenever I happened to think about it.
So, the woman who spent most of her life saying she hated routine started creating some. Not a minute-by-minute schedule. Not something so rigid that one unexpected thing throws off my entire day. Just certain things that have a place.
And something surprising happened. I started getting more done while feeling less scattered. Who knew?!
I wasn’t spending as much time deciding when I was going to do something or hoping I’d feel motivated enough to do it. Some things were simply becoming what I do. And that’s when this whole idea really clicked for me:
Results require routine because motivation can’t be responsible for carrying you every single day.
Routine Is What Makes the Habit Easier.
I no longer think that routine means having a set schedule.
A routine simply gives something important a place in your life. And when you repeat it often enough, you don’t have to make a brand-new decision about it every single day.
Think about how many things you already do without needing motivation. You brush your teeth. You make your morning beverage. You feed your animals. You probably have a certain place you sit in the morning or a certain order you do things before you leave the house.
You don’t wake up and think, “Am I motivated enough to brush my teeth today?” 🤣You just do it.
Obviously, working out, preparing food, getting outside, or sitting down to work on a goal takes more effort than brushing your teeth. But I think the principle is similar.
The more often something has a place in your life, the less you have to rely on your mood to make it happen. And that’s been a big shift for me. I don’t have to feel like doing everything I’ve decided is important to me. I just need to make it easier to come back to those things consistently.
Because one workout doesn’t make you strong. One healthy meal doesn’t change your health. One good night’s sleep doesn’t restore months or years of exhaustion. One productive day doesn’t build a business.
It’s what you repeat that eventually creates the result.
And maybe that’s what I’ve been misunderstanding about routines all these years. Routine isn’t about controlling every part of my day. It’s about making room for the things that matter to me.
What About the Days You Just Don’t Wanna?
Because those days are going to happen. I can have the best intentions on Sunday and wake up on Wednesday thinking, “Nope. Not today.” And I think this is where I used to give motivation too much power.
If I wasn’t motivated, I assumed I needed to somehow get motivated. Find the right song. Listen to something inspiring. Give myself a pep talk. Wait until Monday. You know the drill.
But maybe we don’t always need to change our mood before we take action. Sometimes we can just do the thing anyway. And sometimes we shouldn’t. That’s an important distinction for me now.
There’s a difference between “I don’t feel like walking Journie today” and “My body is telling me I need to rest today.” There’s a difference between not being in the mood to work on something and being mentally exhausted and needing to step away.
After spending so many years pushing through everything, I don’t want my routine to become another way of ignoring what my body is telling me. So now I ask myself a different question: Do I need rest, or do I just not feel like doing it? Those are not the same thing.
And when the answer is simply “I don’t feel like it,” that’s when the routines and habits I’ve built can carry me when motivation isn’t there. I don’t need to have the right mood first.
I can take the walk. Make the meal. Do the workout. Write this blog post. And very often - most often - I’m glad I did.
Success isn’t built on being motivated every day. It’s built on knowing when to honor what you need — and when to stop letting your mood make the decision.
What Are You Waiting For?
Maybe there’s something you keep saying you want to do. Start walking. Start lifting weights. Eat more protein. Start a business. Call a friend. Read the book.
But you keep waiting for the day when you suddenly feel motivated enough to do it. What if that feeling never comes? What will you miss out on in life? What could change if you finally made that call? How will you feel when you start working out? What will you accomplish when you start that little side gig?
Maybe instead of asking, “How do I get more motivated?” the better question is: “How can I make this part of what I normally do?” Not perfectly. Not seven days a week, and definitely not at the expense of ignoring your body. Just often enough that you stop having to start over.
I still don’t want my entire life scheduled. Heck, that’s point of this whole “retirement’ thing, isn’t it? I still like having freedom in my days, and I don’t see that changing.
But I’ve learned something that I wish I had understood a long time ago: Routine doesn’t have to take away your freedom. It can give the things that matter to you a place to live. And when those things have a place, they’re much more likely to get repeated.
Repetition becomes consistency. Consistency creates results. And now the title I wrote at the top of this page makes a whole lot more sense to me: Results require routine. Success is built on habits, not moods.
Want a Simple Way to Put This into Practice?
If there’s a habit you’ve been wanting to build, you don’t need to create an entirely new routine. Habit stacking simply means connecting something you want to start doing to something you already do consistently.
I’ve created a free 10-page Habit Stacking Guide to help you choose an existing habit, decide what you want to add to it, and make that new habit easier to repeat.
