Fran Spelgatti

Danger! There's a routine up ahead!

That may be a little dramatic, but, while not strictly life-threatening, routines can be dangerous to your health.

Not all routines are bad. If you purposefully build a routine of exercise and healthy eating, for instance, it can benefit your life in countless ways. However, the wrong routine can rob life of its joy. The routines we're talking about are the ones you fall into when you're not paying attention. They work their way into your life slowly, almost unnoticeably. Before you know it, your life is a round of action without purpose. You get caught up in a sequence of work, school, meals and basic survival. When that happens, your goals and dreams often fall to the wayside.

Motivational writer Jason Gracia recounts an experiment in which caterpillars were placed in a circle on the rim of a flowerpot, each caterpillar touching the back of the one in front of it. The pot was filled with pine needles, the caterpillars' natural food. Instead of crawling into the flowerpot to find food, however, the caterpillars kept crawling around in a circle, each one following the one in front of it until they starved to death. Gracia uses this as an analogy for deadly routines, saying, "Get stuck doing the same old thing every day and your goals, only inches away, are as good as gone."

Mr. Patrick Porter, Positive Changes' founder, puts it another way. In his book, Awaken the Genius, he says, "If you don't take control of your life someone or something…will." What is the thing that controls you? Is it your past, a bad relationship, an addiction, guilt, your appetite? What are you doing to change that?

"If you keep doing the same thing you've done in the past," Gracia says, "you will keep getting the exact same results. People experience a partial insanity when it comes to routine. Perfectly logical creatures believe that doing the same thing again and again will get different results."

"It only makes sense to place your trust in those thoughts and habits that assist you and that will be true to you," says Mr. Porter, "and to distrust those that have proven to hurt you in the past."

Mr. Porter also quotes business professional Eric Oliver, who says, "You will get what you rehearse, which is not necessarily what you intend." What does that mean? In part, it means if you let your goals, dreams and plans fall down and get trampled under your daily routine, they'll never be fulfilled. You'll be left with only excuses. "After seventy years of having no time to do the things you have always wanted to do," says Gracia, "you'll end up with nothing but a good excuse in the end."

In Awaken the Genius, Mr. Porter says, "…life is meant to be FUN. Many people get confused by thinking this means that life is supposed to be easy." It's much easier to get caught up in the wrong routine than it is to break free of that routine. However, if you want to live a fun, fulfilling life, you need to do exactly that. You have the power to create a path that will lead you to your goal, not in an endless circle. If your old routine isn't helping you reach your goal—losing weight, freeing yourself of addiction, climbing a mountain, writing a book—it's within your power to create a new routine.

By making the effort to break out of a routine that's keeping you trapped by the same thoughts and habits, you can create future possibilities bigger than you've ever imagined. All you have to do is make a choice. Decide what you really want and what it will take to get there. Then go for it.

After all, if you know where you're going and how to get there, chances are you'll reach your destination. Where are you going today?