Ten Ways to Break a Predictable Routine

Habits make us, shape us, keep us grounded. We follow same routes to work relishing the comfort in the familiarity of repetitions.

But have you ever pondered what makes a vacation so special?

It is the ultimate reset of routines.

But why wait for a vacation to gain a reset. Daily, there are opportunities to do precisely what a vacation gives you. Try these ten ways to break that routine and have the vacation experience right where you are, doing exactly what you do.

1. Go where the tourists go
   Take that boat tour. Go visit the local museums. Suspend your legs in a lake and watch the ducks float by. Take a picture like a memory keeper of unusual things. That is what tourists do what we do not in day to day. Go to city center, people watch.

2. Do something you are afraid of
   Break your comfort zones, be it in applying for a more challenging role at work, signing up for a marathon, march for something you believe in. When opportunity knocks on your door and you start to wonder how you would juggle things around or learn a new skill, say yes. Learn that new skill.

   Can’t think of anything? Go Bungee Jumping or Sky Diving.

3. Eat at a new restaurant
   Drive to a new restaurant at least once a week. Eaten at all around? Try a new dish or venture beyond your normal miles. Go on a culinary tour – like ice cream shops, coffee shops, frozen yogurt, French bakeries, Greek restaurants…what ever culinary outlet your neighborhood allows. Do not hesitate to expand the boundary in which you normally eat.

4. Cook a new recipe
   Cooking is cathartic but cooking in a short amount of time because you must, is a chore. Break that chore by trying a new recipe just for the fun of it.

5. Take a new route to work
   Auto pilot is great. But the awareness you possess while sitting over a giant canyon observing each contour, each hew of sunlight is worth tapping by breaking auto pilot on any given day.

   Once I took a back road to work because of traffic and the smell of wild spring flowers is still a fresh memory years later. New routes take you out of auto-pilot, force you to notice views we innocently glance over.

6. Watch at least one sunrise and a sunset
   Instead of waking up at the same time, rise with an alarm on a clear day to just watch the sunrise and do nothing else.

7. Read a book for the fun of it
   There is solitude in your outer world as you submerge yourself in a book. But your inner world bubbles with the contents of the book. Sometimes, you must dive into another world to escape your own just like watching a movie, and book is the perfect medium.

8. Celebrate the little treasures
   Why wait for a birthday to celebrate? Celebrate the little things – like when you did something you were afraid of, or you cooked a new dish. In the little celebrations breathes life.

9. Write a Journal
   Write in your journal. After all, if you have reached number 9 of my blog, you have already altered your life. If you have altered your life, chances are there is lot of emotions inside of the new sights and sounds you have heard. Write.
10. Take a hike
    Tourists hike. Some active people do. But even if you are a couch potato like me, get outside, find a scenic trail and get on it. Do not walk to get your step count in. Walk to gain a new experience.

So, pause and think of all the routines you have grown to be comfortable in. Break them. It will alter your attitude and open new doors of opportunity, I promise.