Building Your Book: Rituals

It’s the end of the day. You’re exhausted and collapse into your bed, not even knowing what you did that day. This isn’t how you were created to live life; this is not that John 10:10 type of ‘life to the full’!

What we want to encourage you to do is to gain control over your life, living it in the way you feel God is calling you. One way that has helped me achieve this is through establishing my own rituals that I can bring into my daily planning. 

Did you know that Barack Obama only ever gave himself two choices for what suit he was going to wear that day: grey or blue (except for the one time he wore tan, and that kind of sent everyone crazy). Mark Zuckerberg does the same thing, only ever wearing one type of shirt (a gray Brunello Cucinelli t-shirt that costs around $400, mind you) each day. Why? Because these choices aren’t important to Obama or Zuck, they are setting their own rituals to simplify their life and maximise their time whilst reducing cognitive load and decision fatigue. 

You can do the same. Today, you can start optimizing your daily performance with routine rituals to keep you on track. In your Become Book, you will see space for three key rituals:

• Morning – What are the eight key things you need to do before starting your Day plan? They might include breakfast, exercise, prayer, catching up on the news or family time. Sort these into an order that makes sense to you, and then formulate them into your Morning Ritual.
• Evening – What about the eight key things you need to do finish your Day plan? In other words, how are you going to both prepare for tomorrow and wind down from today? It might mean tech-free time, a family meal, reading or playing an instrument. Sort these key actions into your Evening Ritual.
• Prayer – Bringing Christ into the center of your life is a key focus of the Become Book. An active and engaging prayer life is at the heart of fostering your relationship with Jesus. So identify some of the key elements of prayer, which might include a daily scripture, an examen on the previous day, expressing your gratitude for where He has worked and asking for grace in areas of need. It might also be as simple and practical as lighting a candle or sitting in a specific seat to commence your prayer.

Why are we encouraging you to do this? To give you back time that would otherwise be wasted on unimportant decisions; to allow you to gain control over your whole day, from start to finish; and to form the habits that will reduce your cognitive load over the course of your life. It isn’t easy, science says it takes around 66 days to form a new habit, so stick at it! But if you can breakthrough and successfully establish your rituals, you will be on your way to productivity and peace!