Do you know if you follow routines and rituals in your modern daily lives? Or do you consider yourself a free willed person, self governing and set apart from others by your great capacity for creativity and reasoning?

While I believe in the potential and creativity of the human race, we may be kidding ourselves if we think that we are not creatures of routine and habit. More often than not, we are not functioning at our best with consciousness and awareness but are just on auto pilot where our muscle memories take over and we do the same thing we did yesterday. We even think the same thoughts we did yesterday and may even feel the same emotions we felt yesterday and the day before.

As Alex Pentland found out in his study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that human is more instinctual and a lot more like creatures than we would like to admit.

Case in point: my brother and I were going to visit our parents after a long night of intensive workshop and on line meeting. We were more than a little tired and were deep in conversation. The subconscious habit took over the driving and we were cruising home using the same lane that we have been using for as long as we can remember – only this time our parents have moved and we should really be more aware and take another route that leads to the new place.

But instead, we did the same thing we did the week before, we took the same route, changed lanes at the same place without giving it much thought.

Isn’t it interesting that we can actually train our body and mind to store information and be on auto pilot? And if that is the case how would you like to program yourself? What routines or habits would you like to build and practise so these supports you even when you are not consciously thinking about it?

I don’t know about you, but I am planning and creating routines that will support my personal and business success and then incorporating them into my life so my body, my mind and my emotions will support me even when I am not in full awareness and in the moment.

I want to set myself up for success, for the highest possible outcome and would you believe it that we can program ourselves to do that? Just find out what works best for you and then fine tune it and then do it over and over and over again, until it is ingrained in your cells. Then you begin to do it unconsciously – you reach the unconscious competence stage when you go on auto pilot.

So create your system and processes that works for you. Test and stream line your system and processes so your body and mind learn to automatically dump what doesn’t support you and do what works for you even when you are not actively thinking about it. It takes 30 days to build a habit. What routines would you like to have that will help you achieve more with less?