When Life Gives You Lemons… Or When Your Mind Invents Them? : Mental Slumps and The Power of Routines.

What do you do when you feel like you’re not as smart as you used to be? When your brain seems incapable of handling complex tasks or birthing new ideas? When you look back at your university days and realize that’s possibly the most efficient version of yourself you’ll ever be?

You curl up like a ball on your bed, eat ice cream (or Greek yoghurt, if you live healthy), and say to yourself, “I am a man with no solution –with no way out. I shall live a life of mediocrity and die a sad death.”

I’m only telling a bad joke.

Or am I?

Yes, yes, I am. I have an unfortunate habit of telling bad jokes.

Image source — imgflip.com

I described myself in the first paragraph. In recent times, I have felt this way. I grew up as what one would call a gifted child; I easily understood math and language concepts, gave all the valedictory speeches, and didn’t need to put in much effort to get the best grades in every subject.

I continued this “Everything comes easy to me with zero effort” life until I got into medical school, and my grades took a deep dive. It opened my eyes. I quickly learned that if I wanted to have the kind of life I desired, I would need to make an effort. So my friends and I designed a brilliant routine that shaped our lives in no small way.

Our routines looked like this:

• Say our prayers in the morning
• Do a 15 to 30-minute exercise routine in the morning; I always did Pilates — I’m a Pilates girlie for life.
• Watch a TED or TEDx talk and discuss it
• Eat a high-fibre breakfast
• Eat a lunch we packed from home
• Drink at least 2L of water
• Write a weekly and daily to-do list
• Review all our notes from classes at the end of the day
• Start coursework on the day it was assigned
• Read a few pages of a book or a Medium article
• Frequently share our thoughts in long-form written formats
• Keep an idea journal

This routine may make us look like over-achieving, burnout-prone girlies, but it helped us live slowly, mindfully, and intentionally. We discovered that 24 hours is indeed enough. It’s been two years since I left University, and I stopped this routine, only practising some of these things sporadically.

I have noticed a decline in my gut health, energy levels, command of English, general knowledge (I recently flunked a game of trivia), and my ability to have meaningful conversations with strangers, handle multiple responsibilities efficiently, and maintain healthy relationships.

I believe that if I spend time in research, I will find a study that supports my claim that this decline directly relates to the nonexistence of my routine. For now, I will back up my claims with findings from the Imaginary Bureau of Statistics and declare that studies show that 80% of young adults with no daily routines after leaving university end up feeling like the person I described in the first paragraph.

Now that I’ve backed up my claims with the Imaginary Bureau of Statistics, let’s return to addressing the issue: What do we do when we start to feel this way?

1. You hold an internal meeting and inform all stakeholders that believing a previous version of yourself is the best version you’ll ever be is a lie. The beauty of life is that as long as it continues, you have a chance to be and do better.
2. Identify the stressors that made you fall out of routine in the first place, and outline ways to eliminate or reduce their effect.
3. Identify the contributors that helped you sustain the previous routine.
4. Alongside your stakeholders, organize a funeral for the previous routine, understanding that you’re a different version of yourself in need of a different routine.
5. Set up a stakeholder meeting to design a routine that fits this current version of your life. Be sure to prioritize what matters most to you in this season, and include a form of consistent knowledge gaining and sharing.

I’m off to take my own advice now and practice my new routine consistently until the end of the year to determine if the Imaginary Bureau of Statistics was right or if I fall into the 20%.

Let me know if you’ll try this or if you have even better advice for me. Thank you!