294: How To Stop Living on Autopilot

Tanya Dalton: Hello hello everyone, and welcome to the Intentional Advantage Podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 294. We are so close to 300. It is kind of crazy. I have to say it is so good to be back. I was excited about my first episode back after my radical sabbatical, but

I was not anticipating so many emails and notes. So many people who responded to the podcast episode or to the brand new Substack, which has been fantastic. I have had such a great time with that. We’ll talk a little bit about that on today’s show, but today our focus is going to be talking about how to stop living on autopilot.

I think a lot of us do this. We follow the routine of how life works and we do the same things over and over again. And it starts to feel a little mundane, a little routine, a little like, I guess this is just the way life is. So on today’s episode, I’m going to have John on the show with me again. If you listened to my last episode, you know that John is now going to be joining me on almost all of these episodes as my producer.

So he’ll be talking in the background, we’ll say like 30 percent of the time, kind of popping in to give his two cents in. So it feels more of a conversation instead of me just Kind of talking to an empty camera in an empty room, which feels very lonely.

So today we’re gonna dive into habits, routines, and rituals. What’s the difference? What do they mean? And how do we really make them work so we can stop living on autopilot? Are you ready? Let’s get started.

Does your life spark joy? I’m not asking if your life is good or if life feels okay. Does it spark joy? When was the last time you slipped into bed at night and thought, today felt amazing? Because if it’s been more than two or three days, that’s too long. I’m Tanya Dalton, a best selling author, motivational speaker, seven figure entrepreneur, and oh yeah, wife and mom.

So I get it. I understand the stress of daily life. As a productivity expert, I’m here to help you choose the extraordinary life. This season, we will be exploring how we can create more joy and intention into every single day. And it doesn’t have to be so hard. This is The Intentional Advantage.

[02:30] Why Do We Need Habits?

Tanya Dalton: I want to talk today about habits. I want to talk about habits, routines, and rituals. because habits are a really important part of our productivity. if you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know, we’ve talked about habits, or if you’ve read The Joy of Missing Out, you know, I talk about habits.

There’s practically a whole chapter just on habits because habits really do make life so much easier. It allows us to get things done without having to use a lot of that brain power. that’s really important. In fact, Duke University has found 40 to 50 percent of our daily actions are actually habits.

That’s not the first time you’ve heard me say that stat. I say it all the time because I think it’s so astounding. Because I think so often, when we think about habits, we think of things like biting our fingernails, or, whatever the bad habit is that we don’t want, that’s what we think of as habits.

But habits are just things that we do without thinking about them. So, things like when we put on our clothes every day, we put in the same leg first into our pants. When you tie your shoes, you tie the same shoe first every single time. For me, it’s my right.

Are you team right or team left?

But we all do that because if we had to think every single time about putting on our pants, or, you know, buttoning the button on our pants, or putting on our shoes, or brushing our teeth, can you imagine how exhausting that would be? We would be so worn out. We wouldn’t have enough brain space to think about anything else.

So habits are so vital in our daily life to be able to actually go out and do things in the world. So we’re not thinking about, wait, should I put my left leg in first or my right leg? habits are great. And we talk about habits a lot because it really creates this beautiful shortcut for productivity.

[04:27] Weirdest Celebrity Habit Fact

Tanya Dalton: Because when we create a habit for ourselves, it happens without thinking, without any thought to it, right? A habit like brushing your teeth. I’m pretty sure you don’t have a morning debate of, Hmm, should I brush my teeth today? Maybe, maybe not. Let me think about it, right? Although I did, interestingly, just read that Jessica Simpson Only brushes her teeth three times a week, so I guess maybe she has to think about it. That

John Dalton: read that?

Tanya Dalton: That’s not my only weird habit or my only weird fact. I’m gonna share today because I did a little bit of research before this episode Jessica Simpson only brushes her teeth three times a week Because she feels like she already has really white teeth and when she brushes her teeth, she feels like they feel slippery That is weird, right?

John Dalton: That means they’re clean. That’s what slippery means. Okay, that’s gross.

Tanya Dalton: I totally agree. Totally agree. So, maybe Jessica Simpson has to think twice about brushing her teeth, but most of us don’t have to think twice about brushing our teeth. It just happens automatically. So, when it comes to things that we really want to do in our day, if we create them as habits, they’ll happen automatically.

[05:42] How Habits Create More Brainspace

Tanya Dalton: It requires a lot less thinking. Our brain is a calorie burning machine. It really is. It’s 1/50 of our body, but it burns 1/5 of our calories every single day. It’s using calories to make your heart beat, to make your lungs breathe, to remind you to put your pants on with the right leg first, or whatever it is you’re doing.

So it has this limited number of calories and it wants to conserve them. That’s why it creates these shortcuts, these habits, so that all the things can happen, like getting dressed in the morning without you having to use a lot of those calories. I mean, Every single day, you do certain things on a regular basis, and your brain doesn’t want to think about it.

It just wants to do it. Okay? So, that’s the beauty of habits. And habits use cues. A cue is what triggers the habit to start. So the cue might be a location, like walking into the bathroom first thing in the morning. You realize you need to brush your teeth, right? It could be a person. There’s certain people that we hang around where we do certain habits.

Like maybe you have certain people that you drink more around. That’s a habit we have with those people. So there’s lots of things that can be cues.

[06:53] Habit Stacking is a Fancy World for Routine

Tanya Dalton: One of the things that can cue us to do a habit is another habit, and that’s called habit stacking, where you take one habit and you stack another habit on top of it, and then you stack another habit on top of that, and another habit on top, right?

So each one triggers the next one. It cues the next one to start. So we could call that habit stacking a routine. Because that’s what a routine is. It’s something we do on a regular basis. A lot of people have a getting dressed routine. Maybe you have a shower routine. I’m looking at you right now, John, who has a very elaborate, very drawn out shower routine.

I can’t even get into it.

John Dalton: Can you imagine how many calories I would burn if I had to actually think about that every time that I went through that whole routine? Especially the drying part, right? That’s your favorite?

Tanya Dalton: I can’t even get into the drying routine. Listen. Those of you listening right now, it is, this is a moment of contention in our marriage every time where I’m like, can you take a quick shower? John cannot take a quick shower because there’s a routine and I kid you not the routine takes forever including the drying routine, so

John Dalton: hmm.

Tanya Dalton: shower routine as well.

Maybe not quite as elaborate as John’s but where you get in wet your hair, you put the shampoo on your hair, then you condition, maybe when the conditioner’s going, you shave your legs. that’s what a routine is, It’s one thing following the next. So these routines are habits that are stacked upon each other.

Now the problem is, especially when we think of the word habit and we think of the word routine,

We don’t want to make life a habit.

And that’s what happens a lot of times when we’re stuck in the routine of living. Where we’re just doing the same things over and over again. And we’re not really thinking about it.

That’s when we get stuck in that concept of autopilot. Because we’re just doing the same things again and again and again.

John Dalton:

[08:57] Shifting from Routines to Rituals

Tanya Dalton: It is great to have a routine, but what I want to encourage you to do is not just to have routines, because

Routines are actions.

Rituals are actions with meaning.

I want to encourage you to shift from just having routines to having rituals.

think about that word ritual. Just Think about it, It already feels richer. It already feels deeper. It already feels more meaningful. So routines are actions. Rituals are actions with meaning. And that’s what we want. We want to have an emotion behind them. Yes, even something like a shower routine can have an emotion behind it.

It doesn’t have to be this monotone, just get in the shower, do the things, wash the things and then get out of the shower. It can bring a feeling of joy. It can be a moment of serenity. It could be a time that feels almost meditative if you allow it to feel that way. So I want you to think about how we can take these very mundane activities that we do on a regular basis, like getting up in the morning or taking a shower or getting ready for bed at night or walking into your office.

First thing we all have a routine that we do when we get to our office. We maybe we take our bag off. We take out our computer, set up the laptop. Maybe we take out the pins. We get out the journals, whatever it is. we can make it more meaningful. And a lot of times when I’m talking about rituals, I like to equate it to a Japanese tea ceremony.

when I first created the inkWELL Press Planners, that was exactly my inspiration for why I wanted the planners to be designed the way that they were with a thick paper and the beautiful imagery inside, because I wanted it to feel beautiful. I wanted it to feel intentional. So you can go and drink tea, right?

You can just go get a cup of tea, put some hot water in there and drink it. No big deal. Or, with the Japanese tea ceremony, there’s this whole beautiful ritual of setting out the cups, pouring in the hot water into the cups, allowing the cups to warm up. Then you pour out the water of the cups, then you steep the hot water with the leaves, then you pour it in and you drink it.

And a lot of times there’s this conversation that’s happening. My good friend Maura and I, we meet for tea fairly often. And that’s one of the things that we do. We go and we do these tea rituals because it has so much meaning to it. And it feels richer, it feels deeper. So that’s what I want you to think about when we talk about this idea of rituals and routines.

[11:30] Creating Stronger Transitions for Your Day

Tanya Dalton: Routines do create these moments of transition, it signals the brain that it’s time for one activity to end. And something new to begin. And so that’s the importance of routine in the morning,When you’re waking up, it’s a signal of, hey, I was asleep in bed just a few minutes ago, and now it’s time to wake up.

John Dalton: Yeah, I think for me, you know, when I think about my morning routine and the difference between the routine part and the ritual part, guess focus is the word I would use, right? Because the routine part is getting dressed, brushing my teeth, and then when I go make my coffee, the making of the coffee It’s kind of a routine, but when I sit down with it to drink it and enjoy it, that is the ritual.

I always sit in the same chair. I don’t think about anything else. I’m focused just on that. You know, the warm cup of my hand and how it tastes and that relaxes me and gets me ready for the rest of my morning So it’s almost a little ritual in the middle of a bigger routine.

Tanya Dalton: Yes, I love that idea too, that you can have a ritual within a routine for some people actually brewing the coffee is part of the ritual, especially if they like to use, a French press, or they do the kind that with the water where you pour it in. So how can you elevate things so that you can signal to your brain, hey, it’s time for one thing to end and another thing to begin.

this is the important role that routines play in our productivity. Your brain really does want to stay on one track. And it’s got one focus where it’s like, all right, we’re going on this track. Hey, we’re sleeping. And then it’s like, okay, oh, wait, we’re awake.

The routine tells it, okay, it’s time to wake up. Or, having a transition from home to work. that’s one of the big things that’s causing a lot of problems.

[13:12] Increasing Productivity While Working Remote

Tanya Dalton: We’re seeing a real decrease in productivity, where people are working non stop because they’re working remotely. This is one of the biggest issues with remote working, is we feel like, oh, I have all this freedom, but then we’re working all the time.

Because there’s none of that ritual of going to work or coming home from work, which is really important for your brain to say, Hey, I’m closing up that work compartment and now I’m ready to focus in on home or I’m closing the home compartment, ready to focus in on work. And that used to happen when you were sitting in the car, maybe listening to a podcast while you were driving to work or sitting on the train, going into the city or whatever it was you were doing when you left your house.

That was a great signal for your brain that we were closing that boundary. and opening up something new. So we really want to be mindful of that. Even if you are working from home. I know for me, I have rituals that I do that signal to my brain. Okay. I’m still working from the house. I’m still here. I’m in the same place, but I’m doing different things.

And that might be for you pulling out certain materials. Like I pull out certain folders and I pull out my computer and I sit in a certain spot and I do certain things to trigger to my brain. All right, hey, we’re in work mode. And that allows you not to have that blurred boundary. The blurred boundary is what causes you to feel like you’re constantly working, especially when you’re a remote worker, feel like you’re constantly working and you’re not able to get back into that routine of of work and home life.

John Dalton: Yeah, I know for me that, that kind of drive time right in my old work life, going from the office or coming back to the house was really important. and you tell a good story about that in one of your talks.

I think for some people, you could almost do like a virtual drive time, you know, and in a sense, that’s what I do.

When I sit down with my coffee, sometimes I’ll even listen to the morning radio show program that I used to listen to when I drove to work. you know, and give myself a container of time to do that, or like Tanya and I like to joke, one of the first things we do for work in the morning is we do the New York Times mini crossword and the connections and the wordle.

And that’s a good way to, for us to transition from our morning routine at home, coffee to, okay, this is our first step into work and then we’re off and running for the rest of the day.

Tanya Dalton: Yeah, we do. That’s our, that’s our work. And we also hassle our kids if they haven’t gotten their work done, which is the wordle, the connections, and the mini crossword. All very important things you must get done first thing in the morning, but it is, that’s a little, that’s a little, that’s a little ritual for us because then we share it, we joke about it, we talk about it before we get into our work mode or for the kids, the school mode or whatever it is they’re working on.

But this is the thing that’s really important that I think people forget is that we do need that trigger for our brain and think about people who are, you know, amazing superstars. We hear about these pre show rituals that they do before they go on stage. All of the major stars have these amazing rituals that they do that are very important to them, that they have to do.

Stephen King, who is probably one of the most prolific writers of our generation, maybe ever, quite frankly, he gets up every day and he does the same thing. Because for him, he says writing is like self hypnosis, and so he’s getting himself into that state. So he sits down, sometime between 8 or 8:30, not, not 7:45, not 8:45. Mm hmm. He has to sit down between 8 and 8. 30. Then he takes his vitamins. He listens to music. He sits in the same seat. He puts his papers arranged in exactly the same place, and he says it’s the cumulative purpose of doing things in the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to his mind, you’re going to be dreaming soon.

Because for him, writing is a form of dreaming. Winston Churchill. That’s another guy who did a lot of rituals. He had a ritual to separate morning work from afternoon work, taking a nap. That was one of the things that Winston Churchill did every single day, is he took a nap right after lunch.

For me, I have a ritual to separate morning work from afternoon work. I always do after lunch, I do an hour of growth time. So generally around one o’clock to two o’clock is my time where I like to either, take a course or I’ll do a meditation or I’ll do some journaling, some self reflection, something that gets me thinking.

And that helps separate morning from afternoon in my mind. Otherwise it feels like one long day and it just feels. kind of like a gauntlet in my mind. So that’s my way of dealing with that. I looked at a lot of famous people’s rituals. There’s a lot of fascinating things out there. Some of them are really weird.

I did want to share with you, this is not exactly a ritual, but it came up. I thought this was strange. Morgan Freeman, whenever he travels, he makes sure that he wears two gold earrings. You know why he wears two gold earrings? You’ll see him, any picture of him. He’s got these two gold hoop earrings in his ear.

Do you have any idea why he does that, John?

John Dalton: No, I have no idea.

Tanya Dalton: It’s based off an old pirate practice, where the price, like if you were to take those gold earrings and sell them, melt them down and sell the gold, would pay for a coffin, just in case he dies while he’s on his trip. Isn’t

John Dalton: What?

Tanya Dalton: that weird?

John Dalton: That’s totally weird. Now we have to start calling him Captain Morgan Freeman, I guess. I didn’t realize he was a pirate. That’s funny.

Tanya Dalton: Yeah. But it totally reminds me of your grandmother, your, your grandma Betsy, your grandmother Betsy. Oh, she would die, I just called her grandma. Grandmother Betsy. She would always, before she’d go out of town, make sure the house was spotless in case she died while she was on her trip. That was one of her rituals.

Slightly morbid, and yet, worked for her, I guess. Mind you, she died when she was 95, so, never really happened.

John Dalton: Her house was always clean.

Tanya Dalton: And her house was always clean. But these rituals are really important. So you can see though, like it has meaning. All of these things have meaning. And so that’s what’s great about having these rituals.

[19:18] Rigid Structure Doesn’t Make You Productive

Tanya Dalton: I know for me, during my radical sabbatical, when I didn’t have any structure, when I didn’t have any plans, or any big goals I was working on, I felt like I was drifting. I like to say to John, when I feel really unmoored, when I feel really unstructured, it feels like I’m floating in a giant pool, and I don’t know where the edges are.

And that, to me, feels very unsettling. like to know where the edges are. They don’t have to be close. They don’t have to be nearby. I just have to know where they are. And I think most people feel that way in some way, shape, or form. And that’s why I think really good productivity isn’t rigid. It’s not stifling.

I, I don’t know about you, but I don’t, I don’t like these things where it’s like, you have to do this and you have to do that next. You have to do these things.

I don’t live by a “have to” lifestyle because it just doesn’t suit me.

And I don’t think it suits most people. We want our productivity to be loose and flexible.

It’s like scaffolding. It creates the structure so we can do the things we want to do, but it’s not going to constrain you And so I think that’s really important, and that’s what I love about this idea of rituals, is it creates that structure. But it also creates the meaning, You’ve heard me say before,

It’s not about managing our time.

It’s savoring the moments.

I love that word savor because I think that it just speaks volumes of what we’re looking for. We’re not looking to go through life ticking off the boxes of what we’ve done. We’re looking for experiences. We’re looking for these moments with the people that we love doing things that we enjoy.

these are our million dollar minutes that you’ve heard me talk about in Joy of Missing Out, creating this intentionality so that we can be connected, that we have these deeper, richer lives that feel meaningful. And when we go through life checking the boxes of what we think we’re supposed to do, life doesn’t feel so meaningful.

John Dalton: I love that word, saver, too. And, the first thing that came to my mind, which I guess is the first thing that comes to my mind a lot of times is food, And I think for a lot of people, food can be a routine.

and that leads to. overeating because you’re just not paying attention. And that’s something that we’ve wrestled with. I think some people, a routine for food works. If you’re like one of those hardcore fitness people, and you’ve got to have your two dry chicken breasts and a can of tuna for breakfast or whatever, because they have different set of priorities, but for you and me, food is a ritual, right?

So we do savor that, especially at dinner. we’re kind of food snobs, I guess you would say. But, we take a lot of time and a lot of pride planning what we’re going to have for dinner. You know, that’s the first thing we talk about for our weekend plans is what are we doing for food, right?

And we plan that out and everything else is kind of planned around the food and, we enjoy those rituals of also cooking and eating together. so, for me, it was like figure out what, what is important to you, and that’s what should be a ritual, If it’s something that’s not as important to you, like brushing your teeth, still important, but not something you want to necessarily savor,

That’s, that’s a routine. That’s a habit. but those rituals, those things you really want to enjoy, make it a ritual.

Tanya Dalton: Yeah, I like that. I think that’s so true. And we do. We revolve everything around food. John and I are such foodies and I love to cook. That’s one of the big things for us is what do we want to cook? Let’s figure out what food we need to get from the grocery store. And it’s this whole ritual of things that we do together.

And then we enjoy the food together. Food is one of the ways I express love for people. And so it is. What are the things that are important to you? Routines give us structure, but rituals give us purpose. So, that’s why I like recipes for cooking, but I don’t like recipes for what routines are supposed to look like.

There’s a lot of recipes of this is what you have to do in the morning. Or this is how a productive morning begins. We see these all the time. The 15 million things that the CEOs, the top CEOs do before breakfast. And quite frankly, it’s like 72 hours worth of tasks they get done before breakfast. Like, come on.

And then what ends up happening is we feel like we failed because we’re not doing We’re not reading the four books like Bill Gates does before he gets on his treadmill for 45 minutes, before he drinks his fruit smoothie, before he starts his first meeting. Like we’re setting ourselves up for failure by trying to fit into what other people say we are supposed to do.

So there’s a lot of recipes out there for what a successful morning looks like. For example, there’s like the 5 a. m. club, which says you should spend 20 minutes on vigorous exercise, 20 minutes on reflection, 20 minutes on growth. Okay, but what if I want to work out for 45 minutes? What if I don’t want my exercise to be vigorous?

What if I want it to just be stretching? You do you. There’s also the morning miracle, which wants you to do 10 minutes of SAVERS. So SAVERS stands for 10 minutes of silence. 10 minutes of affirmations, 10 minutes of visualization, 10 minutes of exercise, 10 minutes of reading, and 10 minutes of writing, I believe it is.

Okay, well, what if I don’t want to do those things? Am I somehow failing?

[24:37] The One Question to Answer to Decide Your Morning Routine

Tanya Dalton: So I want you to throw all of those out because you need to do what feels important to you. So I want you to think about what does the ideal morning look like to you? And even bigger, the bigger question is, how do I want to feel?

When I’m going through this ritual, how do I want it to feel? Because if you have 75 things you need to do in your morning routine, I can tell you how you’re gonna feel. You’re gonna feel stressed. You’re gonna feel stressed, you’re gonna feel strapped for time, you’re gonna feel worn out, and you’re gonna feel like you haven’t done enough.

Because, quite frankly, you’re not gonna have time to get it all done. So, let’s zoom in instead and say, How do I want to feel? What’s important to me? Let’s tackle those couple of things, get them in the morning, and then we can go through the rest of our day. You can always put some of those other things in, you know, like for me, I do, you know, time on growth and things like that.

I do that in the afternoon, as I mentioned earlier, that’s part of my ritual closing the morning and opening up the afternoon sessions for my work. So what is it that feels good to you? This week, or actually today when this episode drops, I’m going to pop into Not Rocket Science, my new sub stack, and I’m going to share with you A blueprint for an intentional morning.

Now here’s the thing that blueprint is not going to tell you, you have to do 10 minutes of this, then 25 minutes of this, then 43 minutes of this, right? We’re not doing any of that. We’re going to start focusing in on what do you want to feel? What do you want to do? What would be meaningful to you? Okay, now what time do you want to wake up?

Because that’s a big thing too. I think there’s a lot of people in this world who don’t really want to get up at 5 a. m. and that’s okay. Just because you don’t get up at 5 a. m. doesn’t mean you’re not productive. Doesn’t mean that you’re, you’re somehow failing. So let’s figure out what time you want to get up, what time you need to leave, and then we’ll back in and go, okay, we’ve got 45 minutes there.

What do we want to get done during this morning routine while still getting ourselves dressed and all those other things.

John Dalton: I won’t wake up at 5 a. m. unless I’m I’m going on vacation, catching an early flight, I’ll get up at 5. A normal day? No, no. I mean, I don’t think you want to be around me if I got up at 5 a. m. every day. I would be a grumpy disaster.

So that doesn’t work for everybody, including me. So if you don’t get up at 5 a. m., you are not failing. That’s not the secret to being a, million dollar CEO or anything like that. That just works for some people.

Tanya Dalton: Yeah. Can we get rid of that? That’s the secret to like success. That’s the secret to being the high power CEO. That’s the secret to being the better manager. It’s honestly, it’s not about getting up early. It’s about what you do with your time. So let go of the recipes of what you’re supposed to do and choose what’s most important for you.

So I want you to go through that blueprint for an intentional morning to really think about What is it you want? So if you go to tanyadalton.com/connect. You’ll get to my not rocket science website. That’s my new resource hub. I guess you could call it It’s my Substack and that’s where I’ll post it If you’re already on my newsletter list, you’re gonna get that in your inbox today So watch for that to come because I want you to think about what it is That’s important for you letting go of all the shoulds and have tos and must dos What is it that you want?

And then let’s go from there because it’s going to feel so much more meaningful. It’s going to feel so much more intentional and truly that’s what we want. And I think, you know, to be honest with you, I think this week for our Thursday thread for the discussion that we have over there at not rocket science.

I want us to be thinking about and I’m I think this is the question I’m going to post is what habits that you already do. Can you elevate? Right? There are some habits, there’s some things in our lives that we’re already doing that we can elevate and create and make it into a ritual. So, I’ll do that our discussion questions.

I think that’ll be really interesting to see, and it’s a really good place to get ideas from other people as well. So, if you haven’t joined. I’m so excited about it. It’s been fantastic. TanyaDalton.com/connect. I love it because already I’m connecting so much deeper with so many of you because you’re replying to the posts.

You’re going in and popping into the discussions and It’s kind of like what we’re talking about today. It allows us to go deeper and have richer conversations. And that’s really what I’ve been looking for. So I hope today’s episode has gotten you thinking about habits, routines and rituals, and really creating that intentionality behind them. Because truly, when we have these little moments of intentionality and joy, that we scatter throughout our day, through our rituals, and upgrading those routines to making them feel so much more meaningful, that’s when we’ve got the intentional advantage.

Ready to take action on what we talked about on today’s episode? The easiest way to get started is my 5 Minute Miracle Mini Course. It’s normally $97, but you get it for free when you join my free Substack. It’ll boost your productivity and it will double your happiness. Plus, you’ll get access to all kinds of extras from the podcast.

Just go to tanyadaltoncom/connect. And don’t forget to follow The Intentional Advantage on your podcast player so you never miss an episode.

**This transcript is created by AI, so please excuse any typos, misspellings and grammar mistakes.

 

Tanya Dalton is top female motivational speaker. She is available for keynote talks, workshops, trainings and more for your corporate team.