Top 8 Ways to Disrupt Your Own Routine

We all have a daily routine. We’ve all felt the need to break out of it.

By allowing ourselves to wear the same path in the carpet or highway, we become rigid, fixed in our ways and comfortably numb. By disrupting our own routine, we dose ourselves with a small but much-needed shot of adrenaline, enabling our “fight or flight” mode and forcing our problem-solving skills to show up front and center.

Blogger and motivational speaker Glenn Lim suggests keeping a “Disruption Diary,” asking yourself daily, “What is something I can do today for the first time?”

Frank Barrett, author of Yes to the Mess, even says that “being uncomfortable” can spur large-scale innovation and our best creative thinking.

DISRUPT YO’ SELF: Watch Frank Barrett explain “provocative competence” and the disruptive origins of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.

Here are some no-cost, easy ways to integrate some imperceptibly powerful tools into your daily grind. They’re short, they’re quick and there are no excuses for not trying each and every one of them. These eight simple actions will force you to take other perspectives or gently expand your own awareness.

Try any of these daily disruptors for a week and see if you can detect any lasting change in your mood or your behavior. Then leave a comment detailing your results.

1. Step Outside
Easy, right? Take a walk or just stand in the sun soaking up the Vitamin D. This could be a brisk jaunt around the block, or end up leading to a new adventure downtown. Be unafraid and allow yourself to go where you are led.

2. Change Your Route
Whether you are in the car on the way home from work or on foot and on your way to eat lunch at your regular spot, take a moment to follow your natural-born instinct to hunt. In her book, The Bond, Lynne McTaggart describes how the brain’s dopamine levels increase when you follow your nose, anticipating the experience of something for the very first time. Whether you decide to turn left instead of right, or follow a butterfly down a side street or swing by that newly-opened business that you’ve been dying to check out, straying from your well-worn path can be highly rewarding.

3. Set Mindfulness Reminders
Set an alarm or a reminder on your phone for the same time every day (mine is 11:11 a.m.) and take a minute to simply think of something you’re grateful for or to sit in silence and meditate. Check your posture, let your shoulders fall, and do some neck rolls or some office chair yoga. A reminder or alarm every day can provide a disruption to an otherwise monotonous routine. Tip: once the reminder itself becomes a monotonous routine, change the time!

Chris Grosso: Indie Spiritualist

I don’t remember how I discovered Chris Grosso or how I stumbled upon his book, Indie Spiritualist, but the name of the book, it’s subtitle (“a no bullshit exploration of spirituality”) and Chris’ image (a tattooed guy, about my age, with gauges in his ears) spoke to me pretty much immediately.

As it turned out, Chris is a fellow musician, podcaster, blogger, and serves as the Spiritual Director at The Sanctuary at Shepardfields, an interfaith non-profit facility in Connecticut. I connected with Chris on Facebook, and quickly learned that we shared a common love for drone metal and old school hip hop. I messaged him to find out where the book was available.

It was reportedly on shelf at my local Barnes & Noble, but when I arrived — literally as I was looking for it — the sole copy was being pulled for return to the distributor. Apparently, Barnes & Noble needed that inch of shelf space for more Bill O’Reilley endcaps and Lego Architecture gift sets. So, the book came home with me.

Indie Spiritualist is what I expected it to be — a series of essays on spirituality that is rooted in the punk rock and DIY ethos, centered in Eastern philosophy, and (according to the extensive credits) the newest in a line of books released by former punks who’ve embraced Buddhism (Noah Levine’s Dharma Punx) and social progressives who are combining spirituality with political buzz words (i.e. Occupy Spirituality by Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox).

It’s a quick read, and perfect for a young person seeking a spiritual path of their own, yet unsure if a “spiritual” lifestyle is really as uncool as it sounds. Chris is the perfect spokesperson to greet them on this journey as he is decidedly not uncool.

It’s also a story of addiction, told by an addict. A memoir of Grosso’s own dark night of the soul that allows the reader inside some very embarrassing and painful moments that, simply through the act of being told, allow them to be transmuted into powerful life lessons from someone who has been to the very bottom and chosen to look up.