How to Create a Wellness Routine That Works for You

Many clients seek coaching to create a new wellness routine, a collection of healthy habits involving eating, movement, sleep or some combination of the above. After setbacks or previous attempts that haven’t stood up to life’s unexpected twists and turns, they’re ready to finally find something that works.

Sound familiar? While every person is unique, here are some universal strategies I use with clients as foundations for wellness routines that last.

Define what you want: routine, rhythm, or ritual?

First, let’s lay out some definitions.

routine (n.): a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program
rhythm (n.): a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound
ritual (n.): the established form for a ceremony; a ceremonial act or action

You probably didn’t come here to nitpick word choice, but hear me out: the biggest favor you can do for yourself in this process is to determine up front what you actually want.

Maybe you want a routine, something consistent and rigid; for example, I will go to bed at 11 p.m. and wake up at 6:30 a.m. every day.

Maybe you want a rhythm with regular patterns and some variation, e.g., I will go to bed by 11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and by 2 a.m. Friday-Saturday.

Or perhaps you prefer to establish a ritual with deeper meaning, like I will listen to my body and give myself rest whenever I need it.

Whatever you choose to create, name it. You know what works best in your unique life.

Discover your why

What makes having a new routine, rhythm, or ritual important to you?
How would your life be different with this foundation in place?
How would it serve you in the short and long term?

The answers to these questions will serve as an anchor when challenges inevitably arise. Find an object or a phrase that embodies your why, and keep it in close proximity. This could be a photo that you pin as a widget on your phone’s home screen, a small souvenir or token you keep on your desk or bedside table, or a motivational quote or mantra that you display on a post-it note in your living space.

Tap into your inner strengths

What are you really, really good at?
How would your loved ones describe the best parts of you?
Who are you when you’re at your best?
What makes you you?

Make note of these strengths, as they’ll be part of your foundation for change – a signature of the Amplify approach. Here are a few examples of how recent clients’ strengths influenced their behavior changes.

• A client who thrives on community organizing created a movement routine (more like a ritual!) that involves walking with others.

• A client with a love of learning wanted to eat more vegetables. They fully embraced their curiosity by buying new veggies and challenging themselves to try new recipes each week.

• A client who is artistic and highly visual created a simple coloring sheet to help them track their exercise progress — something that doubled as a relaxation and grounding activity.

Gather your tools — and use them with intention

For any change you seek in your wellness routine, rhythm, or ritual, it’s likely you’ll need some tools. The good news is that these don’t have to be expensive. Maybe you just need an app to help you meditate, or a water bottle that keeps water cold, or some new socks that will help prevent blisters on long walks. 

Whatever your tools are, gather them, and place them in a way that will cue you to do your desired action. If you download that meditation app, put it on the first page of apps on your phone, where you know you’ll see it. If you buy the new water bottle, make sure it’s as functional as you’d like and that you’ll actually carry it around. If you buy the socks, lay them out so you remember to go on your walks. 

Find a support system

Having a support system helps with accountability and makes it easier to persevere when challenges arise. If you’re changing your day-to-day habits and it involves or affects someone else, it’s a great idea to bring that person along for the journey from the get-go – they may even want to join you. 

One recommendation: Be clear with your support system about what support means to you. Do you want them to tell you if they noticed you didn’t do a workout? Or just applaud you when you do? Clarifying these kinds of questions up front will lead to a stronger, more productive support relationship — and probably to more success.

Aim high; start small

Change takes time, and to stick, it needs to be gradual. I often mention an old friend – now a seasoned marathoner – whose first training run was 0.4 mile. Point. Four. Mile! What a beautiful example of perseverance, hard work, and resilience to get to 26.2 miles.

When it comes to changing your healthy habits, start small by modifying one element of your routine at a time, and make that change small – 0.4-mile-small. Crank up the level of change each day or each week and see how you progress.

Track progress, celebrate wins, and embrace learning

Once you’ve started making your change, be sure to measure your progress. Depending on the change(s) you seek in your wellness routine (or rhythm or ritual), you can track them in an app, with pen and paper, in your calendar, or in any number of other ways that work for you. Review your progress regularly.

One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is to acknowledge and celebrate your wins. Did you try a new vegetarian meal this week? Did you get to bed on time? Did you reach out to an old friend? Acknowledge whatever you did to build your healthy habits, and celebrate. Make note of what empowered you to have this success.

It may not sound like it at first, but another of the best gifts you can give yourself is to reframe failures as learnings. If you fail to do something you set out to do, especially in the early days of changing your routine, it’s tempting to give up, to conclude that this won’t work, and that you just can’t do it.

A powerful reframing tool I offer my clients is to view failures as learning opportunities. It’s like a science experiment – the stimulus didn’t get the desired response, and it’s still helpful to know that. It’s very different to say, “I didn’t get outside for a walk 4 times this week, so I failed,” and to say, “I didn’t get outside for a walk 4 times this week – I learned that the shorter days as fall approaches make it impossible for me to get outside and feel safe walking in the dark. Are there other indoor exercise options we can explore?”

A client recently told me she felt “free to fail” after she stopped viewing failure as, well, failure. It can seem daunting at first, but getting comfortable in the discomfort of failure — of learning — is powerful and productive.

Remember that change takes time

There’s a common belief that habit formation takes 21 days. Unfortunately, that’s been debunked, and the time it takes for our brains to reformulate habits is more like 9-12 weeks.

That means that slow and steady wins the behavior change race. When we change our habits as the foundation of a new routine or rhythm, our brains literally have to change neural connections! It’s a very cool process, but it takes time.

Be patient with yourself as you (and your brain!) change. If things don’t go to plan, write them down, document them, learn from them, and start again the next day.

Embrace what works for you

My final — and most important tip — when it comes to building a personalized wellness routine, is the reminder that what works for someone else may not work for you.

Your system, routine, rhythm, or whatever you want to call it is your unique blend, and as long as it’s not harmful to yourself or others, do what works for you, and say “thank you, but no thank you,” to everyone else who disagrees.

The best routine is one that you can stick to, and it is a-okay if that doesn’t look like your friends’.

Ready to discover your personalized wellness routine?

You don’t have to go about behavior change alone. Learn more about working with me as your coach, and we can partner on a personalized wellness routine, rhythm, or ritual that works for you.