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Inspiration

My Daily Ritual - Part 2

This is the final post on My Daily Rituals as of January 2023.

Richard Ing

• 8 min read
My Daily Ritual - Part 2
Photo by Brett Jordan / Unsplash

Welcome back to my blog as I share Part 2 of my daily rituals and this is a continuation of the first post.

"Are  You Living or Just Existing?" - Tyler Perry

It's Not About Hustling, It's About Living

I'd like to start this blog post off with a view that my posts about daily rituals are not about trying to cram more into your day, not a version of 10 step program to being a successful entrepreneur, or how to achieve enlightenment. This is not another article to glorify the hustle-busyness mentality, instead, it's just to share a collection of things I employ to be deliberate in my everyday life.

I pour my effort and experiences into this post in the hope that you take inspiration from any of the particular rituals covered and that it might be incorporated into your own day; so you too can use them to invite joy into your life and remind you to put first what matters to you.

The Rest

In this second and final part of my post, I cover the remaining parts of my daily rituals:

  • Learning a new word
  • Exercise
  • Writing
  • Meditation [New to my ritual]

To keep it consistent with the last post I will cover the following aspects for each:

  1. What is it or Why it's on the list (for things which are self-explanatory like exercise)
  2. How I do it
  3. Outlining immediate and long-term benefits I've observed personally

Learning New Words

Khmer Bible
Photo by Pisit Heng / Unsplash

What is it?

The act of proactively finding new words to understand and learn in the effort to expand my personal vocabulary aka the bucket of words I know. This is deliberately on my list because I am in the process of writing my first fiction book and I am aware of my weakness being a limited vocabulary. So I remind myself to look up and learn one word a day at the very least. Switching this identified weakness into a learning opportunity.

I know that this may not be useful or even relevant to many others reading this now, but instead of focusing on this exact same task, reflect on yourself, is there something you'd want to improve?

✅
Short-Term Benefit: Incrementally increases the array of words you can comprehend and use in day-to-day communication. It also keeps the mind sharp by deliberately introducing something new each day.
🧠
Long-Term Benefit: Having a broader vocabulary allows you to be more nuanced and precise in how you communicate with others and even with yourself. For me personally, it's expanded my toolbox for writing my blog posts, short stories, YouTube scripts and unexpectedly my emails and documents at work.
🤓
Take a moment to think about what skill matters to you but you know right at this moment you're not great at it. What would you do daily to incrementally improve this skill?

How I do it

Once a day I check either one of the following 2 sources:

  1. A daily email from Merriam-Webster's word-of-the-day which can be found here - Word of the Day | Merriam-Webster
  2. An iOS app called - Word of the Day
Screenshot from Word of the Day iOS App

I then note down the new word of the day and its meaning in my ritual tracker (something I'll cover in a future post!).

Exercising

Me at the gym late at night!

Why it's on the list

It's on my list because I know in my heart and bones that being healthy is the core of what it means to be alive. That without my health, I would not be able to enjoy the other parts of my life as fully as I do today with it. However, health can be such a precarious thing if left unattended to or thrown off completely by an illness.

I have personally neglected my health in place of forging ahead in work, side hustles, getting out there to socialise and just in general doing more. However the neglect is catching up and I can feel it, I can feel it in the gut that I carry around, and the feeling I get if I have to catch my breath playing with my son.

Thanks to having an honest network around me, including my brother who nudges me to exercise and a group I call Titans Club, I am reminded and encouraged to exercise and take this extrinsic support and internalise it as my own to build habits around exercise and therefor making it intrinsic as I know this is key to living my own life.

✅
Short-Term Benefit: Gives you the opportunity to decompress physically and allows you to connect with your body through movement. The movement and exertion trigger growth and development in your breathing capacity, and muscle strength and increase your overall energy.
🧠
Long-Term Benefit: Exercising regularly and over a long time you definitely start to notice better overall shape, weight and energy levels. Furthermore, I begin to notice overflow effects, which means other habits form as a result such as eating healthier, sleeping better and preparing my gym gear more systematically.

How I do it (as a parent)

I explain how I do it, more so from the perspective of a father who also works full-time. Since becoming a father it's definitely been more challenging however combined with my mindset of not prioritising it; exercising was just a remote concept only possible for single people or those without kids.

Since prioritising exercise and making it part of my rituals, I've tried to make time for it and there were three potential spots; before work, during lunch or after work. Each spot always appeared too full already, too busy. However, a time slot which I subconsciously ignored and was bountiful of time, was when my child went to sleep for the evening: 9 pm.

What was a simple but effective step was to ensure I had my gym clothes on during family time. It served as a physical token, an affirmation, that I am going to the gym tonight. I quietly leave the home in the cool of the night and make my way to the gym!

Writing

Me writing in my gratitude journal

Why it's on the list

Ever since starting my practice of morning pages journalling (As of posting this, I have successfully written every day for 81 days straight and counting!) I've uncovered a passion and drive to want to write more. This has manifested in the blog as you see, the short stories I share and ultimately has led me down my path of writing my first fiction novel.

Writing as a skillset, like my vocabulary, was not an area that I could say I was strong in. Sure I could get by in life and communicate in the corporate world, with friends and family, but whether I could write a book or a compelling/inspiring blog post? Now that needed work.

So I deliberately make space in my days to ensure I practice my writing in the efforts of building up the tools and skills to publish a novel.

✅
Short-Term Benefit: Improve your ability to effectively communicate with others around you through a written form such as email, texts and documents.
🧠
Long-Term Benefit: You start to develop a sense of what kind of writing you like to do, whether it's creative, instructional, blogging, reviews, poems etc. You then start to discover how you can fold your own personal experience and circumstances into your writing style and content. 

How I do it

There are 3 key methods I use to write each day:

  1. Morning Page Journalling - I use this space as my blank canvas to pour out and lay bare the thoughts, feelings and experiences I wish to arrange in the form of written words on a page. I lavish in the blank space, the absence of rules, and drop any sense of insecurity as nobody will read these words. I do my best to articulate my reality and thoughts at the time so that my future self can reflect back and accurately depict the moment. I push myself to go beyond words of happy/sad and good/bad.
  2. I write short stories or blogs - What I've learnt is that writing and creativity are like muscles and is not innate talent, it requires regular practice. I also deliberate to not place my writing at the mercy of feelings of inspiration or motivation. So I tack a pragmatic approach of simply just writing, no matter the outcome. When writing fiction, I aim to add 1000 words minimum a day, no matter the imperfections as editing is a process afterwards. When writing blogs, I aim to move the needle of a draft in progress or push something like I am now to hit publish.
  3. I do some writer's exercises like typing speed challenges, take Master Classes in creative/fiction/story writing, and read blog posts on methods of developing the skillset also.

Meditation [New to my rituals]

Meditating Garden Gnome
Photo by Dorota Dylka / Unsplash

The practice of meditation is very fresh and one that has been on my mind for a long time but I could never find a way to make it stick. I always found the process intimidating and never sought out the right resources.  However thanks to a good mate (Steve Koi), Insight Timer is my go-to app.

My write-up below will be brief as I've only started this practice.  

What is it?

It is the practice of you taking the time to use a technique to focus and be present, honing your attention on the moment, observing your awareness of things and seeing your thoughts. What is not is the emptying of the mind and trying to feel/hear nothing, as that would be denying the present and suppressing your awareness.

✅
Short-Term Benefit: Improve your ability to effectively communicate with others around you through a written form such as email, texts and documents.
🧠
Long-Term Benefit: To be shared in the future once I do this enough

How I do it

I use an application recommended by a good friend called Insight Timer. It's an easy-to-use app that provides a series of guided meditations great for beginners.

The Wrap

This concludes the breakdown of my daily rituals as of January 2023! I know that my rituals will continue to evolve and I will post up an update as the year progresses. I hope this has been helpful and has given you something that you may integrate into your own day.

Thanks for reading!

For those reading on the phone here are handy links which you may be interested in: