Whether you’re trying to stick to an eating plan or coach a team to victory, routine is essential to discipline and drive. But there’s a fine line between what’s beneficial and what’s boring. The answer? Make a change in routine a part of your routine.
I could eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch and supper for weeks. It would help a little if I actually liked the three meals, but my point is more around routine. I love it, and find myself much more effective in the workplace and in my personal life, when following a routine.
As a Cheerful Chunky continually battling the bulge, my belt is also a lot happier with me when following a routine, because it sees me feeding when hungry, and not because the nosh is there.
Ditch the routine – like when on holiday, or travelling for business, or just heading to a mate’s birthday on a Wednesday night instead of watching Survivor while chipping away at a chicken salad – and that is when things go pear-shaped.
The salad gets replaced by a pizza, and the sparkling mineral by a Savignon Blanc. Bad enough, but it’s the next morning that sees the drama exacerbated. Instead of bacon and eggs, it’s a bacon roll. And come lunch time, because you have already cheated a bit, it’s off to the pie shop instead of the salad bar as you promise yourself a fresh start the next morning.
Nope, give me the crutch that is routine any day. But a crutch it is, and my oath is it boring!
So it comes down to that most tragic life rule – moderation. Something we all have to adhere to in one way or another, but my word, does it stink of vanilla, grey, beige, fence sitting and all those nasty “nice” things.
As a rugby coach, it is something you ponder all the time. Given the monstrous to-do list prior to a season or game, you simply have to find a way to cover everything. From big things like defence and the breakdown, to tiny things like the line 15 runs off 13 after he has taken a drift pass from 10 in the starter play off a lineout just inside the opposition half.
And the best way to get through that to-do list is via a routine. So Monday sees us hold a session separated into six 12 minute blocks, Wednesday has a jigsaw with 4 stations focused on different elements of the game, Thursday sees the forwards and blacks split after a 30 min run against the 2nds, while Friday is left to the skipper. This while covering strength and conditioning via four morning sessions with those particular coaches.
And still we just do not get the time to cover everything. So we sweat. But pump out that routine week in and week out and you just will not have a team to coach. The guys would have been bored into a switch to knitting, or underwater hockey!
So much as one likes to attend that midweek birthday party, so do we as coaches, have to sneak in the odd basketball game instead of skill session, or braai instead of conditioning session. And hence us being continually on the look for new drills.
As with any sort of teaching, coaching is about thinking more laterally or outside the box. This not only to get players thinking a little differently about the skill or knowledge you’re trying to impart, but also to break up what has the potential to become mind-numbing routine.
Some routines are so vital to players that they become superstitious about losing games when they are not in place. Little things like which player sits where on the bus, what sock they put on first, and what song is played in the changing room. Instilled as traditions given wins when they were in place, they become vital to player preparation.
So while routine is a vital cog in both life in general, and coaching, lean on it too much and it not only becomes dull, but a crutch.
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