In June 2019 I, along with some friends, hiked to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states at 14,505 feet. Because of the sizeable amount of precipitation California received that year, the “hike” turned into a climb, complete with crampons, ice axes, and uneasy footing at the highest elevations. For someone with no experience as a mountaineer, it was a real accomplishment, the hardest physical task I’ve completed in my life.

In looking back on the climb, sixteen months later, what sticks out is not the happiness of reaching the summit, but the memories of the journey to make the climb and the preparation that went into making the climb. Our group of friends worked out together for months, hiking lesser peaks and regularly meeting in Laguna Beach to complete “Thousand Steps” weekly.

The Mt. Whitney experience recalls the concept of “The Happiness Archetype” as defined by positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar. According to Ben-Shahar, well known for teaching one of the most popular classes at Harvard, “Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing toward the peak.”

So why was the Whitney experience so memorable?

It was because of ritual, or the “process” of getting prepared to climb Whitney. As the group met weekly in different places in Southern California, we formed strong bonds and connections in the shared experience of being in nature together. We would couple long hikes with cold beers after, and many laughs in the car ride there and back. This highlights the importance of “process” as it relates to happiness. Studies have shown that happiness compounds through consistency and ritual. It’s part of the human experience to feel untethered adrift in a complex and unforgiving world. Ritual and routine can tether us to that world.

According to Ben-Shahar these rituals are of utmost importance

What rituals would make you happier? What would you like to introduce to your life? It could be working out three times a week, meditating for fifteen minutes every morning, watching two movies a month, going on a date with your spouse on Tuesdays, pleasure reading for an hour every other day, and so on. Introduce no more than one or two rituals at a time, and make sure they become habits before you introduce new ones.

The past year has been one of turbulence for the World, as the pandemic has changed how we live our lives and interact with the world. As the experience has dragged on, I’ve once again realized how important routine is in my life. I’ve been dealing with massive upheaval and change in my personal life, which, coupled with the pandemic, has made the stress compound immensely.

What I’ve found is that if I keep my daily routine and not fall into bad habits, I’ve been able to control my happiness set point, finding positivity and happiness even on days where I’m dealing with immense stress both personally and professionally.

So why the daily routine?

It keeps me grounded.

It keeps me thinking big picture.

It helps me avoid falling into bad habits.

I’m not the first person to write about a daily routine, and I realize it’s become a bit of a cliché in the “self-help” industry, but for good reason. A consistent daily routine is incredibly effective in driving a positive mindset, overall performance, and positivity in how we interact with the world.

So what is my morning routine? Simple.

1. Get up at the same time every day, even on the weekends.

2. Spend 5 minutes journaling, typically in the Daily Stoic Journal by Ryan Holiday.

3. Do a guided meditation through the Calm app, ten minutes.

4. Do three-cycles of Wim Hof breathing, 6 to 8 minutes.

5. Each morning, and each night, I do a ten-minute series of full body stretches.

6. Most mornings, but not every day, take a shower that includes 5 minutes on cold.

That is the routine, it’s simple and easy, completed in 30 to 40 minutes, and it works, something I know from personal experience. I went through a lull a couple of months back where I was off track both mentally and from a diet/exercise standpoint. The lull coincided with personal upheaval, but it also coincided with a period where I was not following the daily routine. The sooner I got back on a consistent morning routine, the quicker I found myself back on track in a handful of key areas.

A consistent morning routine is about making time to affect positive change in your life, and the concept of “time affluence” is a real thing that has been shown to affect overall well-being substantially. According to Ben-Sharrar “psychologist, Tim Kasser shows in his research that time affluence is a consistent predictor of well-being, whereas material affluence is not. Time affluence is the feeling that one has sufficient time to pursue activities that are personally meaningful, to reflect, to engage in leisure.”

I’m so busy

I just don’t have the time

These are common refrains that we all hear from others, and we’ve all uttered ourselves. And yes, sometimes we get incredibly busy and can’t find an hour to walk the beach or have coffee with a friend. The truth is we do have the time. Even with our busy lives, we can always find the time to scroll through social media for an hour, or binge-watch Netflix, or spend three-hours watching our favorite football team. There isn’t anything wrong with using our free time to do any of these activities, as I will gladly sit down on a Sunday to watch the Green Bay Packers play football. The bigger point is most of us have the time, and even if we don’t have the time during our work-day, we can easily get up thirty minutes early to see how meditation can affect our lives, for example.

Right now I’m happy. I’m sitting down, writing this article, something very few people will even read. But, I’m expressing myself and exercising a passion that I’ve long had. In looking back at my sporadic entries over the past couple of years the reader can correctly assume that I’ve been dealing with Resistance (both internal and external) around finding the time and motivation to write.

What the critics don’t understand is that not all writing is autobiographical. I write to express myself but also to express my aspirational self— who I strive to be but sometimes find difficulty achieving. In times of stress and discomfort, you can still find positives and things that are working in your favor. For me, it’s the simplicity of the daily routine and how, when I’m consistently following it, it keeps me grounded and on track. More importantly, though, I write to express myself because it makes me happy. The routine of writing makes me fulfilled and happy and gives me an outlet to escape the critics and the naysayers.

It’s about finding an outlet for expression and a routine that provides an outlet for positive behaviors— all-important in raising and maintaining your happiness set point.

Ben-Shahar has coined the phrase “arrival fallacy” which defines the false belief that reaching a value destination can sustain our happiness. The idea is that once we achieve our big goal (promotion at work for example), we will reach lasting happiness. In the process of working and striving towards our goal we allude ourselves into believing that we will be happy once we reach that goal, but what inevitably happens is the achievement is followed with the feeling of “is this all there is?”

We’ve all heard the well-used phrase that “it’s not the destination, but the journey", but it’s true. It really is the journey, and your journey may start with finding an effective morning routine.