How to Make Personal and Realistic Daily Routines

If you are active on social media, are you familiar with trends such as ‘Get Ready with Me,’ ‘A Day in My Life,’ and ‘That Girl’?

These trends frequently involve people documenting their daily routines in the form of aesthetically pleasing videos. Despite being fun to watch, these videos might convey the idea of what a perfect daily routine one must have. Each person has distinct needs and lifestyles, so these idealized daily routines might not fit everyone.

This article will explore these trends more and explain how you could opt for more realistic, practical, and personalized daily routines.

Get ready with this article for a more realistic daily routine.

Understanding the GRWM and other routine-related trends

‘Get Ready with Me’ (GRWM), ‘A Day in My Life,’ and ‘That Girl’ are all trends that showcase people’s daily routines, encompassing productivity, personal care, and lifestyle aspects. Each type is somewhat different but broadly similar. The differences between these trends are:

GRWM: Featuring beauty routines such as skincare and makeup applications and outfit selections.
A Day in My Life: Featuring a structured full-day activities coverage of a person, often highlighting an integration of work, physical, social, and self-care activities.
That Girl: Featuring an idealized lifestyle of “that girl,” portrayed as a woman who gets up early, works out frequently, eats properly, keeps up a tidy appearance, and is very productive.

These videos primarily introduce viewers to fresh perspectives on their daily routines. A study by Adrian Meier and colleagues shows that exposure to others’ positive self-presentations on social network sites like Instagram can trigger upward social comparison, where individuals compare themselves to others perceived as superior in a particular aspect. This comparison could lead to positive outcomes such as media-induced inspiration, which can enhance well-being.

Therefore, witnessing the experiences and achievements of others online may motivate you to strive for personal growth and fulfillment in your own lives.

However, these inspirations do not mean that you should fully replicate the content creators’ entire life experiences and routines. Below are the common pitfalls of these trends that you should be mindful of:

Impersonal and unachievable expectations

These content creators live a different life with you. They have a different lifestyle and resources. In addition to that, the contents these creators showcase are often the glorified version of their realities. These trends might give off the idea that this life portrayed on screen is realistic and unattainable, where, in reality, it is a mere polished facade.

Having these unrealistic expectations could be detrimental to you. When unrealistic expectations are not achieved, individuals are more likely to feel despondent, frustrated, and give up on their process.

Reduced subjective well-being

Indeed, social media content could be an avenue for individuals to obtain inspiration. However, comparing oneself to unrealistic internet content is often detrimental to one’s subjective well-being.

A review article highlights how social networking sites often lead to reduced subjective well-being through social comparison. These platforms often present an abundance of overly positive content, fostering unrealistic standards and feelings of inadequacy or dissatisfaction when one compares one’s own life to the curated content. This can lead to envy, inferiority, and diminished self-esteem.

Overconsumption

The routine-related videos usually featured the products, clothing, and experiences that are part of their idealized daily routine. This could motivate individuals to make purchasing decisions to emulate that lifestyle.

This phenomenon is observed by Ally Consumer Research’s survey of 1,000 Gen-Z and Millennial American women. They found that after seeing it on GRWM videos on TikTok, 52% of the participants purchased the product showcased in the video.

Additionally, a study points out that influencers significantly impact followers’ desires to mimic them and their sense of materialism, ultimately affecting buying intentions. Plus, the fear of missing out (FOMO) factor further moderates the relationship between exposure to influencers and materialism and purchase intention.

However, it is important to be mindful when purchasing these products to emulate other people’s lifestyles. Since these creators usually promote luxury products and services in their content, simply buying what they have could result in overconsumption, even financial strains.

Practical steps for creating your personalized daily routine

Interestingly, it was proven that one’s happiness and meaning in life do not necessarily rely on grand and extraordinary experiences. It was shown that the mundane activities in one’s daily routine impact happiness and meaning in life, as they provide a sense of significance, purpose, and coherence.

However, it is important to note that everyone has different perspectives on what brings happiness and a sense of significance. Therefore, no one-size-fits-all daily routine guarantees meaning in life.

Thus, understand that these trendy routine videos are not the blueprints that guarantee your happiness. Instead, focus on creating a personalized routine that reflects your unique lifestyle needs and preferences. Below are the practical tips on how to personalize your routine:

Tailor a realistic plan

One of the most important steps to create a personalized daily routine that works for you is to plan. To be more precise, it is important to plan realistic goals. The goals you are about to achieve serve as a guide for your desired routine. To do so, you should avoid setting vague goals, such as ‘living a healthy life.’ Instead, you should break it down to be more specific and detailed,

By breaking down larger objectives into smaller, achievable steps, you can manage competing demands and maintain a sense of equilibrium between work, personal life, and self-care. Below are some examples of specific and detailed goals:

Going to the gym at least three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Sleep eight hours a night (from 10 PM to 6 AM)
Not skipping breakfast every day

Start small

When watching the content creators’ videos, it is normal to want drastic, one-eighty-degree changes in your life. Unfortunately, Rome was not built in a day, and the same is true for the routines you aspire to have.

So, begin by incorporating small, manageable changes into your daily routine. Once you feel comfortable and confident, you can gradually adjust the changes you want to make.

For example, if you have been accustomed to going to bed after 12 AM, trying to fall asleep at 10 PM may be very hard. So, you could start with a smaller change by aiming to sleep at midnight.

Set priorities

Once you have come up with a set of goals, the next thing you need to do is to make sure that it reflects your needs, preferences, and resources. Setting priorities would help you to create a rhythm and consistency in your routines, fostering stability. The ways to do so are as follows:

List it all. List down each task you plan to incorporate into your routine. This should cover every domain of your life, including work, personal interest, caregiving, and self-care.
Evaluate the cost. Once listed, you should evaluate the opportunity costs associated with each of these tasks. This includes the financial, time, energy, and social capital needed to execute the activities.
Identify the crucial tasks. After identifying each of the costs, you should notice which activities are crucial (achieving the work deadline or feeding the cat) and optional (learning a new language or binge-watching a TV show). This will allow you to get a clear picture of what needs to be done and what would be nice to do, which will allow you to allocate your time and energy accordingly.

Keep yourself accountable

Sometimes, you may find yourself procrastinating on the tasks you have committed to your routine. To mitigate this, you have to keep an eye on how you employ the plan you have set. Here are a few ways for you to do so:

Identify a target behavior. Select a goal that you tend to put in the back of your mind.
Set a scheduled time. Set a time when you can check in and reflect on your goal accomplishment.
Record. Write down the execution of this goal, whether in the paper, journal, or on the phone. You should note the frequency, duration, or intensity of the targeted behavior.

Be open to inspiration

Indeed, it is important to have a personalized daily routine that works for you. However, this does not mean that you should completely avoid adopting the positive behavior that you saw in the influencers’ routine videos. These positive activities may suit you and help you live a happier life.

Here are the steps you could take to adapt the inspirations to fit your real life:

Identify and write down the positive activities you consider incorporating into the daily routine.
Jot down the specific experiences or achievements you may obtain by incorporating the positive activities you have previously come up with. This could be better work-life balance, relationships, personal growth, etc.
Write down the cost of resources needed to employ these positive behaviors. This would allow you to consider the attainability of this activity by being aware of the potential hazards or difficulties involved. For example, if you are planning to incorporate a daily run every morning, you may have to spend some money on good-quality running shoes and other activewear.
Reflect on your personal values and how these behaviors can resonate with them. This will allow you to decide if these new behaviors are important to what truly matters to you. So in regards to daily running, you have to spend some money. However, if your priority lies in the importance of health, then this task would be considered important and worth the cost.
Decide on whether the activities should be included in the routine.

Be kind to yourself

Sometimes, you may fail to achieve your goals. That is okay. Remember that ‘perfectly imperfect is perfect,’ so you won’t be fully disappointed when you fail to execute the plan.

So, when you feel overwhelmed by the thought of having to go to the gym three times a week, you should not feel like an utter failure. Instead, you could adjust the plan, make it once a week, and gradually increase it once you feel comfortable.

In conclusion

The problem with the routines featured in the GRWM, ‘A Day in My Life,’ and ‘That Girl’ videos is that they are not a blueprint that will fit everyone.

However, the solution is not to avoid these social media-influenced routines at all costs. Instead, individuals should stay open to the inspiration from this video while being mindful of whether these activities will work with their needs and preferences.

So, shake up your daily routine and be the director of your own life.

If you would like to see more resources on daily routine, check out the Happiness Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Happiness Science Labs today.

Photo by Freepik

Jelita Rizqullah