We previously discussed Marcus Aurelius' morning routine, but what if you want to equally make
use of the evening to end your day well and set yourself up for the next day?
Well, then this video has been created for you, as we look at Marcus Aurelius' and generally
a stoic evening routine and what you can take from it to help benefit your wellbeing and
your life...
1.
Reflect - Just as in the morning you need to reflect
on your purpose for waking up and what duties you need to complete that day to ensure you
meet that purpose - In the evening you need to take time and
reflect on the day you had, looking at what went well and what didn't, as well as what
can be improved - It needs to focus on the self, on your performance
and your achievements or failures, because ultimately that's what you can control and
therefore change - Seneca suggests doing this by asking three
questions:
What bad habit have you put right today?
Which fault did you take a stand against?
In what respect are you better?
2.
Have a Court Session - When self examining your day, you need to
do so with as much objectivity as possible to ensure that you maintain a rational state
of mind and aren't governed by emotion - Therefore, treat it almost as if you're
in court, whereby you act as judge and review your actions, with impartiality and fairness
towards yourself - Doing this will not only help you identify
your successes and mistakes, but allows you to pass judgement on how to follow up on them
- For example, if you make mistakes, you accept them and try not to make them again, while
if there's incomplete tasks, you promise to fulfil your duties the next day
3.
Control Emotions - The point of the court session conducted
in your mind or when alone, is that you remove emotional elements to the facts to help you
understand the core of what was achieved in the day
- If you don't do this, we have a tendency to let emotions influence our state of mind
and thus distort the reality of what was achieved or how we saw it
- For example, you might think you did a task poorly during the day because the outcome
wasn't as you might have expected, but the reality might be you did the task as well
as it could have been done - With the issue not being the quality in
which you completed the task, but an external force which influenced the outcome beyond
your control
4.
Forgive - The previous point leads us to also move
onto this point, which is we need to maintain a mindset of forgiveness for ourselves as
long as our intention is to improve - After all, we're human and know we all have
imperfections that govern our results, yet we often set impossibly high standards for
ourselves - This leads to a lot of negative self talk
or a lack of self esteem, as we struggle to accept our failings and move on to continuing
through life - Therefore, during this process of self reflection,
it's equally important to accept and forgive our mistakes, instead with a growth mindset
to not repeat the process
5.
Self Improvement - Everything in the process of this evening
routine is to seek a process of self improvement, learning from what you do well and what you
do less so - This is a fundamental part of stoicism,
it's critical to seek self improvement and in order to do this you need to objectively
understand what you've accomplished - With the process of reflection on each day's
activities, you can seek to identify what you do well, where to improve and how to take
the next step in growth - So just like in the morning, use the evening
to help your personal journey of growth, and help you towards fulfilling your purpose in
life
What do you think of the mindset Marcus Aurelius had when doing his evening routine?
Let me know in the comments section below.
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