By 
Ever feel like you’re sleepwalking through your own life?
I spent most of my mid-twenties that way. Had the degree, ticked all the boxes society told me to tick, yet I’d wake up each morning with this gnawing emptiness.
The anxiety was constant, like background static I couldn’t turn off, then I found myself in a warehouse in Melbourne and shifting TVs for eight hours a day.
Talk about a reality check! Here I was with my background in psychology, loading boxes and wondering where everything went sideways, but that warehouse job became my unlikely monastery.
With nothing but time and repetitive work, I started experimenting with Buddhist principles I’d been reading about, like practical stuff I could apply while stacking boxes and dealing with difficult coworkers.
What happened over the next few months surprised me: The practices I stumbled upon didn’t just help me cope with the warehouse work.
They gave me different ways to notice my reactions and think about how I wanted to act.
These are personal routines inspired by Buddhist ideas. Their effects vary, and the age of a tradition does not establish that a particular routine reliably changes someone within a fixed period.
Here are five routines you can consider and evaluate in your own circumstances.
1) Start each day with intentional silence
Your phone alarm goes off, what’s the first thing you do?
If you’re like most people, you’re scrolling through notifications before your feet hit the floor.
Email, news, social media, all flooding your brain before you’ve even had a chance to think your own thoughts.
Buddhist psychology calls this “monkey mind,” or the restless, unsettled state where your attention jumps from branch to branch without ever finding stillness.
Here’s what changed everything for me: I started giving myself 15 minutes of complete silence every morning.
No phone, no podcast, and no music, just me and my thoughts.
At first, it was torture. My mind would race through my to-do list, replay arguments, worry about money.
However, after about two weeks, something shifted and the mental noise started settling, like sediment in water when you stop stirring it.
My phone-free morning routine is a personal adaptation inspired by Buddhist attention practices. It gives me a little space to notice my thoughts before responding to the day’s demands.
It’s about creating space between you and your thoughts; you start seeing them as weather patterns passing through, not permanent fixtures of who you are.
Try this tomorrow: sit with your coffee or tea in silence for a manageable period. You do not need to force a formal meditation session. Notice the thoughts that arise and gently return to what is around you.
Notice whether this time is useful to you. There is no guaranteed change by day 30 or day 90, and feeling unsettled does not mean you are doing it wrong.
2) Practice “response pause” before every reaction
Someone cuts you off in traffic, your boss sends a passive-aggressive email, and your partner brings up that thing you did wrong three months ago; what happens next usually determines whether your day improves or spirals.
Contemporary meditation teacher Tara Brach discusses a “sacred pause” as an opportunity for presence. The short pause I describe here is my personal application of that idea.
Taking a moment before responding can give you an opportunity to notice what is happening. It is a small practical suggestion to try when the situation allows.
I learned this the hard way during my warehouse days as I had a supervisor who seemed to enjoy making my life difficult.
Every interaction left me seething, until I started implementing a simple practice: counting to three before responding to anything he said.
Those three seconds changed everything. Instead of matching his energy, I could choose my response.
Sometimes that meant staying quiet or asking a clarifying question, but it was always my choice and not my conditioning running the show.
A pause may let you notice your feelings, consider the situation, and choose what to say. Sometimes it will be easier than others, and a strong feeling may remain even when you choose a different response.
The next time someone texts you something that triggers you, wait one full minute before responding.
When someone says something that annoys you, take one deep breath before speaking.
The aim is to make room for a more deliberate response when possible. Practice does not guarantee that you will always respond calmly or wisely.
3) End the day with radical honesty
How often do you actually examine your own behavior?
I’m talking about the uncomfortable questions, like did you act from ego today? Did you cause unnecessary suffering? Did you live according to your values or just drift through on default mode?
Ethical reflection inspires my personal end-of-day routine. I use it to think about how I acted and what I could do differently.
Every night before bed, I spend ten minutes reviewing my day through three questions:
- Where did I act from fear instead of love?
- Where did I create suffering (for myself or others)?
- Where did I miss an opportunity to be present?
Try to observe a specific action without turning the review into a judgment of your whole character.
This exercise is inspired by attention to conduct and consequences. I use it as a prompt to consider a specific moment from the day.
The aim is to think about the impact of a choice and what I might do differently next time.
You may notice patterns you would like to change, such as interrupting or checking out during a conversation. It can help to focus on one specific action.
Noticing a pattern can be a starting point; changing it may still take effort, support, and practical steps.
You may begin noticing some patterns earlier, or you may need other strategies to change them. There is no fixed deadline for that.
4) Replace consuming with creating
What did you create today? What did you actually bring into existence that wasn’t there before?
For this exercise, consumption versus creation is a metaphor inspired by Buddhist hungry-ghost imagery. The hungry-ghost realm is part of traditional Buddhist cosmology; a paired creative realm is not. The comparison here is a way to reflect on how you spend your time, rather than a recognized Buddhist classification.
How much of your day is spent consuming, and how much creating?
We scroll through other people’s lives, consume their content, and react to their creations, but we rarely flip the script and become creators ourselves.
When I started Hack Spirit in 2016, it wasn’t because I had all the answers—far from it, I’m still very much a student of these practices—but I realized that documenting my journey, creating something from my struggles, and transformed my relationship with those struggles.
Pick a manageable form of creation to try regularly: write a few words, draw a sketch, build something, or cook a meal. Review what fits your life rather than committing to a guaranteed transformation in 90 days.
Quality doesn’t matter, consistency does. This is about shifting from passive consumption to active participation in your own life.
For me, creating something offers an opportunity for attention and participation. The project can be small; what matters is choosing something I want to engage with.
Repeated projects can leave you with something you have made. How that feels and whether it changes other parts of life will vary.
5) Practice “difficult person” meditation
Think of someone who drives you absolutely crazy.
Got them in mind? Good, they’re about to become your greatest teacher.
Buddhist loving-kindness meditation usually starts with sending good wishes to yourself, then loved ones, then neutral people, then difficult people.
Some people find it difficult to extend kind wishes to someone who has hurt or annoyed them. You can adapt the exercise without forcing a feeling.
This is my adaptation: spend a few minutes considering a difficult person with curiosity. It may be useful, but it does not guarantee a change in feelings or make their behavior acceptable.
What shaped them? What are they afraid of? What are they protecting?
This is about recognizing that your reaction to difficult people reveals more about your own internal state than it does about them.
During my warehouse period, I used my challenging supervisor as my daily practice.
Instead of mentally rehearsing arguments with him, I started getting curious about what made him tick.
Well, it turned out he was going through a divorce, worried about losing his job, and taking it out on everyone around him.
Did that make his behavior okay? No, but understanding it freed me from taking it personally.
This practice targets what Buddhists call “the second arrow,” and the first arrow is what happens to you while the second arrow is your reaction to it.
You cannot always control what happens or the feelings that arise. You may sometimes reduce the extra distress created by dwelling on a situation, but that reaction is not always a voluntary choice.
You may still find the same person upsetting. The practice is an experiment in how you respond, without a promise that triggers will disappear within 90 days.
Final words
These five practices are more like compound interest for your character.
People respond differently, and changes may be modest or uneven. You do not need to meet a day-by-day timetable to find a practice useful.
Buddhist traditions offer ways to reflect on suffering and conduct. That history is not equivalent to scientific testing of these five routines.
If you choose to try one, keep it manageable and review whether it helps. Consistency alone does not guarantee a benefit.
Start with one practical action you can manage today.
The question is whether you’ll stick around long enough to let them work on you.