How Everyday Rituals Can Add Meaning to Your Life

Are there issues that you just do in sure settings, at explicit instances, that evoke a sense and remind you of what’s essential? After I step as much as bat in softball, I faucet the bat twice simply previous the plate, “squish the bug” with my again foot, and pinch the brim of my cap. I jiggle a ribbon with little charms on it that hangs from my rearview mirror earlier than beginning to drive—and extra vigorously after a close to miss. As month-to-month as I can handle, I stroll with my youngsters and siblings to a particular hill to look at the total moon rise, eat spherical cookies, drink sizzling tea from a thermos, and honor my late mom.

A 2002 article by Barbara Fiese within the Journal of Household Psychology concluded that individuals who engaged in additional routines and rituals felt extra competent at parenting and extra happy with their marriages, and had kids who have been extra well-adjusted. Other evidence means that rituals convey individuals collectively by bodily synchronous behaviors, shared beliefs and aspirations, and a warmhearted mix of humility and customary humanity.

In his new e-book, The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions, Harvard Enterprise Faculty professor Michael Norton shares the true advantages to cultivating and commonly participating in rituals. I spoke with Norton about what that appears like in our lives and at work.

Emiliana Simon-Thomas: What’s a ritual? How do you even outline the time period?

Michael Norton: The factor that involves thoughts if we are saying the phrase ritual is individuals in robes, candles, chanting, possibly within the mountains someplace. And people are rituals, for certain, however the sort that I obtained actually eager about are primarily those which can be just a little extra on a regular basis, significantly those who we make up ourselves. They’re usually extraordinarily mundane, however we imbue them with lots of that means.

The exact same boring process could be simply that—a process or a behavior—or if it takes on a particular that means, then it will probably begin to turn into a ritual. I used to be speaking to athletes the opposite day, and I requested them: “How do you tie your footwear?” All of them had a really particular method of tying their footwear, which shoe first and the laces and the way tight. After which I requested: “How do you’re feeling when you do it a distinct method?” And so they have been like: “I by no means have.”

Whenever you get extra emotion and extra that means, that’s when issues transfer away from a dry behavior—it’s extra than simply getting the factor executed. It’s the way you do it and the way you’re feeling about it.

EST: Why is having a ritual as an alternative of a behavior or routine useful? Why is it good for well-being?

MN: In case your habits are simply habits and also you simply undergo them like a robotic, each single day, at all times stand up at 6, then at all times go for this run for this period of time, at all times eat lettuce, no matter it could be, it’s an impassive day. If you happen to lived an entire life like that, I believe you may look again and be like, I want I had executed extra various things than simply excellent habits.

Including ritual to these issues fills them with emotion. Swiftly, tying your footwear makes you’re feeling like “I’m gonna win this race!” However when you can’t tie your footwear the best way you need, then you definately really feel off. So you’ll be able to’t simply add rituals to life and then you definately’ll be blissful for the remainder of your days. Once we add rituals to our lives, they arrive with actual potentialities, but additionally some drawbacks. Rituals don’t at all times assist, and typically they will get in the best way.

There’s some very cool analysis on baseball gamers once they’re at bat. On common, this pattern of baseball gamers made 83 distinct actions earlier than every swing: touching their hat, adjusting their batting gloves and the bat, and all these things. They’re doing these rituals that they’ve been doing for years to really feel like, OK, I’m prepared. Now I can hit a 100-mile-an-hour fastball. That’s a tough factor to get amped up for. There’s a narrative of a baseball prospect and the scouts principally stated, “This man has so many pre-at-bat rituals that he can’t get out of his head.” If you happen to stored doing them whereas the pitch got here in, clearly you strike out, proper? So we all know there’s a restrict on rituals the place they get to be interfering relatively than useful.

EST: It appears like rituals assist once they’re calming in contexts the place there’s uncertainty. Is that this why rituals are so distinguished in non secular and religious contexts—as a result of they’re about mysteries of what it means to be human and alive?

MN: Sure, I do suppose that we flip to rituals when there’s extra stress and extra uncertainty. There’s actually fascinating analysis on rain dances throughout cultures, internationally. You see that partly it’s predicted by not simply areas that don’t have lots of rain, however areas which have lots of climate variability. If there’s by no means any rain, we will simply plan that we’re simply by no means going to have rain. But when possibly we’ll have lots of rain, possibly we’ll don’t have any rain—that type of uncertainty—these are the cultures the place these sorts of practices are most probably to emerge.

EST: Are you able to inform me about rituals in workplaces? Does ambiguity of {the marketplace} ever immediate one thing akin to a rain dance?

MN: On the New York Inventory Trade, there’s the ringing of the bell, the place totally different teams are available in and typically celebrities are available in—a “let’s bless the day by the ceremonial ringing of the bell.”

Rituals can come into play even in contexts which can be presupposed to be rational and monetary. However the primary place we see rituals at work is definitely in groups, after which additionally how individuals depart work behind on the finish of the day. If we simply ask individuals, “Do you and your group have any actions that you just do commonly which can be particular, which can be distinctive to your group?,” groups that say sure are likely to report that they discover their work extra significant than groups that don’t have one thing like that.

EST: How would you suggest an organization create a brand new ritual that might yield these advantages?

MN: The rituals that workers have a tendency to inform us about are ones they got here up with themselves. It’s much less that I’d go to an organization and say, “The analysis reveals that when you do seven stomps and 12 claps, that’s the important thing factor everyone must do,” as a result of that’s not what we see. As an alternative, give individuals house and time to see if they’ve a ritual already. You possibly can ask them, “What do you do if you begin conferences? What do you do for lunch? Or do you’ve gotten any inside jokes?”

There’s often a tradition on groups, and you’ll give them the house to give you it themselves. First off, it’s extra enjoyable, but additionally it’s much less mandated and it comes from them as an alternative of from administration.

EST: Let’s think about there’s an energized worker who has rituals and achievement at work, after which they drive house and their house life feels very mundane and tedious. Do rituals additionally enrich private relationships?

MN: Even on the best way house, we see individuals participating in rituals to attempt to separate work from their house life as a result of we’re presupposed to be a distinct individual in these two contexts. We additionally need to depart work behind—the stress and the concerns—in order that we could be current with our household.

We did some analysis with emergency room nurses. We requested them, “What do you do on the finish of the day?” And so they had some very elaborate rituals to attempt to depart work behind. One individual got here house, at all times took a bathe, and had a beer within the bathe. They imagined because the water swirled down the drain that the hospital and the stress have been swirling down the drain, as effectively. Individuals who do these sorts of actions have just a little bit higher separation between work and residential.

We ask {couples} and households the very same query that we ask groups at work, which is, “Do you’ve gotten one thing that you just be sure that to do commonly, that’s very particular to you, that’s distinctive from different {couples} or households?” My favourite couple has this ritual the place earlier than they eat, they clink their forks collectively, which is so random. What might be extra boring than a fork? However they’ve turned it into this cute little factor that no person else does.

Trying on the information, {couples} that say they do these issues report increased relationship satisfaction than {couples} that don’t. And we see the identical factor with households. If we ask about Thanksgiving, individuals who say they’ve rituals are each extra more likely to maintain gathering as a household, and the day is much less aggravating.


In my household, we do gratitude initially of each dinner: “What are you grateful for?” Different households do different issues; some households name out a win that they’d that day and rejoice it. With these little rituals, you’re signaling that you just’re a household, you’re signaling who you’re as a household, and what you worth and that you just love one another.

We don’t know, nonetheless, if it’s households who already like one another who create rituals [or vice versa]. However you do see this actually sturdy sign that when rituals are current, they’re related to advantages for not simply us as people, however our romantic accomplice and our youngsters, as effectively.

EST: What about life transitions or formative moments—is {that a} time when persons are extra more likely to have sure sorts of rituals, and do these assist?

MN: Generally individuals say, “I don’t have any rituals.” However I’ll ask them, “Have you ever ever completed one thing after which for some motive obtained a extremely ugly-looking gown and a hat that has a sq. on high of it with a tassel hanging off of it? And did you then in entrance of everyone go up on a stage and shake fingers with somebody and seize a scroll of paper that’s from the 14th century? After which take your hat off on the finish and throw it away up within the air?” 

In fact, we’ve all engaged in rituals: when you’ve been to a marriage, when you’ve been to a funeral, when you’ve blown out candles on a birthday cake. We use these rituals once we make massive transitions in life. Most cultures have one thing for youths, roughly between the age of 12 and 16, once they go from being a child to an grownup. All religions, many cultures have this sort of ceremony of passage in place. We do them many instances in life; it isn’t simply that one time after which we’re executed.

One other massive change in life is grief and loss—and now we have rituals round that. Most cultures on this planet, for instance, have a colour related to a funeral. Within the U.S., it’s black, however in different international locations it’s white. Some international locations it’s crimson; some international locations it’s inexperienced. You put on these colours on the day of the funeral, after which there’s practices the place you proceed to put on that colour for a short time afterward, so that folks can see you’re grieving. If you happen to’re nonetheless carrying black, then I do know that you just’re grieving. If you happen to haven’t shaved in a really very long time, I can guess that maybe you’re grieving. The gatherings themselves give us social help, they pull us along with everybody we all know, after which if we proceed to put on the colour, others can proceed to assist us with our grief.

EST: Is there the rest that you just suppose could be worthwhile for readers to know?

MN: As a primary step, I give it some thought much less like “I’m going to give you 9 new rituals and begin doing them” and extra about taking a listing of what you already do. Consider your morning, what do you do? Whenever you get to work, what do you do? What do you do in your groups at work? What do you and your partner do this’s particular? What does your loved ones do along with your youngsters that’s particular? Simply see them; they’re occurring already. If you happen to don’t suppose you’ve gotten them, you’ll be able to ask your partner or your kids or your coworkers. They’ll inform you all of your rituals.

It’s useful simply to personal them, to acknowledge them. Whenever you enact them deliberately like that, they will have a larger resonance. After they give thought to a ritual they’ve been doing for some time, individuals usually snigger at themselves just a little bit, in a pleasant method. Like, oh, we’re doing extra fork clinking once more. It provides one thing to the expertise that’s free. If we will acknowledge it and identify it, I believe it may give it much more that means.