Give it a name

One way to turn a routine into a tradition

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that you can make a ritual or tradition
feel even more special by giving it a name. Giving

(00:26):
something a name makes it feel distinct. It becomes a
character in your life and in your memory, which ultimately
gives it a place of honor. Today's tip, like another
one we'll talk about this week, comes from Happier Hour,
a book by UCLA Business School professor Cassie Holmes on

(00:47):
how to spend your time well. Holmes writes about how
she and her preschool aged daughter had a weekly coffee
date that they both loved, so they wanted to make
it feel even more vi. As Holmes put it, they
turned routine into ritual and made it a thing. Holmes explains,

(01:09):
whereas habits serve to help get us through the day
without extra thought, traditions imbue these passing moments with greater meaning.
Traditions serve to connect us to each other and across time.
They give us a sense of belonging. Holmes and her
daughter did a lot of things to make their coffee

(01:31):
dates feel more special, but one approach deserves attention because
it is so easy to replicate. They gave the experience
a name. It became the Thursday morning coffee date using
capital letters. Now this may seem like a small thing,

(01:51):
but when something has a formal name, it becomes more formal,
it feels more important. Just as an example, there is
nothing stopping you from gathering with friends and family to
give thanks on the fourth Thursday of November just to
do so. But by calling it Thanksgiving dinner, we create

(02:14):
weight for the occasion, and we think about how we
will do it year to year, and how we did
it last year, and what we like to see and eat,
and we build it into the mental landscape of that
time of year. Likewise, two people can get coffee in
a muffin most Thursdays with no particular ceremony, but by

(02:34):
calling it the Thursday morning coffee date, it becomes more
of an institution. No doubt, Holmes and her daughter would
talk about it ahead of time or say, remember when
this happened at the last Thursday morning coffee date. I
will add to this that if you give something a name,
then turning it into an acronym can make it feel

(02:56):
even a little bit more special because you know the acronym.
As an insider, back when I was a freshman in
high school, I remember that four senior girls took out
an ad in the yearbook about Jack. Those four letters
were the first letters of their names. Now, who knows

(03:18):
whatever became of Jack, as these ladies are all grown
up now, but they made it very clear that their
foursome was an institution. Do you have any routines that
you'd like to make even more special and transform into
a tradition. Perhaps you walk with your kids to school
on Wednesdays, or you have Sunday morning waffles, or you

(03:41):
generally have lunch with your direct reports on Fridays. Try
giving these routines a name. The names don't have to
be particularly poetic, and often they'll have merged naturally. It's
just a matter of noticing them and formalizing them by
capitalizing the name and then using the same name all

(04:02):
the time. For instance, if your walk to school becomes
the Wednesday walk, then instead of hollering at the kids
to hurry up, we'll be late, you start hollering, we
need to do the Wednesday walk. Or your Sunday waffles
could become the waffle wake up. People love alliteration. Maybe
you start calling your Friday lunches your celebration lunches as

(04:26):
a way to get people to focus on everything that
went right during the week. When we give our habits
and routines names as part of transforming them into traditions,
we create opportunities to recognize meaning in our everyday lives.
Ordinary experiences can become extraordinary. They connect us to each

(04:50):
other and to our past and to our future. If
you give a routine a name and transform it into
a tradition, I'd love to hear about it. You can
reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In
the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's

(05:13):
to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening
to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

(05:37):
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