When used purposefully and intentionally, anything you want to achieve can be materialised through the right ritual or routine – including thought leadership.

While we often have routines, it’s easy to fall into the trap of running on autopilot. But thought leadership is rarely about coasting; there needs to be intention, consistency, and a deliberate quality of action to it. And while thought leadership is a constant stream of thinking, reading, writing, speaking and synthesising, it doesn’t often occupy a block in our calendars – but it should.

It’s time to embrace the potential of (secular) rituals as a way of gearing our brains into the right mindsets, keeping certain parts of our lives distinct, and to help us stay on course when we need it most.

Rituals are your turbo-boost

If you’re going to develop your thinking and aspire to be a thought leader, then you should have a system that gets you into your zone of genius quickly and reliably.

Rituals give us a kind of mental safety net to operate in the wider world. Whether that’s listening to the Beatles’ White Album on the train home or taking a particular walk to the office in the morning, we all have a set of routines that we follow and that have a subtle way of making us feel more comfortable.

The trick is to make these routines intentional – to turn them into deliberate rituals that securely put you in the right mindset. It’s about making an active decision with your mindset, not a passive one.

I know that coffee-breakfast-teeth-shower-dress-desk is my morning sequence. That’s particularly odd or bold, I know. But because those six steps are intentional, that first coffee starts putting my head into the right space for an excellent day ahead. By the time I’m at my desk, I’m already running. Throw off that sequence, and it’s a lot harder to get going.

Build an intentional set of behaviours or actions that you take to get you into a session of deep thinking, and ritualise it. Make each decision deliberate, and soon you’ll have a way of fast-tracking your way into your next ideation session.

Accountability is key

You only get better at something when you practice – and combine showing up with being present. Yes, you get better at reading by reading – but you become a better reader when you read with intention. You get good at running a business by getting to the office each day – but you become a better leader by thinking strategically about your business decisions.

You can get better at thinking by thinking – but you become a thought leader by consistently dedicating intentional time to developing and critiquing your ideas.

Thought leadership is both a discipline and a practice that is only achievable through consistent efforts. That means it should be a part of your weekly ritual. It’s not an afterthought, or a When I have time activity.

If you are wanting to build your thought leadership, it should be on par with the rest of your priorities within the working week. We find it best to use our calendars to block out these sessions. That sacred time is yours to do the deep thinking we otherwise rarely set aside time to tap into.

Some of our greatest thinkers have been habitually journaling long before it was considered a useful tool. Thomas Edison meticulously recorded his every thought, experience, and idea. (He was also something of a magpie, picking up great works from others and taking them even further.) Regardless of the scribbles, burns and rips in the pages, his records represent a conscious stream of blueprints to some of our greatest inventions. While you might not be perfecting the lightbulb, thought leadership begins to form in your notebook. Beyond that, thought leadership – as a discipline – is holding yourself accountable and showing up regularly to engage with your ideas and improve them, even if they are a bit messy.

Thought leadership – not just in theory but in practice

What should that deep thinking session look like? There is no rhyme or rule. It can be as simple as making notes while reading a book in your area of expertise, seeing what others are saying and what two cents you can add – that’s the synthesis where thought leadership lies. It’s reflecting on those notes at the beginning of your next session and using them to build upon your thinking.

Whatever it looks like, it should be as deliberate and slowly evolving as your own White Album routine. It is the equivalent of cultivating a new skill or learning a new language and should have as much regularity in your schedule as anything else if you want to have any momentum toward success. Much like the psychology of space mentioned in our previous blog that helps me queue whatever mindset I need to write, the ritualisation of putting thought leadership into practice is no different. A ritual helps us to locate ourselves within time and space – especially when it feels as though we don’t have much of either.

There is always room for thought leadership in your schedule – it might be time you made a ritual of it.