Morning Routine
Morning routines are what set you up for success. Doing a positive morning routine gets you in a positive, low stress mindset. When you have a low stress mindset, you feel better and perform better. When you have no designated morning routine, you put yourself into a state of anxiety to start your day and it becomes difficult to set yourself up to win.
Creating a conscious morning routine is the antidote to you feeling rushed, out of control, and frustrated. A strong morning routine will leave you feeling peaceful, centered, productive, and on track for an incredible day.
Lets walk through some components of a strong morning routine.
- NO PHONE. In the first 30 minutes of your day, it can feel so tempting to check your phone, respond to messages and emails, because our brains are primed to start the day in a reactive state. But if you allow your brain to do this, you’ll end up living life in a much more reactive state than is necessary. Instead, avoid your phone for the first 30 min to an hour to start your day.
- Drink 16-32 oz of pure water upon waking. Drinking water will help naturally flush toxins out of your system, re-energize you, and rehydrate you (when we sleep is when our bodies become the most dehydrated)
- Meditate for 5-10 minutes. We’ll discuss the benefits of meditation in week 10. Feel free to skip ahead to learn more about meditation and how it can improve your life. A simple meditation routine can go a long way to improving your day.
- Gratitude. Starting out your day by using a journal or even a simple sheet of paper to write out 3 things you feel grateful for helps focus you on the things in life you like and enjoy, rather than focusing on what you don’t like or don’t want. Most people wake up complaining or feeling sad about something. Gratitude helps re-focus you on what you want. More on this in Week 10.
- Planning. Spend 5-10 minutes thinking about what you want to accomplish that day, what you will eat, when you will workout and how you want to feel at the completion of your workout, and any other details of what you need to complete. You can write these out in a journal or app if you like if you prefer that to a sheet of paper.
- Stretch/Foam Roll. Stretching gets your mind and body opened and feeling good to start the day. Check out the benefits of stretching in Week 5.
- Reading. Reading an encouraging or inspiring book to start your day will fill your mind with good thoughts. Just like we need working out and eating clean for our bodies, our minds need constant instruction and positive information to improve our mental and emotional health.
- Walking. Another excellent practice to give yourself is to go on a daily walk for 20 minutes, either listening to something inspiring or nothing at all. More on the incredible benefits of walking in Week 8.
How To Create A Morning Routine
In order to create an updated morning routine, there are three keys.
1). Adjust your routine immediately meaning, don’t wait until a future week to start trying to upgrade your routine.
2). Don’t try to change EVERYTHING in your routine immediately. Try adding 1 or max, 2 things to your routine. For example, this week you can try adding drinking water and meditating for 5 minutes to your routine, the rest of the items on the list you can wait until future weeks.
Take out a sheet of paper and write out your ideal morning routine minute by minute. And then put a little **star next to the ones which are an absolute must. Then put it on your calendar for tomorrow when you’re going to complete this morning routine.
3). Don’t try to make your morning routine perfect the first time. You will learn more and more through time (and trial and error) what the best upgrades to your personal routine are and you can make changes accordingly.
What To Do Now
Write out your ideal morning routine.
- In order to do this, add in the items which I’ve listed in previous lessons as part of a healthy routine, and then add in things which are relevant for you (example: having coffee with your partner).
This is something we’ll be working towards creating over the next 4-6 months together.
- Write out the MUSTS in your routine. These are additions which you’ll make immediately. No more than 2 to add to your routine for this week. For example: meditation for 5 min each morning.
- Schedule out the time you’ll be waking up tomorrow morning, and your estimated schedule you’ll be following to tomorrow morning. Additionally, calendar your wake up times for the rest of the week.
- Post the new additions to your morning routine to the Facebook Group so we can keep you accountable.