Having a good morning routine is perhaps one of the most desired goals. And for good
reason – it has so many benefits. But it also might be one of the hardest habits to achieve. Take it from me – someone who once had a meticulous morning routine, and who now has a
newborn and absolutely no morning routine other than my cup of coffee at 6 AM. So trust me, you’re not the only one who needs to get it together.
Sure enough, a good morning routine is one of the most important steps to a productive day and should be treated as such. But just as importantly, we need to make sure that it’s realistic,
appropriate, and achievable. Otherwise, it won’t be a sustainable routine that’s able to
become a part of your lifestyle.
Of course, you may have a large list of things that you would love to get done daily. But for
your morning routine to be achievable, you need to be smart about what activities you choose to be a part of it. You need to make it purposeful.
Identify and prioritise
Firstly, make a list of all the things you feel are really important in your life, but so easily
neglected. Some things that are on my list are yoga, journaling/writing, and
meditating/breathing. Ironically, these are usually the things that feed our soul, mind, and body. But because there’s always something “more important to do”, we put them at the bottom of the priority list. Once you’ve written a list, put them in order of importance to you.
If you’re anything like me, you probably want to wake up at 5 AM, work out, meditate,
journal a bit, have a shower, spend quality time with kids, write a book, learn the guitar, and solve the world’s biggest problem, all before 8 AM. I get it – there’s a lot of stuff that’s important to you.
If you’re struggling to define what it is that needs to be a part of your morning routine, check out this blog from SoulSALT and specifically focus on points 1 – 3.
Contemplate
Now that you’ve decided on what you’d like to include in your morning routine, write the
benefits of each and how it enriches your life. Ask yourself how much time you need to
spend on each one for it to be impactful. Is it 30 minutes, 10 minutes, or even 5 minutes?
After doing this, you might find that you’ve got too many things on your list that require too
much time for them to all be a part of your morning routine. And this is completely okay – if
this happens, remember to focus on the activities that will set you up for the rest of the day
and leave you feeling like a winner. You might find that the other activities can be squeezed
into other parts of your day, such as taking a 10-minute meditation breather during your lunch
break.
Implement
Now it’s time to action this. Write out what a typical morning looks like to you (wake up,
coffee, emails, shower, etc…). Take a look at your mornings and see where you can slot in
your desired activities, and perhaps take out others that aren’t being beneficial to you.
Don’t feel pressured to jump into the deep end with everything … rather start slow. There
are two ways it could be done. The first is to slowly implement each activity by starting with just one on the first day. Then two on the second day, three on the third, and so forth until your
morning routine is complete. The other way is to start with only dedicating a little bit of time
to each activity and then slowly building on it until you’re spending the amount of time you are wanting to on each.
Whatever your plan of action looks like, what’s important is that you do it in a way that’s achievable and sustainable for you daily. Take it from me, someone who has very little time to slip these things in between feeding a baby, changing nappies, and cleaning up mess … if it’s not sustainable within your current personal capacity, it won’t last.
Sometimes it calls for a bit of sacrifice…
There’s a hard part to everything meaningful. For you, the hard part could be needing to wake
up earlier, the choice of going for a run during winter or giving up your 15 minutes of
Facebook scrolling. Whatever it is, chances are it calls for a little bit of sacrifice. But is it
worth it? Yes. And if you need to be reminded of this, go back and look at your list stating
why each activity is beneficial and enriching to you.
Once your morning routine is going, the feeling is indescribable. It’s as if you’ve already
won at your day before you even had breakfast. In fact, this tactic of “winning before breakfast” is so compelling that we even dedicated a card to it in Resilience In A Box (Card 35). Because when you feel like some important stuff has already been seen to, you feel like you’re already winning. This could be the way you start every single day! Imagine that…and know just how possible it really is.