Routines are one of the strong foundations on our journey to prioritising our holistic health and building a lifestyle where we feel aligned, fulfilled and free. Being busy is our daily reality, so without them, we can end up feeling overwhelmed, unproductive and disempowered. The first routine of our day is the one that starts as soon as we open our eyes, our morning routine.
Our morning sets the tone for the whole day ahead. This is where we have the opportunity to choose how we are going to feel for the day. When we are conscious that we actually have that choice, we can choose to make the most out of our day while feeling in control. I can almost guarantee, if your morning is rushed, your whole day is going to feel the same. What ends up happening when we rush, is our nervous system perceives this rushing as stress and it goes into a flight or fright response. When we activate this sympathetic nervous system, our body reacts as if we are in a life-threatening situation, and releases adrenalin, which is perfect if we were being hunted by a lion and need to run, but not so great when all we are doing is beginning our day. When we are living in our flight or fright mode for the majority of the day, we may find it hard to get to sleep, be present with others, have control over our thoughts or completely relax. Who wants to feel like that?
This is just one reason of many for why a solid morning routine is important for us, in order to thrive in our day to day life.
Here are 10 tips to create your own solid morning routine.
- Focus on how you want to feel during your day, and create a morning routine with actions, activities and experiences that create that feeling so you can embody it throughout your whole day. For example, if you want to feel relaxed - try meditation, if you want to feel more energetic – do some high-intensity exercise, or if you want to feel organised - spend 5 minutes checking in and writing a list of your top 3 priorities for the day.
- Create a morning routine that works for you! Don’t worry about what your best friend, your partner or that person you follow on social media is doing, it has to feel good for you.
- Begin your morning routine at the same time every morning. Yes, this means waking up at the same time every morning and no snoozing as this reinforces your body’s natural circadian rhythm. It also helps to go to bed at the same time every night too – so your morning routine really starts the night before!
- Prioritise time and space to invest in your mindset and choose your thoughts for the day e.g. meditation, journaling, reading over your current goals, reading a few pages of a personal growth book or writing out some affirmations.
- Commit to making time just for you. This will help prime yourself to feel good about yourself and the day ahead, which will then in turn to have a flow-on effect on how you show up for the people around you. This may mean waking up earlier than you ever have, it will be worth it.
- Prepare all that you can the night before to set you up for success in the morning. For example, laying your exercise clothes out, having your journal and headphones ready beside your bed, breakfast prepped, anything that will make things flow easily for you the next morning.
- Keep it simple to start with, choose two or three things that feel good for you and once you are consistently working through them every morning, add something more.
- Create boundaries around your phone that strengthen your morning routine. For example, don’t read your emails or messages before 8am, lock your apps, or have your phone charging somewhere away from the bedroom and don’t pick it up until you’ve completed your morning routine.
- When you start out, create a tick list for your morning routine and tick each step off as you go every morning for the first week. This will help form the habit and it creates space for you to acknowledge your accomplishments before the day has even begun.
- Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day or a step of your morning routine. We are all human and things will always come up. Do what you can and get back into it tomorrow!
You now have everything you need to craft your very own solid and fulfilling morning routine. Even busy parents can achieve a version of the above by prioritising just five to ten minutes each morning for themselves.
What are you waiting for? Get creating, commit, choose to be invincible and get it done.