Having a good morning routine is one of the most important things you can implement into your day. A high-quality morning routine sets the tone for the rest of your day. The best entrepreneurs, athletes, and other extraordinarily successful individuals follow their own version of a morning ritual that gets them ready to tackle the tasks they have ahead of them. I have organized these in order of what I believe to be most important to least important, so, without further ado let us dive into the list that will help kick start your day.
1. Have a good nighttime routine
This is the most important one on the list because without proper sleep you will not be wanting to get up and go in the wee hours of the morning. To set yourself up for success you are going to have to commit to a great nighttime routine so that you feel well rested and have no problem getting out of bed when your alarm goes off in the morning.
You should try to allot a 15-minute period that is dedicated to relaxing and decompressing yourself from the stresses of the day. Reading a book, cuddling your pet, static stretching, meditating or some light yoga are all great ways to relax your body and mind before bed.
Do your best to reduce activities that increase stress and overall brain activity such as gaming, social media, news media, tv shows, or a hard training session. These activities can cause an increase in the body’s stress response and prevent you from getting excellent rest.
Set a lights-out time that allows you to get 7-9 hours of quality sleep and 15-30 minutes before that time start to relax and decompress with some of the activities mentioned above for a good morning routine.
2. Set small achievable goals for the upcoming day
Have a concise list of goals that you want to accomplish for the coming day.
The goals do not have to be grandiose, they can be as simple as, “have two pieces of fruit,” “take the dog for an extra walk,” “abide by the lights out time I have set for myself,” “go to the gym before work instead of after,” etc. Try to set a small easily achievable goal that will get you one step closer to your big picture goal.
Your big picture goal might be to eat a more healthy and balanced diet. Some people will go gung-ho and cut out 8 of their favorite foods and try to increase their fruit and vegetable servings by 3x the amount they are used to eating.
This strategy typically fails since the changes being made are so far from what the person’s typical morning routine has been. Trying to undo that many years of conditioning in a span of 7 days or 3 months or even 1 year is unrealistic. (Unless you have the mental fortitude of David Goggins, which most of us do not.)
Instead of using an unrealistic method, use a more sustainable approach and try writing, “3 days this week I will eat one extra serving of fruits or vegetables.” Then once you are successful with it, the following week (or even the week after) up it to 4 days and so on, until having that extra serving just becomes an everyday habit.
When you are creating your goal list for the upcoming day do not just say them in your head. Write them down in a journal, (we would suggest not on your phone, as there can be too many distractions to get past if you want to review your list). Writing them down imprints them into your subconscious and will make it easier for you to remember.
Be consistent and write the goals down every evening and review them before going to sleep, this will log them into your subconscious and stick with you while you sleep.
3. Ritualize your routine
Last but not least, ritualize your morning routine. You are probably asking, wtf does that mean? Put it into your calendar! This one does not need that much explanation, so I will just show you an example of what my calendar looks like:
Some of the strategies outlined in this post I have taken from the book “Organize Tomorrow Today” by Dr. Jason Selk, Tom Bartow, and Matthew Rudy. I highly recommend reading this book to help build your own morning routine.
Written By Michael Williams
