Morning routines you say?
Word on the street is, they’re pretty awesome.
I do mine. Because it’s awesome.
And I do it because I feel like it helps me be more awesome.
“More awesome? Surely that’s not possible?” I hear you ask Mel.
As opposed to the rest of you, who mutter “Mate, you can’t polish a turd… anything multiplied by zero is still zero.” Which is unnecessarily hurtful and, frankly, beneath you. But maybe that’s more about me being negative by thinking you guys are being negative and I need to check my projection…
Enter morning routine!!!
The entire point of a morning routine is to establish the baseline of what you want your day to be like. Or better yet, the launching pad for what can potentially be the most amazing day ever.
Ideally, it’s an opportunity to make time for yourself, to give something valuable to yourself so that the remainder of the day can be done with a positive mindset, an energy level that’s ready to give to others and a positive vibration that attracts other happy giving and like minded people. Rather than the aforementioned polished turds who seem like time and energy vampires, but without the coolness and sexiness that vampires on TV suggest are typical (Looking at you Kate Beckinsale! Admittedly, not solely in an accusatory way…).
How do you want your day to run?
How do you want it to finish?
How do you want to feel during it?
Well, start by asking yourself how the best day ever would start.
And don’t give me answers like “the male/female supermodel that is my partner brings me a coffee before allowing me to thoroughly grope them, while giving me the news that overnight my bank account tripled overnight due to the discovery that my sweat is the cure for cancer, which is why the king of the world is giving me my own Fijian island as a reward for having epic bodily fluids and we get on the plane in an hour.” Or something equally reasonable and definitely possible like that… Infuse a touch of reality into this conversation please, Dean…
That Dean guy… honestly. Its like reality is something that happens to other people.
Anyway…
What could your best day ever, knowing that you’ll probably still have to go to work Dean, start like?
Knowing there is only so much we as individuals can do to influence other individuals, we need to look at this almost exclusively in terms of us.
So, what can we do?
How do you wake up in the morning?
Is it angry and confused? And maybe a little resentful that you had to be woken up by an annoying little white box that screams at you until you hit it hard enough that the adrenaline you just flooded your system with MAKES you be awake? Sounds like fun…
Or, do you wake up looking forward to an opportunity to go about winning at life and seeing if you can make it even better than yesterday? Even if its based on what a screaming little white box says…
You get up. What’s the first thought that enters your head?
Is it something negative? “Ugh, I’m going to have to carpool with Nick again. Good grief, does that man EVER brush his teeth? Morning breath is something you can taste in your own damned head, why would you inflict it on someone else and then add coffee breath into the mix…” That would probably set a tone for my day that involved unnecessarily large amounts of time and effort planting expensive amounts of mints around Nick, rather than living and winning my own life. Doesn’t sound like a great start to me… But maybe that’s an upgrade for you and how your day starts. Coming off night shift, getting two hours of sleep only get up for your second job and THEN carpool with Nick might make it feel different…
And this is where we start our morning routine. Gratitude.
What are you grateful for? What does waking up, regardless of that pesky little screaming box, mean you get to do today?
Honestly, theres a fair bit of evidence these days that suggest that gratitude starts that lovely serotonin pump right from the get go. Sounds like winning to me.
What can you be grateful for? I woke up this morning grateful to write this today. If it’s not obvious, I really enjoy writing this stuff. Honestly, if no one read it, I’d probably still write something. I get to talk about cool stuff I enjoy talking about.
Maybe you wake up grateful for the idea that you can make today better than yesterday.
Maybe you woke up today being absolutely certain that today is the day you will get the exact perfect amount of cinnamon in your morning yoghurt and granola bowl, because that’s the nutritious food that’s going to give you the energy and experience that helps your day be extra winning. I mean, I’m grateful for cinnamon. That stuffs awesome. Good for you too. But that’s another post…
Maybe that delectable breakfast gives you an opportunity to practice some mindfulness in your life too. Being present to experience that sensations of flavours and textures that your food has for you, well, that’s valuable. But if you’re only stuffing things in your face to stop the hungry feeling from distracting you from thinking about the thousand and one things you have to do before lunch, how much value is there in it really?
Experiencing your life, rather than just moving the plot forward with shit that needs doing, is made so much easier with the setting of that intention each and every morning. If you want to be present and experience your life, it starts at the start.
Yes, Phil, I know that was obvious. No, I don’t care for my new nickname… Well, mostly because everyone has been called Captain Obvious™ at some point…
But setting that intention brings up the next port of call. Priming. The great and legendary Tony Robbins (yes, THAT guy) is a huge advocate of priming.
If you wake up and set the intention for yourself each and every time you get out of bed, afterwards you don’t have to do much in the way of overthinking things. The decision “This is how I’m going to be today, hold my beer” made early, simplifies a LOT of stuff from then on. You get to just go about winning. Maybe not needing your beer to be held by someone else as one of the first things you do in the day would make a good initial intention would be a great start too. I only bring this up because evidently SOME people need to be told, Sally.
Basically, all these things boil down to some kind of meditation. It doesn’t have to be the super hippy version of meditation, with crystals and oils and gurus and blood sacrifices and chanting and whatnot. Meditation can simply be being alone with your thoughts for a brief period of time. Noticing what thoughts are there, what feelings are there, and making some decisions about them.
So. A morning routine.
Why bother getting up half an hour earlier? Especially given I’ve banged on about how big of a deal sleep is before. Many times. Many many times…
It gives you energy. If you use it right.
It gives direction to your energy.
It gives you structure to your day.
It gives you the chance to live your day on the terms that make it valuable to you.
Its more valuable than I can really say, but it needs to be YOUR structure.
If it IS yours, it gives value and investment to that structure in positive way. As long as its something YOU value. Otherwise its just stuff you do that someone else said was cool but you probably don’t give a shit about. How long before that ends up being something that you resent, getting up half an hour early to do something sucky. Ugh…
So, as always, the questions…
What kind of day do you want to have?
How can you set that up?
How can you feel just that bit awesomer (because I speak English…) in your day?
What would that setup look like?
What would it need to feel like for you to invest in it?
Powerful? Energised? TV vampire sexy?
What do you want, guys?
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
Comments