Each Day Calls for a W.A.R.M. Up

For several years now I've been cultivating a morning routine that serves to deliver early wins to me prior to the day's official start. As an entrepreneur and someone that generally has no one to tell me what to do and when to do it, self discipline and daily rituals and habits are the building blocks of daily productivity. The daily disciplines begun in the morning hours are key.

Whether its Jocko Willink encouraging you to get up at 4:30 am or Tony Robbins extolling the virtues of daily massive action or Mel Robbins providing you a framework around counting down from 5 to zero and then popping out of bed, you need to adopt some form of morning ritual and routine so as to garner early wins.

Let us define a couple of important points. Morning means whatever it means. So if you define your day's start as 10:00 am as opposed to my workday 7:00 am start time, that's okay. In order for me to do my morning routine, I actually start my day at 4:00 five days a week. If I didn't actually start my "professional" work day..i.e. job, until 9:00 am, I would likely get up at 6:00 am. My bottom line? Don't use your job as an excuse. You do what you want to do. You ultimately prioritize what you feel is important. If getting up a bit earlier than normal to change the course of your professional and personal life isn't a priority, than catch the few extra z's.

Now let's define "wins". A win is something easy to track and own. If you're a baseball team, in great part, wins are a combination of men on base and base hits. You don't need grand slams to win games. In football, the term is "move the chains". The idea with morning routines is to control a small part of the day. As I start my day, my routines deliver a sense of discipline, calm, control, and ultimately a daily WIN. I know as I get into my car as I go to the office or as I open my laptop to begin work, I've already accomplished significant things. I've simultaneously had a win.

So you know mornings are important. Your version of when morning occurs is up to you. You know you can deliver a win to your life by simply defining a morning routine and sticking with it. I thought I'd share mine.

It's another acronym. You and others have been found to more readily remember something when it's delivered in the form of an acronym so here goes.

W for Workout.

Yep. You knew it would come up. You have to get control of your body. It will do everything in its power to sabotage your mind. However, it's been proven time and time again that the mind is stronger. See the story of the guy who sawed his boulder trapped arm off to get to safety, recent problems not withstanding, or the countless stories of Seal David Goggins, known for running the majority of a 100 mile endurance race with a broken foot. There are countless reasons you need to leverage Mel Robbins 5 Second Rule and pop out of bed and into a workout. Physical and mental health reasons, self-discipline reasons, stamina building reasons, and more. Don't pay attention to what the body wants when it says, stay in bed. It's lying to you, or it could be saying, why didn't you go to bed earlier or why did you have that extra drink after dinner? Define importance again. If you don't think feeling better and being more healthy is of importance, you're likely not the audience for this post and that's cool. When you're ready, you're ready.

A for Affirm.

What kind of daily ritual do you have for affirming your value and your worth? If you're not cultivating a mindset toward your own worthiness for whatever success you want, you're selling yourself short. So I'm not talking about something overly touchy feely here. My first move into this space was leveraging Tony Robbin's 7 Morning Power Questions. I automated the delivery of these with a tool called MemotoMe.com which is a free tool allowing you to automate the delivery of email messages to yourself.

1. What am I happy about in my life now?

2. What am I excited about in my life now?

3. What am I proud about in my life now

4. What am I grateful about in my life now?

5. What am I enjoying in my life right now?

6. What am I committed to in my life right now?

7. Who do I love? Who loves me?

The affirmation exercise I do now stems from a Tom Bilyeu's interview with Lisa Nichols. The premise is this. I dealt with negative scripts and went through a process Lisa delivers around owning those scripts and generating new tapes over them in my mind. I then recorded the words on my phone and for two years now, I've listened to that four minute segment every morning.

"I never go into the day without reminding myself I am worthy of all successes and responsible for all parts of my life."

R for Read

Not a tough one here folks. Take 20 minutes and read something that feeds your mind with something useful. If your life is intense and it's fed with fiction and something lighter so be it. Chances are though you could spend some time reading from the people who's life you emulate. If there are business leaders, non profit leaders, biographies of people you respect, read from them daily. Readers really are Leaders. Tip from leader extraordinary leader Bo Parrish. Read the heavy stuff in the morning and read fiction that inspires or entertains at night.

M for Meditate

You likely thought I'd go here at some point in talk of a morning routine. For me now, my meditation practice is just that. Practice. I'm no master. I am however learning to not reach for the phone and stop checking email until I'm ready to work. Some uninterrupted time with me and my lungs, body and senses. This isn't the time to start reviewing the day's checklist, quite the opposite. It's time to quiet the monkey mind as Tim Ferriss calls it. I generally use 5 minutes or so in this practice and then migrate to approximately 30 minutes of podcast listening aimed at again harnessing my mind to think more expansively.

Each day requires a WARM up. Some method of starting the day with the right mindset, attitude and methodology. It's far deeper in the implementation. I have specific goals around each of the topics above but am hopeful you'll take something away from how start your day.

Cheers to your success!

Sherman Mohr serves as Co-Founder/CEO of Shared Spirits, a sampling and activation agency in the spirits, wine and beer world.