Why you need a morning ritual

I started this year with a promise to myself. It's the same promise we all make on New Year's eve: This year is going to be different.

"I'm truly going to become better. I'm going to do all the things on my bucket list. This is the year I'll transform into the best version of myself. This is my year." Then suddenly, it's mid-February.

What I've come to realise is that a better version of me is not an entirely new person. A better me is simply the old me, but with new habits. So the real question is, how do I create new habits?

You already have a ritual

The good thing about this problem is that human beings, by nature, are creatures of habit. Whether we intend to or not, we all already have rituals that we carry out daily. We get up, use the bathroom, brush, shower, grab our keys, head out, walk to the bus/train station (or our cars), and start the day. We are barely conscious of each of these steps. It doesn't take will power or determination. They come almost naturally. But the truth is, they are not.

Every single one of the steps above is part of a behavioural script that we created (intentionally or not) over time. My morning routine as someone who takes the train to work in London is very different from my routine when I drove to work in Lagos, and it is definitely nothing like my routine when I walked to class as a student in Ibadan.

So if I was able to create habits that became second-nature every few years, why does it seem impossible to incorporate my New Year resolutions into my daily life? Well, it's not.

What I must remember is that habits do not exist in isolation. Most habits are part of a behavioural script, a sequence of steps or actions that we take, each in response to a preceding trigger, or a cue. Just like a movie script.

So the answer to the question, how do I create new habits, is another question (or two): What are the cues or triggers for my current habits, and where can I sneak in new steps in my daily script?

Awake O Sleeper, It's Sunrise

A simple audit of my daily routine presents two clear opportunities: sunrise and sunset.

What's the first thing I do when I wake up? The basic version of me would get up, use the bathroom, get back in bed and check my phone. Usually I'd have messages I want to respond to. That's usually the first pitfall where I could get caught up in some random conversation that doesn't add any value to my day or to my long-term goals.

The next thing I'd check was my personal mail. Usually I'd have a daily digest of news headlines waiting for me, which in turn would send me to Twitter, where I'd usually end up in a debate with some anonymous stranger, digging up stats on Google to prove he was wrong and I was right, till I realize I barely have enough time left to get ready for work and head out. Clearly there is some room for improvement here.

So let's design the perfect morning ritual.

Sunrise Begins with Sunset

However the perfect morning starts with a perfect evening. It didn't take much to figure out that the time I went to bed was a major trigger for how my mornings would go. Rather than willing myself to get up early and use my mornings better, I needed to start by being in my bed an hour earlier than usual... with the lights off, laptop shut and my phone very far away. Sleep early, wake early, kick off morning routine.

Everything else flows from there.

My New Morning Ritual

While crafting my new morning routine, I had to identify the triggers or cues that embedded in my current ritual. What were the triggers for the habits I wanted to break? What were the new habits I wanted to redirect my triggers to?

First was going to the bathroom.

It was biological and there was nothing I could do to stop that (not that I wanted to), but what I did immediately afterwards was crucial. I'd usually head back to bed and reach for my phone/laptop to check messages, mails and eventually Twitter.

What if I scrambled that sequence of habits? Instead of heading back to bed, I decided to start with a bit of oral hygiene. Brushing.

Normally I'd put this off till I'm about to shower but doing this first thing in the morning tends to wake me up. That 2-minute activity cleared my mind and got me thinking about the productive things I wanted to do before work. Especially since I was up an hour earlier than usual.

Next I had to deal with the two main distractions in my mornings: emails and messages. First I stopped checking personal mails in the morning. I could always get to it later in the evening and there was usually nothing that couldn't wait a few more hours. I also created a separate folder where news digests automatically went to, so I wasn't tempted to read them just to clear the Unread Messages counter in my main Inbox.

I also stopped checking or responding to messages immediately I got out of the bathroom. Instead I decided to link that habit of brushing to an hour of quiet time instead. This was time dedicated to praying, connecting with my inner self, and meditating on things that really mattered to me in the long term. This helped put me in the right frame of mind for the day and I could also plan out some of the activities of the day, instead of waiting to be hit by whatever is in my calendar by 9 am.

So I linked something more productive to the habit of brushing immediately I woke up. Then something else to that one. Till I had a new sequence of things I did every morning that made the entire day much more productive.

This took some trial and error (I initially tried to overbook my 90-minute head start), but I eventually got the hang of it. I gradually changed my morning ritual by intentionally linking my existing daily cues to new habits.

Of Triggers & Cues

This excellent article by James Clear nicely categorizes the common triggers that habits are typically built upon: Time, Location, Preceding Event, Emotional State, and Other People.

In the example above, I built my morning ritual around a sequence of preceding events, all initially triggered by one biological cue. But there are other habits I built into my day based off other triggers.

For instance, once I get to my desk at work, I grab my flask and go fill it with water that I'll drink all through the day. That's a location-based trigger. It doesn't happen when I work from home. It's usually triggered when I arrive at my desk in the office.

Emotional States are the toughest cues to control because... emotions. However it's not impossible. One mental health hack I picked up over the years was to curate a list of activities for those inevitable moments I'm feeling low. Everything from music to specific TV shows that lift my mood. So whenever I experience certain emotional states, rather than indulge in sugary snacks, I refer to my list (sometimes unconsciously) and do something that gets me out of the doldrums.

Using Other People as habit triggers can be tricky. While this mainly depends on the people you surround yourself with, there are certain relationships (family, colleagues, clients) that are difficult to control. Still, we each have a responsibility (to ourselves) to maximize time spent with people that bring out the best in us and, where possible, eliminate relationships that trigger our worst impulses. Like someone once said, you are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with.

Tots and Nippers

One more thing that occurred to me during this exercise was that we hardly struggle with certain habits... like brushing.

The answer is simple, really.

Most of our habits are picked up as adults. However brushing (and grooming in general) is ingrained into us as toddlers. Most people learn to brush first thing in the morning before they learn how to write. There's also the emotional reward we get from the social acknowledgement we get as a reward for good grooming.

So, while I'm not an expert at parenting, I did resolve to be a bit more intentional about the habits I inculcate into my children. I believe there's a lot more they can learn from me than how to brush before breakfast.