why your morning routine might not be working for you ??
Joanne Singh, CPA, CA
Helping heart-led leaders create profitable impact ?? || Currently on sabbatical ???
Hola amigos!
How's your heart today? ??
Today, I wanted to address a hot, yet divisive topic: morning routines.
For most of my life, I was not a morning person. In fact, if you asked anyone who's lived with me up until my late 20s, waking me up was probably one of the more frustrating parts of cohabitation.
A typical morning sounded something like this:
"Joanne, aren't you going to school today?! It's 8 o'clock!"
"Joanne, you're supposed to leave for work in 10 minutes!!"
"Joanne, you're going to be lateeeee!!!!!"
Mornings were just not my jam.
I admired those morning people. You know the type. The go-getters who show up to the gym at 6am. The people who have time to sit and enjoy their morning coffee while reading the sports section of the newspaper. Those that show up to the office early so that they can get focused work done before the chaos of the workday unfolds. It seemed like such a peaceful existence. Yet, one that was so far away from my reality.
I really tried to become that person. Like really tried. I'd set my alarm for 6am thinking "tomorrow will be the day that I workout in the morning". I did this, over and over again, only to reap the same result: snoozing until the last possible second with just enough time to shower and race out the door.
Eventually, I resigned that my habits weren't going to change.
I'm never going to be a morning person.
Or so I thought.
One day, I made the decision to hire a student personal trainer at the college where I worked. Given that she was a full-time student, her availability was limited to early mornings or late evenings. I didn't necessarily want to stick around the office longer than I had to, so mornings seemed like the most reasonable choice. I made a bold commitment: to meet my trainer at 7am once a week for the semester.
At first it was tough. There were definitely a few times where I straggled in at 7:05am.
As time passed by, I started to notice a shift. There was something different about my energy on the days where I trained first thing in the morning. I felt more resilient, more alive. I also noticed the spaciousness that came with getting to the office a solid 45 minutes earlier than my usual time. I actually had time to think.
Whoa - is this what morning people have been raving about all this time?
I decided to experiment. I committed to adding a second 7am workout to my workweek. Over time, this changed to 3, then eventually 4 days a week.
Before I knew it, I had fallen in love with my early morning workouts. I was so addicted to the benefits, that getting up at 6am no longer felt excruciating.
Many years have passed and I can say that sticking to a morning routine requires practice and patience. While I am still not a natural morning person, I certainly have experienced the benefits that come with the early riser lifestyle.
The greatest challenge that I've experienced in finding the perfect morning routine is that there is a lot of noisy, contradictory advice out there.
Why most morning routine advice suck
1?? They are too rigid and do not hold space for the fact that life happens. This rigidity increases the likelihood of not following through, which can have a negative impact on one's confidence. This is because breaking the promises we make to ourselves ultimately leads to not living in integrity with ourselves. This then cascades into our self-trust, which bleeds into our self-confidence.
2?? They are precedented on the assumption that everyone has the capacity to wake up at a certain time each day. For example, the 5am morning routine has been heavily popularized by the work of Robin Sharma. This strategy clearly fails people who do shift work, not to mention young parents and yet alone people who just simply do not want to wake up at 5am.
3?? They are built on other people's success strategies. Yes, there are certainly aspects of these popularized morning routines that are backed by science. For example, getting sunlight directly in our eyes first thing in the morning is very supportive in kickstarting our circadian rhythm. What's missed is the reality that we all have different goals, values, and life circumstances - all factors that influence how we spend our time. Therefore, it's down right silly to take someone else's morning routine and indiscriminately implement into our own lives without a deeper evaluation.
4?? They say different things. Some say working out in the morning is the best thing to do. Others say get straight to work and do the hard things first. This is confusing!!
Start with what
Before diving into strategy, we must first establish your outcome from having a morning routine.
To do this, I invite you to reflect on the following questions:
?? What would I want to experience at the start of my day? How do I want to feel?
?? What would set me up for success today?
?? What's something I've been wanting to do for myself that I've convinced myself that I have no time for?
?? If I could add a little magic to my day, what would that be?
Answering these questions are the portal to creating your unique blueprint for a magic morning routine.
The golden threads of creating a magic morning
After pondering these questions, I realized that there were 3 fundamental themes woven into all of the morning routines I experimented with. It was this epiphany that lead to me creating the principles behind Joanne's Magic Morning.
领英推荐
1?? Move my body
2?? Feed my mind
3?? Nurture my soul
For me, this was the best way to pour into my own cup before showing up for others in my day. I used these principles to design a menu of activities that could be incorporated into my mornings, irrespective of when I got up or how much time I had.
My magic morning menu
1?? Move my body
2?? Feed my mind
3?? Nurture my soul
Taking out the dogma
One of my biggest issues with these popularized morning routines is how dogmatic people are about it. As I shared earlier, their rigidity does not set the average person up for success because our life circumstances vary and are always evolving.
While nothing major breaks down in my life when I am not sticking to my magic morning routine, I know with certainty that the quality of my days are significantly higher when I am consistent.
The magic morning sabouteurs
We also need to address the magic morning saboteurs.
You know who they are:
?? emails
???? texts
?? social media
All of the things that hijack our focus.
I'm just going to check this one text... and reply to this one email...
It's as though glancing at our phones opens up a time warp where one minute expands into an hour within a blink of an eye.
Hey - no judgement from me. I'm right in there with you!
But, awareness it the first step in creating change. We have to get really honest with ourselves on how helpful these habits are, particularly at the start of our day. Only then can we create strategies that can set us up for success.
For me, my phone lives outside of the bedroom. Yup, I kick it old school with a real alarm clock! I also leverage the automated do not disturb function so that, when I do eventually look at my phone in the morning, I'm not subject to seeing a list of notifications that came in throughout the night.
What most people want
Most people, especially leaders, are bumbling through their day reacting to everything and everyone around them. They have trouble creating space to do the things that really matter to them.
It doesn't matter if you are starting your day at 5am or at noon. I think most us can agree that we could all benefit from having more spaciousness in our day by having time to take care of ourselves, to be planful and proactive, and to work on the things that really matter.
Final thoughts
The reality is, your magic morning may look radically different than mine. For instance, if you are trying to write a book and are having a hard time making time to write, perhaps you start your day with 30 minutes of writing. Or maybe you're starting a business while holding down a full-time job and managing your family. Spending the first hour of your day working on your business may make the most sense.
The point is, always start with asking yourself what you are ultimately trying to achieve because your outcomes will help you in deciding what strategy makes the most sense for you.
The best part of having my magic morning routine is that I can take it with me anywhere I go. It's available to me, irrespective of my circumstances. And that my friends, is what like to call true empowerment.
Until next time,
Regenerative Farm Development, Ozarks Renewal, Impact Investing Faculty at Presidio MBA, Artist at Airglow Studio
2 年I love it, and the simple principles-based approached that is easily adaptable to one's individual context.
Empowering mission-driven ADHD Founders & Executives | Shatter your inner bottlenecks | MA Educational Leadership & Management | Book your 1:1 ADHD Coaching Discovery Call
2 年5:00 am club here. Most powerful insight here: Take the dogma out. The most powerful advice in this article: Ask yourself the right questions to find something that works for you.
Financial Planning for Canadian Physicians | Founder @ Unaffiliated Wealth
2 年Just gave it a read and it was excellent! Had a good laugh about “Joanne’s Magic Morning”, haha. I used to be a morning person and have been trying to snap back into it so this was helpful.
Director, Brand Marketing @ Myodetox
2 年This was written for me!??
Independent Consultant: Conscious awareness raising - Community engagement - Program Design .
2 年I am one one the ??annoying?? early riser. I love that you are adding options to each of your fundamental themes. I have find it challenging to always stick to meditation as a way to nourish my soul or to some type of exercices. I going to give myself options for what I want to experience in the morning. Thanks for the inspiration!