The Evolution of My Morning Routine
HOW TO FIND A ROUTINE THAT FEELS BEST FOR YOU
“The early bird gets the worm.”
“Early to bed early to rise makes a man (or woman) healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
I could go on and on with a slew of morning routine quotes and cliches (hey, they’re cliches for a reason) about how important taking some time for yourself in the mornings can be.
Here’s the thing…
It doesn’t matter whether you roll out of bed, into your clothes, to then go about your day, or you wake up every morning like a Stepfordpreneur at 4:30 AM to be at the gym in full hair and makeup by 5 AM, or if you’re militaristic about your harsh morning routine of black coffee, cold showers, and perfectly made beds.
ALL OF THOSE ARE ROUTINES.
For me, I’ve tried at least 4,635 types of morning routines.
They’ve evolved as the demands of my life have changed.
In high school, I was 100% asleep till the last minute, “Just five more minutes, mom!” Until, my mom would race in, in panic, “You’re going to be late...again!” (You know when I don’t want to go to something because I’m pretty much always late to something I don’t want to do.)
When I started teaching Pilates at 19, my morning routine was to sleep just as late as I could in order to get my Starbucks at 5:40 AM to be at the studio for my 6 AM clients.
As I got into the marathon running in my early 20’s, my morning routine was to wake up at 4:50 AM, head to the gym, run for 3 miles, then to Starbucks and then to my 6 AM clients.
When I was in my eCommerce company, my morning routine was to wake up at 3 AM in a panic over a possible customer service issue, handle it, kind of go back to sleep, wake up, immediately hit the email, and slam back as much coffee as humanly possible before 9 AM, where I would completely crash, need a nap, sleep for two hours and then start the cycle again. This was definitely the least healthy.
After I was bought out, as I started to fight my way out of the hole of doubt, blame, and shame that I was stuck in, back in late 2015 I started working out more. I was going to the gym before my Pilates clients. I was starting to take better care of myself.
I started studying more about morning routines and eventually, I got into morning routine hell where I was stuck with a list of “have to”s - cold shower, meditation, tongue scraping, oil pulling, gym, breathwork - dear god, that morning routine took me 3 hours. It wasn’t sustainable!
As I started to listen to what worked for ME and my body, things started to align and other activities started to fade away. I started to listen to my body and what she wanted, and almost suddenly things started to shift. I started to feel more confident, more centered, more grounded, more whole, more nourished. Not because I was doing a morning routine that some “expert” had told me I should do to model his epitome of success.
No!
I WAS DOING MINE FOR ME, AND ALLOWING WHAT I DID TO FEEL GOOD.
It was this policy that served me so well in becoming a mom.
When my morning routine changed again after giving birth - in fact, it became an absolute necessity. Those two precious hours allow me to center myself to prepare for the responsibility of growing a business and a baby, now both toddlers, at the same time.
But I did it in my way for what felt good for me.
There’ve been countless tweaks and variations in between.
Sometimes it was smoothies for breakfast, other times a perfectly portioned egg and oatmeal with blueberries, other times it was Starbucks Americano’s and oatmeal, now it’s kale and eggs.
Sometimes it was going to the gym and doing the elliptical, other times it was strapping on my running shoes and stepping outside, other times it was candlelit yoga in my bedroom, other times it was rolling out of bed and onto my reformer at home.
Your morning routine is allowed to evolve to fit the demands of your life.
SO STOP “SHOULDING” YOURSELF AS TO WHAT YOU THINK YOUR MORNING ROUTINE SHOULD BE. YOU’VE GOT TO FEEL IT OUT FOR YOU.
Sometimes feeling it out means feeling it out on a daily basis.
Like today, instead of going to the gym again, I took a hot bath with candlelight, Epsom salts, and lavender oil...perfection.
THERE IS NO “PERFECT” MORNING ROUTINE OR ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL MORNING.
Allow yourself to be your own guinea pig and find what works best for you.
Test it. Ask yourself...
Does this make me feel good?
Does this make me feel energized for the rest of my day?
Does this make me feel like I’ve nourished my body?
YOUR MORNING ROUTINE IS SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD.
If you’ve been out of touch with your feelings and living by other people’s “shoulds” and “supposed to's,” then allow yourself to play with it.
Explore other options.
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO ADD BACK INTO YOUR MORNING ROUTINE THAT YOU USED TO DO THAT YOU REALLY LIKED DOING?
If it’s sleeping in - maybe that’s it.
What do you need to take away that some expert said you “should” do, but that is really draining your energy in a spiral of “have to’s”?
Maybe it’s doing that 15 minutes of journaling.
Maybe it’s cutting out the reading.
Maybe it’s changing your workout times from the morning to the afternoon.
Allow yourself to play with it and discover what feels best for you and your body.
A great way to do this is to explore a ton of different morning routine examples. If one particularly piques your curiosity, give it a go the next day. If the one you are particularly resistant to, like a cold shower, play with it and give it a go the next day as well.
Test.
Play.
EXPAND YOUR IDEAS AND PERCEPTIONS OF WHAT A MORNING ROUTINE IS, SO YOU CAN FIND THE BEST ONE FOR YOU.
There’s a lot to be said for the power of a conversation. You can book a 1:1 High-Performance Acceleration Consult Call with me to see just how we can accelerate your mornings for greater success so you can sustain greater momentum as you go to your next level.
Let’s set your mornings up for greater success!
Remember, your reign is now.
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