Are you a night owl or an early bird? Or a bit of both?
Do you have a morning routine?
The purpose of a morning routine is to feel good and start the day on a high vibration that you carry into your day. It’s about beginning with intention and paying attention to your energy and needs before the demands of the day take hold. It helps to fill your cup so that you’re living from the inside out, rather than the outside in.
I used to be a night owl, for most of my life actually, except on the days I had to be up early for a reason. I yearned to be a natural early riser but I had long bought the story that I was a night owl and never properly nurtured the belief and habits I needed to change the paradigm and become a morning person. And I’d never made a committed decision to really do it. I’d had some half-arsed attempts to consistently get up early but I’d ultimately find an excuse and then later feel bad about it.
Until I made the decision about three years ago it was time to change my story. I decided I wanted to become a morning person, with a morning routine, so that I would have some time and space to myself before the kids woke up, instead of feeling like I was in demand and the day was controlling me from the outset. Prior to children my ‘me’ time was in the afternoon but with a young family it was now a really busy time of day.
Now I want to pause here to say that this only became a priority for me once our youngest was nearly 1 and I was starting to get more sleep.
Until then I was still feeding, waking multiple times a night and taking whatever sleep I could get, whenever I could get it. I know exactly what it’s like to stumble out of bed and feed a baby half-awake, even before you’ve had the chance to go to the toilet. I also know what it’s like when getting out of the house feels like an impossible mission! I have been in tears at times in the past when I so desperately wanted to go for a walk and then something would happen with one of the kids that would change the plan and we wouldn’t make it. It feels suffocating.
Once I made the decision that 5:30am would be my new wake up time I then had to work on my mindset that it was easy to get out of bed and build my belief around this through repetition. I had to shift my perception of what ‘early’ was. Then I had to form the habits to support this, like laying my clothes out the night before, putting my alarm away from the bed so I would need to get up to turn it off, and using my willpower not to get back into bed. I trained myself that my only job was to put my feet on the floor and walk out of the bedroom – not to think about it, or allow the paradigm to talk me out of it! I also had to adjust my evening routine to get to bed earlier, and give myself permission for that (this was a big one!), because adequate sleep is so important.
My morning routine is a really important part of my life for my mindset, physical and mental health, productivity and effectiveness. I’m constantly learning about morning routines and tweaking mine to try new things. I’ve tried lots of different approaches and this is what I’ve learned so far:
- You have to find what’s right for you. The time you wake, what you include in your morning routine and how long you can give it all have to work for you. You’ll only learn this through trial and error and tweaking as you go.
- Tune in to yourself to know what you need. When I started implementing a morning routine I followed a set pattern of activities (and I would recommend this when you start) but now I trust myself and do what I feel called to do, which could be any combination of one or more of these things: exercise, meditation, yoga, mindfulness, breathing, journalling, gratitude, visioneering, writing, planning, listening to music, podcasts, audiobooks, or YouTube clips.
- There is so much online to support you. There are so many amazing apps and resources that you can access to support the start of your day! I love YouTube, Insight Timer, the Healthy Mummy app and Apple books, to name a few.
- Get into nature and immerse yourself in its natural high vibration. This is a big one for me. Nature is healing, grounding and has its own high vibration frequency that we can tap into simply by being in it. Go for a walk/run, tune in with your senses, pause, breathe and be present in it. And if you can’t leave the house, it’s enough to stand or sit outside for even a few minutes and practice mindfulness.
- Do what you can with the time that you have. Some mornings I spend an hour on my morning routine. Other mornings I only have 5 minutes. And there are times life gets in the way and I don’t do it at all. You have to do what you can, when you can. But what I have learned is the incredible power of feeling good in the mornings before I fall into the day, so I find ways, and you will too when you look for the opportunities. Play music and dance at breakfast time, step outside for 5 deep breaths, recite gratitude as you make school lunches, do 10 step-ups on the stairs on the way to work, etc. Don’t wait for things to be perfect.
- Stay off your emails and social media! Even though you may use your phone for parts of your morning routine, I can’t stress enough to stay off social media and your email. This time is for you, to be deliberate with your mind and energy and tune into you. Don’t begin your day being focused on the outside world!
- Creating any new habit takes time. In Robin Sharma’s incredible book The 5am Club, he says it takes 66 days to embed a new habit. He also says change is hard in the beginning, messy in the middle and glorious at the end, and I totally agree. What I’ve learned is that the reward of a morning routine is well worth it.
Now I know for some Mums, you will have children that wake up at the crack of dawn (or before) and it will feel impossible to have time for yourself before they arise. If getting up earlier than them isn’t realistic, or you’re still up during the night and lacking in sleep, you can build simple feel-good morning routine rituals into your morning around your children, and without doing it first thing. There are definitely ways, but you will need to prioritise it. Many mornings I have a little person doing a workout with me, or cuddling under one arm as I write in my journal with the other. And I can’t leave the house unless my husband is home, but when he is and I want to go outside, I communicate to him and our boys what I’m doing and how important it is for me.
I’m offering a special opportunity for you to step into my morning routine from 5:30am – 6:00am AEST each day next week for free.
I will be on Zoom during that time and sharing my favourite feel-good morning routine rituals and resources. If you would like to experience this, join in with me and start your day in a beautiful energy, this is the perfect opportunity. You can join in anytime during that 30 minutes and stay as long as you like. If you’re looking to start or refresh your morning routine you will love this. Contact us and we will send you the Zoom link! I would love to see you and also hear from you what fills your cup and gets you in a great vibration for the day!
