A morning routine, is something everyone already does. While most people don’t realize it, anything from brushing your teeth, having your favorite cup of coffee, to reading the newspaper, and looking on your phone the first thing when you wake up, are all considered a morning routine.
Throughout this article, we will highlight what exactly a morning routine is, and how you can make the most of it to set yourself up for success.
Some of the main things a healthy morning routine does for you are:
- It puts you in the right mindset for the day ahead
- Starts your day off with a win
- Helps you maintain healthy habits for the remainder of the day.
While I wish I could say I came up with all of these ideas on my own, a majority of them result from reading the book, “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod (here’s the link on Amazon) Nonetheless, ever since reading the book, I’ve implemented what has worked and I would like to expand on these practices through personal experience. That being said, I am NOT saying you need to do all of these. There are many days where I only do a few depending on how I feel. Yes, all of the steps in a routine will bring large benefits but it is not something that you should obsess over. If you do all the steps in the morning, great! If not, that’s fine too! What’s important is you start improving yourself and letting those efforts compound.
Enjoy the article and let me know if you have any questions!
Get some sleep!
Boosts Immune System: Adequate sleep is crucial for a strong immune system. It helps your body produce and distribute immune cells, keeping you healthy and resilient.
Enhances Brain Function: Sleep plays a vital role in memory consolidation and cognitive function. It helps clear brain waste, improve focus, and enhance creativity.
Promotes Physical Recovery: During deep sleep, your body repairs tissues, builds bone and muscle, and synthesizes proteins. It’s essential for physical recovery and overall well-being.
These are some main points I wanted to cover first as sleep drives a large majority of performance so prioritize it!
The essentials of a morning routine
There are some core components of a successful and healthy morning routine. The basics of which are necessary are:
- An alarm clock
- A glass of water
- Workout clothes
- A book
- Journal/ Piece of Paper and a Pen
Each one of these materials are going to be necessary for your morning routine. They all play into each other efficiently. the next question you might be asking yourself is, what kind of morning routine would require all of these items? Well friend, keep reading to find out 🙂
Before your morning routine
The night before your morning routine begins, it helps to set your future self up for success. fill up a glass of water, and put it next to the bed. Prepare your journal or piece of paper by putting tomorrow’s date on it with personal and professional goals on what you want to achieve for tomorrow. The rest will be filled out in the morning.
Next, set up your alarm, ideally for 5 AM. If you gasped when you first saw that, don’t worry, it can be scary to think about.
However, by getting up at 5 a.m. you give yourself, on average an extra 2 hours of time before everyone else is awake.
While I can’t force you to wake up at 5 AM, you will find yourself in a great mood because you’ve accomplished some of your biggest tasks early in the morning.
Also, by waking up 2 hours earlier than you might normally do, you give yourself an extra 30 days in a year. Wouldn’t you love to have an extra 30 days of time available each year?
Put your alarm Far Out Of Reach from your bed so that you have to wake up, and physically get out of bed to turn the alarm off.
If you struggle with the snooze button, and find yourself in the snooze paradox where you might snooze up to five times before actually getting out of bed, download the app alarmy. It does a great job and it makes you enter math equations in order to turn the alarm off.
Not only that, some of the alarms are very obnoxious which is something that I need since I’m a heavy sleeper.
Lastly, take out your workout clothes and put them right next to your bed so you can roll out and get changed immediately. Through all of these small preparations, you make your morning routine a lot more productive.
When you wake up
Once your alarm goes off, get out of bed, and turn it off (unless you’re crazy then just let it ring), that’s essentially step 1 of your morning routines.
Change into workout clothes, go into the bathroom, brush your teeth, put some water on your face, and go drink your glass of water. When sleeping, we go 8 or so hours of no water which means we are dehydrated.
Now that you are awake, your teeth are clean, and you’re hydrated, it’s time to start the bulk of the morning routine.
The Morning Routine
After years of working on developing a healthy morning routine, Hal Elrod designed a routine that would not only help you physically, but mentally and spiritually as well.
The components of the morning routine are:
- Silence (Quiet Time)
- Affirmations
- Visualization
- Exercise
- Reading
- Scribing (Journaling)
Ideally, it would be best to have each step in the routine be 10 minutes long.but whatever works for you, works for me.
Below is a template you can use and refer to whenever you want to make your morning routine. Silence is the first step.
Silence
The first step of the morning routine is silence. This is the time to take time for yourself And pray, meditate, or just have your quiet time. Personally, I like to do the Wim Hof Meditation.I wrote an article on this type of meditation, if you want to check it out, click the link!
Basically, I’ve found that It puts you into a deep space where I normally am not able to go with traditional meditation.
But again, whatever method works best for you works for me.
- Sit upright, either on a chair, couch, or the floor
- Get in a relaxed position
- Place your hands on your knees
- Take a deep breath in for 3 seconds, hold for 3 seconds, and exhale for 3 seconds
- If you find your mind wandering, Focus on the breath, or do a mantra of sorts
- “ I breathe in peace, I breathe out love.”
Meditation is one of the best ways to calm your nerves and become present in the current moment.
Give yourself that gift, and practice your meditation!
Affirmations
Affirmations are a great way to rewire your brain and start changing your internal dialogue.
Are your thoughts constantly telling you that you’re not good enough? Affirmations are a great way to break past that barrier.
Write down some of your biggest weaknesses, and areas that you really want to improve. The types of things a successful person that you want to be would tell themselves in order to achieve their dreams.
For example, if you struggle with weight loss, you might tell yourself, “ I make healthy decisions each day not because they are easy, but because they are the right thing to do.”
If you struggle with speaking in front of a large crowd, you might say, “I am confident, capable, and strong. The only limitations preventing me from speaking to large crowds is myself.” change your internal dialogue, so you can change your external life.
Visualization
Visualization and affirmations are great when they’re done one after another. The reason behind this is it because affirmations are things you tell yourself which you know it’s going to happen.
Visualizations is seeing it happen.
Simply close your eyes, and think about how you feel, and look at that moment you wish to achieve.
For example, if you want to lose 30 lbs by the end of the year, imagine yourself looking in the mirror with a big smile on your face with a great physique, and the feeling you have when you worked so hard to achieve this goal, and now you’re able to say you did it.
Another one might be visualizing yourself speaking in front of thousands of people, where everyone is smiling.
Again, put yourself in the moment you want to achieve, and use all of your senses to be in that moment. How does everything feel around you? what does it smell like? What do you see? What do you smell? The more senses and detail you have in your visualization, the more likely it is to happen.
Exercise
Good quality exercise is one of the best ways to get your brain moving. While most of the other morning routines we’ve talked about are about 10 minutes, exercise is one of the only ones that would be best done for 20 minutes or more.
While there is nothing specific to be done as everyone’s health conditions vary, a good heart pumping workout to really get your body going would be best. Personally, a good weight lifting session with a barbell and resistance bands more than enough for me. I found one of the best ways to increase my metabolism, was to lift moderate to heavy weights and resistance bands at the same time.
As I’ve stated in another article on at-home workouts, resistance bands are great anywhere, anytime.
I usually incorporate them into my kicker workouts, and leg workouts for kickers. If you’re interested in either football kicker workouts, or football kicker stretches, check out the links respectively.
Sometimes if I’m feeling really wild, I’ll attach them to the waves I’m already Lifting for additional resistance. But that’s me. If you want to do 20 minutes of yoga, by all means go for it. If you like to run, go on a 20-minute run. The point is, everyone’s morning routine is different and find what you’re comfortable with, and push yourself! Just be safe.
Reading
“Leaders are readers” as Jim Kwik says. some books are an entire authors life lessons in 300 pages. Authors spend years writing a book and it could only take you a few hours to read. Books should really be priced at $1,000 or more given the value they provide. So the fact that they are $20 on average is a blessing.
By reading even 10 minutes a day for 365 days means that you will most likely read 10 books or more during that time. And if you read over 10 books in a year, it’s safe to say that you will develop tremendously.
If you’re a slow reader like me, look into speed reading, it’s a great way to double your reading speed, and therefore double your growth.
You can read whatever genre interests you, but personal development books might be your best bet for developing a healthy morning routine.
Scribing
Scribing (or journaling) is essentially writing down your thoughts, experiences, feelings, and ultimate goals on paper. Many studies have linked journaling to increased creativity, better focus, more gratitude, and a reduction in anxiety and depression.
Simply grab the journal you wish to write in, try not to think so much, and just let your thoughts in your brain come on to the paper. it’s also cool to look back on this and see where your state of mind was back then.
I did this when I was kicking footballs back in college. I would write my thoughts and feelings on paper after every practice so I could go back on them later and review it. If you had a bad day, write about it! The same goes on a good day, get everything on paper and check back on it later on down the road.
The most important thing to remember is to have fun, and document everything. You won’t remember how you felt when you ran your fastest mile time. But if you wrote it down right after you did, you would definitely be able to relive more of it than if you didn’t do anything at all.
How does a morning routine help you?
A morning routine will set your entire day up for success if done correctly. No matter what the day brings, if you can conquer the morning, it’s a great day.
For the people who struggle with nagging thoughts in their head, self doubt, lack of confidence, or for the person who wants more out of life, a morning routine will be your main place to start.
Even if you take 10 minutes to focus on yourself in the morning, that’s a lot better than the person who didn’t get out of bed.
Who should do a morning routine?
Anybody, anywhere should have their own version of a productive and healthy morning routine.
The morning routine above really works for the person who wants more out of their life to live the life they were born to live.
If you or someone you know has trouble finding direction in their life, feels like nothing is working, or just doesn’t know where to go, developing a healthy morning routine should be the foundation. After a morning routine, start to incorporate healthy eating, workouts, and just better habits. Side note: if you want to develop better eating habits, check out our recommendation for the best calorie counter apps.
Developing a morning routine for school
School was never a passion of mine. But during my time, I valued the importance of time management, especially as a student athlete. Therefore, my mornings were some of the most important times for me.
An Ideal morning routine for school would be:
3:55 – Wake up
4:00 Brush teeth, put water on face, put on workout clothes, make the bed, drink a glass of water
4:10 – 4:20 Meditation
4:20 – 4:35 Affirmations/Visualization
4:35 – 4:45 Read
4:45 – 4:55 Scribe/Journal
5:00 – 6:00 Workout either with team or on my own
6:00 – 6:30 Recovery/stretch
6:30 – 7:30 Eat
7:30 – 8:30 Study
9:00 – 12 Class
See how much can be accomplished in the morning before 9:00. For some people, they’re just getting up at 8:30 for 9:00 class. At this point, i’ve already been up for 4.5 Hours and have already gotten a ton of stuff done.
Now this is what I did for the last year at school and loved it. I simply went to bed around 9 – 10 PM and got after it in the morning.
No matter the situation, I know that I’m destined for great things, and I want you to believe the same!
How to stick to a morning routine
Trust me, there are going to be days when you don’t feel like you want to get out of bed. Believe me, I’ve been there where the bed whispers your name in such a sweet comforting way. And all you want to do is curl up and “snooze” for another 5 minutes. and then those 5 minutes turn into one hour, which turns into two hours. And before you know it, you haven’t even left the bed yet and you have to leave for work in 20 minutes.
Therefore, the hardest part is getting out of the bed. Once you get moving, and wake up, the morning routine goes a lot smoother. That’s why I recommend putting the alarm across the room and using the app like alarmy.
Eventually, getting up early won’t be a problem anymore.
The best way I found to stay dedicated to a routine, is to grab a calendar and cross off the day when you accomplish your morning routine. (This is something jerry seinfeld did for years when writing jokes.)
For example, if I go 5 days in a row accomplishing my morning routine, I cross out each individual day. As you’ll notice, you have a streak going, and now you don’t want to break the streak.
It’s been over three years since I’ve started doing a morning routine, and I very rarely break the streak. That is your only goal, keep the streak going!
Conclusion
As you’ve just seen, there are many benefits to a morning routine. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is that it get you to the place you deserve to be. I know you want to be the best version of yourself, and I want to help you get there. Please use this blog post as a guideline for that.
Share this with your friends, your family, your dog, or your pet gerbil. Especially your pet gerbil.
Whatever the case, if you found any sort of value in this, consider telling someone you love about it. That way we can help those around you gain some guidance in their morning routine as well.
Some topics covered today were:
- Necessary items for a healthy and productive morning routine
- The six steps in a successful morning routine
- How to wake up earlier and the benefits behind it
- How to stay committed to your morning routine
- Using your morning routine to become the best version of yourself
While all this information is great, it only becomes valuable if you implement it into your life. So starting today, write down each of these six steps:
- Silence
- Affirmations
- Visualization
- Exercise
- Read
- Scribing
And do everything you can to start it up first thing tomorrow morning. Set your alarm 5 minutes before the time you want to get up (to give yourself a 5 minute headstart) and get after your goals and ultimate dream life.
Thank you so much for reading this article, I really hope you enjoyed it, and as always, stay amazing!
- Eric
