The Busy Woman's Stress-Free Guide To Getting It All Done - Step Six - Designing Your Morning For A Successful Day
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Photo by Anna Dziubinska on Unsplash
Has your morning ever looked something like this?
Your alarm didn’t go off, YIKES–you jump out of bed, heart beating through your chest. You rush into your kids rooms to get them up and frantically get them ready. You throw on some dry shampoo and a little mascara, looking in the mirror hoping that you don’t look like the walk dead. Sigh…time with God will have to wait again. You shove pop tarts in the kids hands as you all pile into the car just to realize that one of them is still in their pajamas…and that’s just for starters right?
Maybe your morning hasn’t gone exactly like that, but I’m confident, we’ve all had “one of those” mornings that got our day off to such a lousy start that our joy jumped out the window.
How can we avoid these frantic mornings?
We can avoid frantic mornings with a morning routine.
When we create and follow a specific routine in the morning, it gets our day started in the right direction. This is our chance to dictate how our day is going to go before it gets high-jacked with other people’s demands.
A planned morning routine gives you significant wins first thing even before your day is in full swing.
It also gets your head in a good mental state so you can take on your day with joy instead of an attitude of defeat.
What should your morning routine look like?
Part of it will depends on what stage of life you’re in. Are you single or married with no kids or grown kids, you’ll most likely have some more time in the morning. Do you have a new born? Well, your times going to be more limited at this point until you get baby on a good routine as well. Getting your elementary kids prepped for school? You’ll need to craft your routine with that in mind.
I have 3 kids between the ages of 2 and 9 years. So, I get up before they are awake to perform my morning routine.
I’m not a morning person. But, I really wanted to establish a morning routine because I observed that extremely, successful people all had one.
My morning routine use to consist of rolling out of bed after hitting the snooze button for the umpteen time, hitting the showers, and eating breakfast on the go as I ran out the door to work. Some times, I got some quiet time with Jesus, but it was hit or miss.
My two biggest desires were to be consistent in my time with God and exercise on a regular basis. Neither of which I had ever been consistent at my entire life UNTIL I created a morning routine.
Crafting a Morning Routine
Step 1 – Determine ahead of time what you want to do in the morning
Here’s some ideas to get you started:
Quiet Time with God – refresh and fill-up spiritually
Meditation
Train your mind to think like God thinks by rolling the word of God over and over in your mind
Remind yourself who you are in Christ
Think on things you’re thankful for
Prayer – Have a conversation with your Heavenly Father
Exercise
If you’ve never been consistent at this, start with 5 - 10 minutes
Get consistent and then add more time from there
Review your goals (If you missed how to set goals, check out my previous post on goals here.)
Review your agenda to get clarity for your day
Journal
Again, you don’t have to do all these things each mooring. Pick the habits that are going to support your priorities and goals.
Notice how Facebook, games, email and Instagram aren’t listed. 😉
These things aren’t necessarily bad, but they are not habits that will help you start your day with joy and accomplish the priorities you established (If you missed how to set your priorities, check it out here).
Step 2–Determine how much time you would like to spend doing each activity
Step 3–Add up the time and calculate backwards to figure out your start time
If you realize you don’t have that much time, just readjust the time on the routine items and recalculate. You can always add more time later as time allows or your season of life changes.
The important thing is to do something, even if all you have is 5-minutes to read a scripture and pray. If you do that consistently–Win!
Don’t let a “all or nothing” attitude make you sneer at a 15 minute routine in the morning. Something is always better than nothing.
“You can’t always do everything, but you can do something.” Andy Andrews
Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash
Step 4–Set your wake up time and get up when your alarm goes off!
Now I get up at 5am Monday through Friday and 6am on Sunday. (Saturdays is my sleep-in, no routine day. Because we all deserve a break.) But, I didn’t start there. I started with a baby step. I set my alarm for 15 minutes earlier. Then after a week or two being consistent with that baby step, I set it for 30 minutes earlier. I just baby stepped it back until I got the amount of time that I wanted for my morning routine. You can too!
Getting up tips for us non-morning people:
Tip 1: Baby step your way backwards to the time you want to get up.
Tip 2: Set your alarm across the room so you have to get up to turn it off. The act of getting up will help you keep going.
Tip 3: Use the 5-Second rule to get yourself out of bed. Count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Get Up! (For more on the 5-Second rule, check out a previous blog post here).
Step 5–Keep it up
Each day you get up and perform your morning routine, you’re growing! Way to Go!!
Now, there will be days you fall off the band wagon, but just pick it up the next day. Remember this isn’t an all or nothing deal.
We have a saying in our house. “What do we do when we make mistakes? Keep moving forward!”
Small, consistent progress is still progress!
Next time, we’ll craft our evening routing so we can end our day with joy and set up our mornings for success!
Discussion
What’s your morning routine look like? Feel free to share any tips that have helped you.
Or, what do you want your morning routine to look like?