Daily Good Moodivation #8 - Routine for Success

Do you have a daily routine? 

What about a morning ritual?

Creating your day around a structured routine is one of the best ways to improve your success

The reason for this is simple. By creating daily habits that you can perform on autopilot, you free up your mind to have creative thoughts, innovative production, and willpower control. Having a ton of little successes create momentum early in your day, giving you a sense of accomplishment that snowballs into more important and valuable activities.

Think about someone who wakes up reacting to an alarm clock, stumbles out of bed, rushes breakfast and is speeding out the door with little or zero time to think about how they want their day to go.  They start their day in reaction mode, and spend the rest of their day reacting to a series of events. 

A person like this sees every challenge as an added stress, and has trouble allocating willpower towards the most important activities for happiness. Things like physical activity, meaningful conversations, reflection, meditation, prayer, sharpening of the mind, reading or writing - all of these get either pushed aside, or rushed, in order to move on to the next item on the to-do list.

How can we eliminate the daily hustle and bustle, reduce stress, and improve productivity?

Develop daily habits which you can easily perform, and adhere to some sort of structure or order. 

Give yourself at least ONE HOUR every morning to spend on yourself. You should cherish these 60 minutes because the early morning hours are the only time you get to spend to yourself, for most people.

How you spend these 60 minutes is entirely up to you, but here are my top 10 suggestions for how to kick more ass throughout the day.

Top Ten Morning Habits to Kick More Ass

1.  Journal 3 things that you are thankful for in your life. Whether it be from yesterday, this week, recent accomplishments, relationships. Just jot down 3 items which you are grateful. This is an easy way to practice gratitude.
2. Pause and reflect for a minute - what would make today a great day? Envision how you want it to go. How you feel, things you say, small (or large) accomplishments, goals you might achieve or make progress towards. You can include this in your journal entry from above
3. Remind yourself who you want to be. This is key to overcoming the daily pull of short-term pleasures and distractions. When something comes up, it is easy to ask - "Does this align with who I want to be?" Eliminate mindlessness! 
4. Reflect on your goals. Everyone should have personal hopes and dreams. Keep them present and refer to them often. The best time to do this is in the morning, so you can set the stage from daily progress towards long-term achievements. Keep several sticky notes on your bathroom mirror which remind you of your biggest goals so you can see them every morning as soon as you walk in the bathroom.
5. Stretch or perform some sort of activity to get the blood flowing. I perform a short yoga routine to open up the body and take a walk outside to watch the sun come up and listen to a podcast. Nothing strenuous, just enough to wake your mind and body to the day. 
6. Practice deep breathing and meditation. Get in the habit of this and you will be astounded at how little the stress of the day has an impact on you. You will find yourself responding comfortably and naturally to things that previously would have thrown you in a tailspin. I cannot stress this enough. Get some headphones and pop in a guided meditation. 
7. AVOID carbohydrates in the morning. If you eat, stick to a good amount of high quality protein and high quality fat. Carbohydrates in the morning raise your blood sugar in the first part of the day, throwing you on a blood sugar roller coaster through the rest of the day. To maximize brain function and keep you full and satisfied longer, protein and fat ONLY. I recommend whole eggs.
8. Read or watch motivating literature or media. This is easy. Whether you watch a motivating YouTube video, or read a motivating novel (I prefer Emmet Fox), the choice is yours. Spend at least a couple minutes feeding the mind with positive energy.
9. Eliminate social media or e-mails first thing in the morning. These put us in that reactive state that I referred to earlier. If the first thing you do in the morning is check your phone, Instagram, or Facebook - you might want to evaluate your decision. Replace those quick fixes with value added activities.
10. SLOW DOWN!!! Take your time with your morning routine. Give yourself time to grow and prosper. Your habits should not be hoops to jump through before you can start your day. Focus on being present with each activity. Breathe slowly and deeply. Open your mind to the positive thoughts and let this energy flow through you. Allow yourself to enjoy these moments instead of thinking "what's next". This will be the most difficult thing to master for most people, and it is still something I struggle with. When you catch yourself thinking or worrying about your to-do list, the day, or anticipating something to come - remind yourself why started in the first place. 

So there you have it. Ten morning habits that will drastically improve your overall happiness and productivity. I suggest not starting all at once, but rather incorporating two or three at a time in your daily routine until they become second nature, then adding one or two at a time. Performing all these little things creates a momentum of positive, forward energy. Allow this energy to propel you towards your ultimate destination. 

Now go out and achieve! Have a great day :)