The Morning Shift: Small Changes that Made Me Love Waking Up Early How to Start Your Day With Purpose
by T.L. Farris
As a natural night owl learning to optimize my morning routine to set a foundation for my days didn’t come easily and the only reason I even pushed to become a morning routine was the overwhelming evidence of early rising’s incredible benefits. There is a pattern that has been observed among highly productive and successful people to this point; according to HuffPost 90% of executives get up before 6am and 50% of self-made millionaires wake up 3 hours before their workday starts.
When I first read this my workday started at 8:30am which meant if I was going to be a part of that 50% I would need to wake up at 5:30am. After the initial shock wore off my “do it now or never” attitude kicked in and I set my alarm for 5:30 the next morning.
When my alarm rang before the sun was up I had no idea why I was awake or what I should be doing with that time. I ended up wasting my morning and deciding that waking up that early wasn’t worth it. It took me a while to come back around to the idea and it was actually the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod that convinced me to try again
That book gave me a suggested structure, a look at what a successful morning routine could look like, and once I had that starting point I could experiment and adjust to create my optimum personalized morning routine. This article is designed to be a starting point for you, this is not a step by step morning routine for you to follow but a list of suggested options to include that have worked for me at some point.
Silence: Start with Peace
A principle I learned from The Miracle Morning is to take 5 minutes of total silence first thing in the morning. In the beginning this looked like me shutting off my alarm at 5:00, sitting up in bed (so I didn’t fall back asleep), and sitting in the quiet for five minutes.
With any new practice or habit it’s important to ask the question: Why? Because, if this practice doesn’t work for you but the intended effects are what you want then you can reverse engineer your own individual practice. Starting your day with silence is intended to give you a few moments to breathe, focus, and start with a clear mind, because this is likely the only five minutes of the day where you will not have any distractions or inevitable noise of life
At that moment you don’t have text messages you need to answer or emails that demand a reply, you don’t have people talking to you or music playing as you clean the house. This is the time to do your best to quiet your mind, clear your thoughts and enjoy a fresh blank slate. These five minutes set the tone for the rest of the day, and they say “today I will breathe, I will enjoy the moment and be present to myself and my needs.” It is so easy to get caught up in the chaos and the busyness of life, so busy you don’t remember to take a breath. That is why this practice of silence is so incredibly important. It is a reminder to stop and focus and it reinforces a daily priority to slow down and be in the moment.
Movement: Start with Fitness
I don’t enjoy working out but I do enjoy feeling strong and healthy. So, making a point to get in some movement each day has become a non-negotiable for me. Most days this means a quick session on my treadmill, sometimes it’s a walk around the block, it could be a few rounds of just dancing…
As someone who doesn’t like exercise I’ve learned that reframing exercise as intentional movement and expanding my definition of what that can look like makes it a lot easier for me to stay consistent. I don’t include this in my morning routine as of now because I prefer it in the afternoons when I typically hit an energy slump but I did start building my consistency muscle for this habit by starting in the morning.
For your movement find something you enjoy; yoga, cardio, walking, dancing, rebounding, jump rope, basketball… The list is endless, find what you love and do that! Don’t worry about what anyone else does, or what the fad work out routine is, do what’s going to work for you that’s how you will see results.
Read: Start with Learning
Reading is incredibly important to me. I love to learn and am a huge proponent of working to better yourself so of course, I would include reading in my morning routine. For me this typically looks like reading a chapter in Proverbs and maybe a few pages of my current reading book if I have time.
The important part of reading in the morning is setting your mindset on learning first, being intentional to create space to grow. This doesn’t have to be just by reading, this is my preferred method of learning because it is “unplugged” and I don’t have to use an electronic device but you could use this time for watching an online course, listening to podcasts, watching a documentary, reading articles etc.
Write: Start with Clarity
Journaling!!! One of my favorite daily habits. I originally started by journaling in the morning, I’ve also utilized the Morning Pages practice (from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron). What I’ve found is that journaling will have different effects and benefits depending on the time of day you do it.
If you journal in the morning you can use it as a space to “brain dump” everything bouncing around in your mind to free space to take on the day. It can also be a time to process the events of the day before and work through any residual questions, thoughts, ideas, or emotions that are still lingering.
If you journal at night you can use the space to download your day’s events, conversations, ideas, dreams, emotions and questions. This frees space to sleep soundly, clearing your mind to rest fully. There is no right or wrong time to journal, I’ve done it both ways and even tried journaling in the middle of the day. What I’ve found works best for me is journal at night, but do what works for you and experiment! Try a bunch of different times, locations and journaling styles till you find the best option for you.
Dressed: Start with Confidence
Obviously you have to get dressed in the morning but how you get dressed is more important than you may think. I used to get up and throw on the comfiest option I could get away with wearing out then I realized that how I dressed is how I felt. That changed my mindset around how I dress myself in the morning.
I no longer dress for how I feel, I dress for how I want to feel. That means dressing for confidence. As I work from home I have no real requirements on my attire and yet I still dress as if I were going to Target everyday. (If you know, you know) Since I’ve started doing this I’ve noticed an improvement in my overall mood on a daily basis and that I am more likely to get out and enjoy life rather than staying on the couch and binge watching my favorite show all day.
Take on the World
I know this may not sound like some great revelation but the key takeaway is that I found my optimized morning routine because I worked to make it my own. It has taken a lot of adjusting, a lot of trial and error to discover what made me want to wake up early every morning, and has taken continued adjustment as my seasons and life have changed.
“When I realized that waking up early wasn’t about doing a specific routine, that it was really about doing what is best for me, what energizes me, that’s when it all clicked and I started reaping the benefits of waking up early.”
When I realized that waking up early wasn’t about doing a specific routine, that it was really about doing what is best for me, what energizes me, that’s when it all clicked and I started reaping the benefits of waking up early. Now it’s your turn! Commit to trying this out, see what happens. You will never know if you don’t try, take it from this reformed night owl; the early bird gets the worm.
