Let’s take a trip back to my life in 2019—
before my daughter was in school, before the pandemic, and before I started a regular morning routine. I would wake up in the morning and scroll on my phone for 30 minutes to an hour (or more on some days, let’s be honest). Then, once I was sufficiently social media’d out, I would roll out of bed and pour myself a cup of coffee to wake me up. By then, my daughter was probably awake and it’d be about time for me to get ready for work. Eventually, I’d make it out the door to drop the kiddo off with the sitter and make the 45-minute trek to work. Such a productive morning, right?
The Book That Changed Everything
Fast forward to March 2020, and we all know what happened (we don’t have to talk about it, I promise). One thing led to another and somehow I found myself taking a deep dive into the personal development genre of books. Eventually, I stumbled upon the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. The brief overview of The Miracle Morning is this: Hal gives the acronym S.A.V.E.R.S., which stands for Silence, Affirmations, Visualizations, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing. You do all of these things first thing in the morning, before starting your day.
I know, I know, It sounds like a lot. And if you’re anything like I was, you already have so much on your plate in the morning. Getting the kids ready for school, feeding everyone breakfast, and packing school lunches. There’s no way you could possibly add anything else to your morning, let alone six extra steps. I wish you could have seen the look on my face when my friend asked if I wanted to try a month of doing The Miracle Morning. A whole month?! That was 30 days of waking up at 5am (an ungodly hour). 30 days of these things called affirmations and visualizations (I was skeptical, for sure). 30 days of not scrolling social media first thing in the morning. Did I mention 30 days of waking up at 5am???
But let me tell you, that 30 days actually had a pretty profound effect on me.
The first week was pretty rough, not gonna lie. I set my alarm for 5am and I actually got up, but I grumbled about it the whole time. I went through all six steps of the miracle morning. But for that first week, nothing seemed different (besides the fact that I was SO sleepy). And then I made it to the second week, and something changed. Slowly but surely, I started getting used to waking up at 5am. I found myself looking forward to the quiet time I had before my daughter woke up. I was proud of myself for using that time productively instead of mindlessly scrolling Instagram. Plus, after starting my morning with those six steps, I felt ready to tackle the rest of the day.
So What Now?
After the 30 days was over, I fully understood how important it was to start the day strong. Since then, I’ve found myself sticking to a morning routine. Even though I no longer follow The Miracle Morning to a tee, I’ve still kept bits and pieces of it in my routine. That’s the beauty of a morning routine: it isn’t one size fits all. You don’t need to be perfect at sticking to it, and you can tailor it exactly to your needs.
This is generally what my morning routine looks like nowadays:
I try to get these things done before my daughter wakes up. Once she’s up, that’s a whole other routine (and a whole other blog post, probably). And let me be the first to tell you: I don’t do all of these things 100% of the time. But personally, this is the routine that works for me.
Here are some things to consider to help you create a morning routine that works for you:
What are your specific goals for your morning?
My goals tend to change with each morning. On certain days of the week, my main goal is to get some extra cleaning done. Other days, I might be in need of a longer-than-5-minute meditation, plus some journaling. It all depends on where I’m at in my life. Think about the goals you have for yourself and write those down the night before.
How much time do you need to get up in order to achieve those goals?
Figure out how much time you’ll need in order to achieve your goals. I typically need about an hour and a half to get everything on my list done.
Are there any time restraints on your morning?
Maybe you have a little one that wakes up at 7:00am every morning, like clockwork. Or maybe you need to be at work by 9:00am. For us, we need to be out of the door and on the way to school by 7:30am. In order to be out of the door at that time, my daughter needs to be out of bed at 6:30am.
What time do you need to wake up?
Based on the goals you set for yourself and your time restraints, what time do you need to get up in the morning? I need about an hour and a half to do my routine before my daughter wakes up. Since she wakes up at 6:30am, I need to be awake by 5:00am.
Where do your priorities lie with your morning routine?
Figure out your nonnegotiables, semi-negotiables, and negotiables. Personally, I like to keep the nonnegotiable list pretty short. Right now, that list probably includes drinking a glass of water, reading a daily scripture, and making my bed. Everything else is either semi-negotiable or negotiable, which puts a lot less pressure on me to make my morning routine perfect.
Can anything be put off until later in the day?
Does your schedule allow you to put certain things off until later in the day? When I first started sticking to a routine, I would always try to exercise before my daughter woke up. Now I don’t always exercise first thing in the morning because sometimes it’s easier to do it after I drop her off at school. (tip: just make sure “later in the day” doesn’t become “later in the week” or even “later in the month”)
Some final tips for sticking to a routine:
Plan it out ahead of time.
Don’t expect yourself to start waking up an hour earlier than you’re used to and be able to figure out how you’re going to spend that time on the spot. Plan out your morning routine the night before. Better yet, if your schedule allows it, set aside one day (I like to do Sundays) to plan out each morning that week.
Expect it to take some discipline.
I’m not going to lie to you and say it’ll be easy waking up an hour earlier than you’re used to. In fact it’s going to suck and you’ll probably be mad at me for convincing you to do this. But stick it out for the first week and try not to hit the snooze button (too many times). Your body will get used to it, I promise.
Give yourself grace.
Like I said earlier, I don’t follow my morning routine every single day. I follow it 5-6 days out of the week— some weeks I do more, some weeks I do less. And that is perfectly okay with me. What matters to me is that I have a routine written out that I can come back to.
What next?
- Pick up a copy of The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
- Grab my free Create Your Morning Routine worksheet below.
- Fill it out, print it out, and hang it up on your wall so you can come back to it whenever you need to.
- Commit to your new morning routine!
- Just get started. You got this!
