Create a Morning Routine to Win the Day
Jen Drago 
If you want to be more productive every day, make sure that you start the day with an effective morning routine.
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Do you start your day with an intentional mindset that allows you to be productive and achieve your goals for the day?
Or do you let social media and email take over your mind and your morning and get in the way of having a productive day?
Today, I'm going to share with you how you can have a morning routine that sets you up for an awesome day. Having a morning routine is important because it can uplevel your productivity and set you up for success.
You see, even though most of our content is designed to help heart-centered entrepreneurs develop their vision and strategy so they can grow sustainable, joyful businesses, we do a lot of work on mindset and habits because these elements lead to the successful execution of your strategy.
We also do a lot of work around productive mindsets and habits that set you up for the highest productivity and performance.
First, let's consider the obvious question: why is it good to have a morning routine to start the day?
To answer that question, I would like you to recall a time in your adult life when your alarm didn’t go off or perhaps you shut it off in your sleep. Remember that panicky feeling when you woke up and realized you had overslept?
Perhaps you were going to be late for work or late for that exam you had studied for? You likely ran around, getting dressed and getting into a semi-presentable state. You probably skipped breakfast, you might not have had time to have coffee and maybe there was no time for a shower.
How did that experience feel? I remember that feeling and it was shitty. (Luckily it hasn't happened to me for quite some time but I can remember the anxiety and my heart pounding in my chest like it was yesterday.)
And what happens next? The rest of the day just goes downhill from there.
Now, let’s talk instead about having a morning routine that is calm and primes you for your day -- a morning routine that is customized and personalized to you.
A morning routine can get you into an intentional mindset for the day, where your brain can truly be focused and can achieve whatever you need to achieve that day.
Said another way, a morning routine allows you to begin your day in an intentional manner which helps calm your brain and then allows clear thought, puts you in that positive mindset and really primes your body and your mind for having an awesome day.
Benefits of a Morning Routine
Still not convinced that you should create a morning routine? Here are a few of the benefits of having one:
- A morning routine promotes calmness because you're easing into your day. You are doing things that help your body and your brain be ready for that day.
- A morning routine relaxes your monkey mind. What is a monkey mind? It is when I have so many thoughts running through my mind about what I need to do or about worries that it clouds my mind and prevents me from focusing. If you are naturally prone to stress or anxiety, as I am, these few steps can help.
- A morning routine primes you and puts you in the right mindset to accomplish your goals as I've just described and a morning routine can help you set your intention for the day as well.
Elements of a High-Impact Morning Routine
If you are unsure how to do a morning routine or what to include in your morning routine, I will provide some research-backed ideas below. But first, I want to be clear that a morning routine should be personalized to you and should include the elements that will work best for you to elicit a productive and positive mindset. It will take trial and error, but I assure you that it is worth it!
Many of the elements below have been shown through research to have a positive impact on your productivity.
Hydrate:
Research has shown that, if you hydrate first thing in the morning by drinking a big glass of water, it actually helps your brain work better when you're ready to work. I don't know exactly how they were able to prove this but, of course, when you're sleeping for eight hours, you're not hydrating, so best to get off on a good foot right when you wake up.
In one of the articles I read, we are encouraged to drink room-temperature water, not cold water, because warm water can be absorbed better by your body.
Meditation/Prayer:
Another element of a successful morning routine is meditation or prayer or both. I like to pray when I meditate so I do it at the same time. I have experienced, firsthand, the benefit of meditation in decreasing anxiety and improving my focus. I meditate every single day for 10-15 minutes, sometimes 20 minutes, depending on what's going on in my life.
It's a practice that I really hope that you will try if you don't do it regularly. On a routine basis, meditation and spirituality help me to be calmer and focused, and better in control of my emotions.
Journaling/Gratitude:
Journaling first thing in the morning has been shown to help you release anxieties, worries and concerns in order to free your mind while also releasing your creativity. I like to combine a short journaling practice of about 5-10 minutes with a gratitude practice, where I journal 3-10 things I am especially grateful for that morning.
Having a regular gratitude practice requires minimal effort and has been shown to positively impact your mindset so that you become more optimistic and experience more joy. Research also shows that you're also able to recognize positive elements in your environment easier when you journal what you're grateful for each day. If you don't currently have a gratitude practice where you journal what you’re grateful for each day, I hope that you will try one.
My recommendation is that when you are journaling with gratitude, try to pick out things that are different each day. I try to be a little different every day so that I'm always picking up on cues in my environment of things that I'm grateful for in addition to my husband, children, and the health and safety of our loved ones.
If you are a creative worker such as designer or copywriter, research has shown that journaling freehand can be very freeing and can also bring clarity or focus for creative mindsets. Specifically, this research shows that creatives can remove writing blocks and have unintended creative breakthroughs when they choose to journal longhand in the morning. I’ve heard of this concept called “morning pages” in case you want to look it up and learn more.
Affirmations:
Another element of a productive morning routine is affirmations for yourself. Research has shown the power of speaking to yourself in positive terms and affirming what you are capable of doing. In addition, try using affirmations that are phrased in "I am…." terms versus "I want to be…."
When you state things in the positive and in the present, it allows your brain to act as though you are already there. Your mindset is determined by your thoughts so feed the productive and helpful thoughts by saying something like, “I am an author” instead of “I want to be an author.” It is a subtle but legitimate difference.
You can also seek a positive quote to provide inspiration and/or remind yourself of your strength and resiliency. You can also do what Mel Robbins, author and motivational speaker, recommends in her book, “The High Five Habit." You can “high five” yourself in the mirror.
This practice may feel silly when you start it, but there is research showing that the practice releases dopamine and helps to affirm your behavior and positive beliefs. Think of the last time that someone high-fived you for an accomplishment in your personal or work life. The act likely brought forth great feelings of confidence and enthusiasm and made you feel like you could accomplish anything at that moment. Bring forth those feelings each and every day by high-fiving yourself in the mirror!
Movement:
Now, this is a little personalized because some people don’t like to exercise in the morning. Even though you may not walk or do physical exercise in the morning, you should be sure to get some form of movement in at some point during the day.
Why? Movement helps release stress and anxiety. It is good for your physical health but it is equally helpful for your emotional or mental health. Plus, physical activity also plays into your performance and productivity. For example, entrepreneur Richard Branson exercises every day. He aims for 45 minutes of pretty intense exercise and he believes that this practice alone adds 3-4 hours of productivity to each day.
Further, research has shown that many Fortune 500 executives take time for exercise in their day. This isn’t a coincidence. There is a known correlation between exercise and executive performance and success. As the CEO of your business, you owe it to yourself, your body and your business to include movement in your day.
Personalize and Test Your Routine
I've given you some of the research behind potential elements of a morning routine, but it is important to note that you have to customize the routine and make it work for you. My recommendation is that you first select the elements that you're interested in trying, select the order of the elements that seem to make sense and then try it out. It will likely take some trial and error to find the elements and sequence that works best for you.
For example, my mind wakes up at 5 am whether my body wants to or not. For me, 5 am is a good time to get up and start my morning routine. Lots of people don't like to wake up early. If you’re not an early riser, your ideal mornings should look different than mine.
Bonus Tip: Try an Evening Routine Too!
And here's a bonus tip: your morning routine is even better when it's paired with an evening routine. Why? You can do some easy prep in the evening that makes your mornings go really smoothly.
If you bookend your day with a morning routine and an evening routine, you're really setting yourself up for success, for high performance and for impressive productivity.
Grab Your “Win the Morning” Checklist
Peak to Profit has a free download to remind you of all of the tips that are included here, as well as additional tips to create an evening routine so that you can bookend your days with habits that set you up for success. You can find the "Win the Morning" Checklist here, along with all of our resources that are available at www.peaktoprofit.com/resources.