Why I must have a Morning Routine? What should be a part of my Morning Routine?
In my Blog #2 I had reviewed Atomic Habits by James Clear. At that time, I stressed how important it is to have powerful & positive habits. In Blog #6, I reviewed a Productivity Tool – Habit Tracker, it would essentially help me track my habits and how well I am sticking to them.
Taking this thought further on forming powerful habits, I decided to write a Blog on creating a Powerful Morning Routine. I have had the opportunity to read some great books on forming a great morning routine such as The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma or the e-book by Tim Ferris.
In this blog, I am going to share my own experiences with forming a great morning routine and what worked for me and what doesnt. Disclaimer, I do not believe all morning routines are same for everyone, for some meditation might by the best way to go forward while for others a lot of action could be their go to strategy. I will explain my strategy and why it works for me.
Why Morning Routine?
Morning Routine has a lot to do with starting my day on a winning note. When I am out there in the day, meeting clients, planning to achieve targets, coordinating with colleagues, everything might not go according to my plan. I might have some degree of control but not absolute. In this context, it is imperative that I design my mornings so that I will have a higher degree of control over how my mornings go by.
I firmly believe that I do not have any control over external aspects of life such as environment, weather, colleagues, competition etc. What I have control over is myself and the way I respond to external signals. This is what Stoicism tells us.
Next, my whole purpose of designing my routine is to give importance to areas of life that I consider important. So, for me, Fitness is crucial as is a session on Mindfulness where I can just be with myself. Gratitude must form a good part of my morning routine and so should Affirmation and Visualization.
Purpose of Morning Routine
Before designing my morning routine, I must find my purpose for it. Without a purpose, my morning routine will more or less look like another chore and I will soon loose interest. My purpose for having a morning routine is to be physically fit, mentally alert and spiritually satisfied.
Designing My Morning Routine
Disclosure here, I have been working on my Morning Routine for quite some time. I am slowly getting a hold of things. Right now, my target is to have atleast 4 good morning routines out of a week so i.e. 4/7.
As I had mentioned earlier, I lay importance to 3 areas of life that I wish to focus on every morning i.e. Spirituality, Mental State & Health. My Morning Routine should ideally have activities that would address these 3 areas. Next step would be to find out the activities that I wish to do for each of these areas. For Spirituality, I decided to do atleast 50% of my allocated 16 rounds of chanting in the morning. For Mental State, I decided to do meditation and also practice the law of attraction. For Health, I will do Exercise, Stretching & Yoga.
Now, I will have to allocate time to each of these activities. For Spirituality, I give 1 – 1.5 hour while for Mindfulness session, I allocate 15 – 20 min. For Health, I allocate 30 – 45 min.
How does my Morning Routine look like?
I wake up between 4 – 5 am, usually 4.45 am. Take spoonful of powdered fenugreek seeds with hot water. I freshen up but do not take bath. (I have seen / heard / read a lot of people take early morning cold water bath and this could be an equally effective strategy). There are still others who also practice ‘Making your bed’ (<1 min), you can try this one too.
I then go into 1.5 hours of Chanting (Transcendental Meditation). This is usually done while walking and it gets me around 6k steps.
This is followed by 10 minutes of Meditation, 5 minutes of Affirmation & 5 minutes of Visualization. This is followed by 30 minutes of Exercises that is usually a mix of Stretching, Cardio, Strength Training & Yoga. I end it all up with 15 minutes of breathing exercises called Pranayama.
Exceptions & Future Plans
So, you must be thinking that my Morning Ritual is perfect and I do it everyday? Far from it, I do have my own struggles and I have to literally push myself into doing all these activities on some days. But I have made a pact with myself, If I do this morning ritual 4 out of 7 times in a week, it is a success for me. I think it is perfectly alright to fall a couple of times but it is not alright to not try again.
I had mentioned earlier why cold shower does not work for me in the morning. Also, I do not go to mindfulness session immediately after getting up although that is what many high performance people do. This has not worked for me but it might work for you. Also, many people do the most important tasks of their office like answering mails (Elon Musk) or reading comments from customers (Tim Cook). I personally stay away from my mobile till I complete my morning routine.
Since reading books is one of my passion, I plan to rise a bit early so that I can fit in atleast 15 minutes of reading to my morning routine. Also, I wish to spend more time in the morning reading my goals and problem solving key challenges. I plan to spend 15 min on this activity too. But first, I want to get the frequency to 6/7 times every week for my current morning ritual.
During Lockdown, I had limited mobility and had to make do with workouts at home but I do plan to start running a minimum of 5 kms daily.
End Note
I cannot stress enough how important Morning Ritual is to set up my day. I truly believe that if I win the morning, I win the day. Also, it gives me a certain degree of satisfaction thinking about how much I accomplished in the morning. Doing a Morning Ritual daily, boosts my confidence and positive self-esteem.
I do hope that you would get some ideas on designing your own morning ritual. As mentioned earlier, it can never be a 1 size fits all but yes there are certain aspects that one must include. Activities along with a fix time for those activities are what is absolutely necessary. Also consistency in doing those activities will help you build your morning routine.
If you are motivated to create your own morning routines, I will be happy to learn from you. Please write your ideas to me and I will try to reply to as many of you as possible. You can connect me on Social Profiles.
My idea is to grow along with you and make the best out of what we can from the limited time that we all have.
“Take Charge of Your Morning, Take Charge of Your Life”
~RG~
Disclosure: I am part of the Amazon Associates Program. If you are interested in any of the products which I might have promoted and you make a purchase through the link provided in the blog post, I will receive a small commission through Amazon. It will not increase / decrease the price of the items that you wish to purchase.