I’m a big fan of morning routine.
Specifically, a productive one.
No matter you’re aware of it or not, you do have one too. When you snoozed for 30 minutes and only had 10 minutes left before you rush of the door, there are certain steps you never skip. Maybe it’s brushing your teeth. Maybe it’s feeding your dog. Or having breakfast.
I cannot stress how important your morning is. I’m a firm believer that if you start your day right, your whole day will go right. If you are not mindful about your morning, you will be heading to a wrong direction.
And it does not matter if you’re a “morning person” or a “night owl”. It really does not matter. As long as your vision is crystal clear and you’re excited to start working towards your goal, you have the motivation to get up and do the work.
It took me many years of trial and errors though. I read a lot of articles and watched a lot of YouTube videos about morning routines. Many mornings I “failed” pursuing the ideal morning routine I wanted.
So today I want to show you mine, plus give you guys some tips to prepare yourself for the best mornings ahead, which will lead to better days, and a better life.
Before the sun comes
First thing first: your NIGHT TIME ROUTINE matters.
it prepares you for the next day.
How exactly?
First of all if you want to wake up feeling energetic and be ready to face the world instead of snoozing and hiding in your literal comfort zone, you need a good night sleep.
To ensure you have a quality sleep you should be in a comfortable environment (complete darkness, the right room temperature, your favourite scent etc… it’s your choice) and sleep in for 6-8 hours. I also find that no screen time 30 minutes before you go to bed is a good idea for better quality sleep. Not just because your eyes need rest but there should be time to wind down and stop digesting low level information (by that I mean mindlessly scrolling social media). There were many times I checked my Instagram before I slept and I ended up dreaming about stuff related to the posts I read.. which was really weird.
Second reason that night time routine matters is because you need to train up your subconscious mind so it works for you even when you are sleeping. What I normally do is to read some personal development book before I sleep, then remind myself my goals I want to achieve. Then the next day when I wake up I can take the ideas I have from last night and start working on them.
So remember this: if you want to fully leverage the power of morning routine, you need to set things up and set them right. Your night time routine is equally important. Night time routine creates morning routine. It took me many years to accept this concept.
My 2020 Morning Routine
To give you guys some background and guidelines:
1 I’m currently a full time student so it might seem more flexible than some of you who have a day job, or two.
2 Don’t push yourself too hard if you can’t make it every single day- taking a small step in the right direction is more effective than taking 10 steps in the wrong directions.
My 2020 (ideal) night time and morning routine:
22:00-22:30 shower & skincare
22:30-23:00 read personal development book, remind myself the goals I need to achieve
23:00-23:30 wind down
7:00 wake up, stretch
7:05 brush teeth, wash my face, skincare
7:15 make lemon water
7:20 morning journal – brain dump
7:30 visualise my dreams, write down my goals
7:35 write down my top 3 for the day
7:40 content creation – fast and rough draft (blog post, write a song etc.)
8:00 exercise
8:45 breakfast (coffee first!)
I hope this helps! Remember, everyone’s morning routine is different. I hope mine inspired you in some way to go after the life you want.
Questions for you guys:
1 How does your morning routine look like and what are the essentials that you can’t function without?
2 Are there anything mentioned in this post that you want to try out?
Thanks for reading x
Venus