What if you could skyrocket both your productivity as well as your fulfillment every day from the very moment you wake up?
Well, you can!
For a moment, forget everything you think you know about morning routines. Because the truth is that most people vastly overcomplicate building the perfect morning routine.
Instead, let me make it simple and doable.
Here's my morning routine and why I choose to start my days like this:
The first part of any successful morning routine contains water, and a ton of it! Why? Because we dehydrate a lot while we're sleeping and dehydration is one of the biggest causes of feeling tired and having no energy at all.
Have you ever had a hangover and felt like a complete zombie?
Did you know that it's not the alcohol that makes you feel like that? Not directly at least. What alcohol does is dehydrate us, and that dehydration then causes us to feel like a wreck.
That's why any good morning routine starts with water.
Sidenote:
If you consistently struggle with having low energy, watch this video next. Because it will teach you my favorite ways of optimizing for more energy, both physically AND mentally.
The second key element is to get up when the alarm goes off, without snoozing that is. It might seem like a really small thing, but it's actually quite important.
Here's why:
These 10 minutes might seem like nothing compared to the 1440 minutes that we have every single day. However, the crucial part is in your mindset. What you're really telling yourself (and your subconscious) is that a little bit of crappy sleep is more important than working on your dreams!
Would you advise your children to be lazy and not pursue their goals?
Then, why would you tell yourself?
That's the first crucial part of the perfect morning routine done!
My second goal in the morning is to get my mindset and my priorities straight. For this, my recommendation would be to add one of these two things to your morning routine:
Read or Write.
When you're reading, you're downloading new, positive information into your brain and you're gonna feel differently than if you watched something negative, like the news. This will help you all throughout the day, which is ultimately the goal of any morning routine.
For writing:
Think about the sheer amount of information that is coming to you during every second of your day. It's easy to get distracted in a world of information overload where everyone has an agenda for you.
However, what do YOU want from you?
In the morning take some time to write out what your goals and priorities are for the coming day. Alternatively, you could write them out the night before and review them in the morning.
Onto the final part of this simple, yet productive morning routine:
Making a productive start of the day.
If you're looking for an elaborate routine with 2578 steps that take roughly 3 hours to complete, this isn't for you. Remember to K.I.S.S regularly! That is to say: Keep It Simple, Silly!
Here's my two recommended ways to really start the day:
If you're a morning person, follow Brian Tracy's idea of "Eating the Frog". Meaning that right after you get clear on what your priorities for the day are, get started on the most difficult and dreadful task you have for the day.
The idea is that after you do this first thing in the morning, the rest is going to feel a lot better by comparison.
However, this works terribly for me (and other night owls)....
If that's you, here's what to do instead:
It's called "The opposite" (wow, how insightful)
This is the method that I use to get myself going. I start with the simplest, easiest and often shortest task that I have set for the day. The idea is to get into motion as soon as possible.
Because if you start well, it's a lot easier to keep on going during the day.
This method prevents procrastination because you're doing something small and easy. And thus our minds will have less resistance to doing it.
And there you have it, my simple morning routine.
One final note:
Don't let this be a video that you watch and do nothing with! Start experimenting with these suggestions for yourself! Don't blindly take my word for it but test it out and see if these changes work for you and if not, adjust accordingly.
After all, we're all different and unique, so what works great for me isn't per see the best thing for you.
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