هنا

[برزخ]

So often we hear that morning routine habits are the key to being successful. Or that somehow simply having morning routine habits are a commonality that puts all successful people in the same category. It’s almost as if there’s some “magic” morning routine habit formula and if we can just figure it out, then we’ll be successful too.


Why is this? And do morning routine habits really make that big of a difference???
Truth be told, I’m consumed…straight up obsessed with productivity, efficiency, and helping others learn exactly how to achieve their goals.
I hate gimmicks and find it a waste of my time to chase social “fads”. People are successful for a reason. Unless you’ve won the lottery or been born into it, everyone who is successful worked to get there.
Once I realized that I knew I had to start searching for what it is that makes successful people so successful. Part of that was delving a little deeper into understanding morning routine habits.
I wanted to know for myself if they really made any difference.
When I first started this journey to learning about personal development and finding success for myself, I started a running list of traits and quotes that of successful men and women.
I’ll be honest, one of the things that started to stand out to me was this “morning routine habits” thing.


At first, I thought it was ridiculous. Seriously though, how much of a difference could it make. As long as I got my 6-7 hours of sleep at night and had my morning coffee, everything should work itself out, right? It’s not like changing my morning routine habits was going to change how many hours are in a day. Or how many waking hours I could use to get things done.
But I was up for the challenge and decided to give it a try for a couple weeks.
For the sake of the discussion, I’m going to assume that if you are reading this it’s for one of two reasons: you’re either fed up with how life is going and want a change, or you’re doing alright, but you want to get better.
I mean, what other options are there, right?
With this said, my goal out of this article is to help YOU achieve better results throughout the day.
So here is what I found during my self-challenge:
Despite thinking that this whole thing was a bit bogus, I found that I, in fact, did feel better when I created a morning routine for myself.
Why? Because part of having morning routine habits, actually most of it, is all about self-care. Making time for yourself first thing in the morning. Before anything else has time to distract you and stress you out.
I found that when I had taken time to mentally, emotionally, and physicallyprepare myself for the day, that I was better capable of taking on the day.
Sticking to my morning routine habits gave me more energy and I actually found that I was more motivated for life.
Mentally, I was more prepared for taking on the day. Emotionally, I wasn’t as exhausted and could withstand things that would wear on me before. And physically, I felt better.
In fact, at some point, I decided to skip my routine. I stayed up late, slept in, and completely ignored doing any of the things I had been in the morning. How did it go? Pretty terribly actually.
I actually felt worse than I had in a while.
It’s safe to say that my morning routine habits have become a daily thing now. And I definitely notice a difference in my productivity levels when I don’t follow them.
Having morning routine habits is something I now HIGHLY recommend. It was literally life changing for us. It’s something I challenge you to start if you haven’t already!
If you’re ready to start but not sure where to start, I’ve compiled a list of tips below for you.
These steps have been tried and proven to work wonders, but they aren’t one size fits all. You have to discover the ones that work for you and create your own list of morning routine habits!



Morning Routine Habits of Successful People


1) DON’T LOOK AT YOUR PHONE


Got to be honest, this one was hard at first.
Why? Why shouldn’t I look at my phone in the morning? Because of self-care.That’s why. What does that have to do with it?

Two things happen when you check your phone. First, studies have shown that checking social media and email is actually giving us “self-worth” these days. Little hits of brain chemicals are released when we see that someone liked our post or responded to our tweets.

When we allow our social media to be the thing that gives us self-worth first thing in the morning, we’re degrading our own confidence.

Secondly, checking emails and news increases our stress levels. As we’re instantly reminded of all the things we have to do and all the craziness going on in the world today.

Complete opposites, I know. But neither is entirely healthy.



2) MAKE THE BED

Okay, so this one has mixed reviews.

Some successful people, such as Tim Bilyeu, co-founder of Quest Nutrition and current CEO of Impact theory, think it is just stupid. Others, like Jim Kwik, CEO of Kwik Learning and expert on brain performance and accelerated learning absolutely love it.

Why the mixed feelings on it? The reason is that different people are motivated by different things.


f you are absolutely driven by accomplishing goals, sometimes it helps to get momentum going by accomplishing little things at first. Making the bed is a small accomplishment for me, and it also helps me because I hate a messy environment. I can’t think if things are not in order.
Navy SEAL Admiral McRaven swears by the idea of making your bed and even gave a whole speech on it. It’s quite inspirational.


3) DRINK WATER BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE

Somehow as a culture, Americans have made sugar filled coffee drinks their morning go to.
Considering the fact that our bodies have just spent hours resetting, prepping toxins to be flushed out, processing information, and resting our brains, I think it’s safe to say, it deserves some water to help it.

Our bodies are made up of over 60% water. That’s more than half. In fact, it needs water to help flush out toxins and processed things like sugar. So why are we just feeding it more sugary and processed things in the morning?


Drinking water first thing helps to wake up our metabolisms, brains, and bodies along with a slew of other health benefits.


You can add lemons or other citruses for added health benefits.


4) RECALL DREAMS

I know, this might be a new one for you. When I first heard this, I thought “what the heck? Why on earth would I want to do this? It has NOTHING to do with the day.”

But after doing some research, I found out I was so wrong.

When you shut your eyes at night and get some sleep, your brain is processing the thousands upon thousands of data points you took in throughout the day.

It sifts between what it thinks is valuable and what isn’t.
The reason this is critical is simple: your brain is processing your day… Including any challenges you have been through while you are sleeping.

Have you ever taken a shower and out of nowhere had an answer come to you? That’s because sometimes what is necessary to solve an issue is to stop actively thinking about it! Then your subconscious side of the brain takes over and goes through it for you.

Therefore, when you are dreaming, your brain may very well analyze the issue and come up with a solution. Many great inventions have been rumored to come about while in a dream. Even the periodic table was rumored to have come about from one
.
How to get started with this, especially if you’re like I used to be and claim to “never dream?”
It sounds weird, but this method works: before going to bed at night, say out loud to yourself that you are going to remember your dreams.

Then, when you wake up, write your dream down. Use discretion…. You can tone it down to
PG-13 if necessary. Don’t write anything down you’d be embarrassed to have someone else read.


After awhile of actively trying to remember your dreams, it becomes easier, and easier, and easier.
It may just surprise you what your dreams help you solve in life.



5) MEDITATION

This might sound weird, but meditation is a secret waiting for the general public to find out about it.

Many studies have been done on the health benefits of “meditation” or as I like to explain it to some people, taking a few minutes to sit down, clear your thoughts, and breath. You’re basically hitting the pause button for a moment.


I understand that it might make some people uncomfortable, but there is nothing religious about the following steps.


Get in a comfortable spot. I like crossing my legs and sitting against a wall…. personal preference.

Then, breathe in as much as you can through your nose, then breath out slowly through your
nose. Your brain is going to get a surge of oxygen doing this, and you’ll feel more awake and alive in just five minutes.
If there are times of your day that you are extremely stressed out, these breathing exercises work wonders.​

6) SHOWER


Do it cold!

It actually wakes you up!

Alright, so very few people are willing to do this, because it sucks… Straight up sucks hardcore when you start it.

Your nerves are getting stimulated when you do this, and you’re going to start shivering. What this does, though, is warm your core body temperature up.

Why is this important?

Simply put, your body changes temperature throughout the day. When it is getting ready to be nightfall and it is time for you to go to bed, your body will naturally cool down your core temperature. In the same way, when you are ready to wake up, your body starts raising the core temperature.

By doing this (at first extremely unpleasant) step, you are going to force your body to wake up faster, and after a few days, you’ll start enjoying the benefits of this.


7) TO-DO/BE/FEEL LIST

When you wake up in the morning, after a cold shower and meditation, you’ll be in a great place to think about the day.

Remember: do not check your phone for the first hour of the day. The whole goal of this is to be proactive…not reactive. If you make a habit of checking your phone first thing, you are training yourself to continuously be reacting to what everyone else is saying/doing/thinking.
The whole point of these goals is to feel like YOU CAN RECLAIM YOUR LIFE… Because guess what, you can.

So, after you’ve done some of the other tips above, think about what you want to do.
Seriously. What do you want to do today? Think about it in two different ways, business and personal.


For your work, what are the biggest pressing things you want to accomplish? Three is a good number. Same with personal.
Even if you can only spend a few minutes each day, JUST DO IT!
There are some days that I only can spend 5 minutes doing one of my goals, but guess what, little by little it’ll be accomplished.


After this, what do you want to focus on feeling? Do you want to feel more confident? More sure of yourself?
Be honest with yourself and write this stuff down. Focus on it throughout the day.
Then, once you’re done writing this down, there is one more thing to focus on…

What do you want to be?


Do you want to be known as someone knowledgeable in a certain area? Do you want to be more skilled at something? Or perhaps you want to be the next Arnold Swarzenager? You get the point.
After you write down what you want to do/feel/be, focus on it throughout the day, and you’ll start to see that this morning habit will totally create a better day.

It gives you clarity of mind and gets you in the mindset of what you want to accomplish.
It also coincides directly with journaling. My next point.


8) JOURNAL

Journaling is a such an amazing opportunity for reflection. During this time, think about what you have done, what worked, what didn’t, and then think about how you can progress further. Think about what you can do to be even better in your specific field.
The majority of people do not spend time actively thinking about their days, and due to this, they feel stuck in a never-ending cycle where they do not feel like they are getting anywhere.
Feel familiar?
I’m telling you…combine journaling with your to-do lists, and you will see results.



9) READ


Leaders are readers. If you ask the average joe what they want to accomplish in life at the beginning of the year, many will state that they want to, but just don’t have enough time.

Let me ask you something.

If someone had a suitcase with a million dollars in it and told you that they would give it to you in full if you read every day for the next month, I guarantee that you would find time in your day…and that is the key.

Find time. Make it valuable…even if it is only five minutes a day! The reason for this is because no matter what you are doing in life, there are people who have accomplished what you are trying to do, and have written a book on it. You can learn from their experience, their failures, and successes, and apply what worked for them and don’t make their mistakes.

THIS IS HUGE

Jim Kwik talks about how this can make it so that you “download decades of experience instantly.”
You can check out our constantly growing Resources page for a list of some of the books that have literally changed our lives. Books don’t make it to our list if we don’t truly believe in them.

So there you have it, 9 morning routine habits that we truly believe in.
You might be thinking… holy cow… this sounds like a lot of work. To be honest, all of this can take about 45 minutes to an hour in the morning. We’re not talking about spending a lot of time at each. Just a few minutes for each thing can make all the difference in the world.

And if you combine doing this with your specific chronotype then you’ll be setting yourself up for success. You can read more about chronotypes and setting yourself up for success in our article about Having a Successful Mindset.

Have you tried any of these early morning success steps? If so, tell us what you thought about them below.
​



Wish you bless