A Thirty-Minute Gift: Reward Yourself with a New Morning Routine

What would you do if you woke up 30-minutes early? Before the alarm. Before you NEED to get up? Would you go back to sleep or use it as a gift?

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!”
-          Rumi

I have heard of this quote for years, and if I ever wake up just a little before my alarm I consider staying up, but my Indulger usually gets the better of me and I choose to go back to sleep.

What can you do in thirty minutes that would be worth losing that little catnap? What would be a gift to you? What do you WANT to do with that time?

• Meditate, exercise, or journal?

• Take a leisurely shower?

• Get a “jump on your day”?

• Spend quality time with someone?

Your morning routine can set your day in motion with joy and ease or panic and chaos. You can be filled with confidence and clarity or anxiety and worry. You can enjoy connection with others or brush them off because you “don’t have time”.

The Perils of the Snooze Button

I set my alarm to wake me up with the radio, rather than a jarring alarm. Softly, slowly, I wake up to the jolly banter of my favorite radio team – Anna and Raven. If I time it right, I can listen to the “Couples Court”, where the radio audience helps to solve a couple’s dilemma (I think of this as research - did you know I coach couples?).

More often than not, this “routine” has turned into a delay tactic; the radio teases me with one entertaining bit after another. I really “should” be getting up and dressed, then going downstairs to say hi to my early-bird husband (who is at his computer by 6:30 am), make my breakfast, and then head to my home office.

I usually get to my first appointment of the day with little time to spare. I start the day feeling disappointed or undisciplined because I didn’t do what I said I would do this time – ease into my day and take a few minutes to gather my thoughts and plan out my morning. I’ve given my Inner Judge the opportunity it needs to berate me once again.

A Better Way to Launch Your Day

Every morning we have a choice – to wake up with the “secrets of the dawn” and use that extra time wisely, or we can let our Indulger keep hitting the snooze button and then suffer from our Judge telling us we screwed up again. Based on my years of coaching, there are at least 50% of my readers who wish they had a better morning routine.

I challenge you to rethink and rework your morning routine, designing it to launch your day with ease and flow. What do you want? What would make your day go more smoothly? What new habit would support you? It takes weeks to develop new habits, so declare what you want, celebrate the intermittent wins, and stick with it. Listen to your Wiser Self – Don’t go back to sleep!

Now if I would just go to bed 30 minutes earlier…

7 Steps to a New Morning Routine

We all yearn to improve our morning and evening routines in order to feel better about our day and to be more productive. How can we use our time wisely and even fit in some special reflection and prep time while also getting enough sleep?

I like to think of our routines as the framework that allows us to use our most effective mind, rather than trying to willpower or panic our way through the day. “I should” and “I have to” statements have built-in anxiety and judgement. If we say “I will follow this routine” (that I have created for myself), it gives us a feeling of being in control with a commitment to make it happen.

This lesson was drilled home to me a few years ago when I was babysitting for my grandkids. My daughter knew I like to sleep in, but she gently persuaded me to get up just 15 minutes before the kids so that I would be one step ahead of the “must do’s”; breakfast, getting dressed, back-packs, dogs out, bus pick-up, and daycare drop off.  All that happens in a mere 60 minutes! If I wasn’t dressed and ready to go when the kids got up, I would be driving in my pajamas!!

To avoid chaos and disappointment, let’s look at my seven steps to make our mornings calmer, beginning with the night before:

Step 1. Begin at night to prepare for the needs of your family and yourself.

• Prepare for your morning rush – whatever that might look like, (lunches made, papers ready, clothes decided on).

• Write out 3 things you will do tomorrow morning; a phone call, an email to write, or a meeting to prepare for. Determine your priorities for the day so you can jump right in without a decision to make. The best time to do this is in the late afternoon or evening while it is fresh in your mind. It makes it easier to get to sleep, too!

Step 2. Determine all the steps you want to fit into your morning routine, then decide the order, how long each will take, and what time you need to be done by. Throw out your old timeline and get tuned into what will work best for you. My list might include: hygiene, dressing, meditation/exercise, journaling, breakfast, talk to my husband, and “walk to work.” Imagine yourself doing each of these steps and determine the best order and location. Be careful for any “have-tos” that might sneak in.

• Bonus tip. Be realistic with how long things take.

Step 3. Once you determine your time to get up, subtract 8 hours and set your goal for lights out. Our body needs sleep and if we don’t oblige, it will fight back in ways that we can’t control.

Step 4. Write out your plan. I can’t say it enough. If the steps are clear, the mind will oblige.

Step 5. Be prepared for the Inner Critic that will throw out challenges for you. For instance, the Avoider or Hyper-Achiever in you might try to rationalize why today is not the day to start a new routine. Repeat after me, “I have time”, “I will make time”, “This will make my day so much better.”

Step 6. Track a few steps from your routine and what time they should be done by. If you’re really nerdy about it, you can make a chart and check off each step for a week or more to see how you’re doing. Example, I want to be done with my morning mediation and journal by 7:15 and down in the kitchen by 7:45.

Step 7. Do a daily mindset check-in. Are you proud of yourself for any progress you are making? Do you have compassion for yourself when you get behind? It is important to celebrate each win as you start building these habits. You’re actually building new gray matter in your brain, developing new neuropathways that will make it easier and easier to follow this routine.

Good luck and remember to let me know if you need any help or want to discuss what is working or not working for you.

The Emotion of a clean slate

How do you tend to feel as you head into a new year? Are you excited to see what 2021 will bring, ready to roll up your sleeves and create a plan full of fun ideas and logical next steps in your life? Or are you like the many who approach it from a “fix things” perspective. Do you start with “I should” or do you start with “I will”?

Take a closer look at how you talk to yourself:

“I didn’t do enough to lose weight, get ahead, declutter, etc.”

“I have to complete X, Y, and Z before I can get to what I really want.”

We judge ourselves, our lives, our circumstances and try to push our way through life. And when we get brave enough to declare a goal that is meaningful, we often talk ourselves out of it. “I really want to ________, but I can’t.”

Here are some new ways of approaching this “clean slate”…

Questions to reflect on:

• What went well in 2020? What did you learn, what did you enjoy, who inspired you, what motivates you?

• What do you want?

• If each area of your life was a 10, what would that look like? What would you be doing? Who would you be?

• How do you want to connect with life and with others in your life?

Three steps to take to have a great year:

1. Pick a few areas of your life that you’d like to focus on in the next 3 months, paint a picture of what you want to create, and then embrace this clean slate with joy and an exploring and open heart. You can create a vision board, or make a list of outcomes you’d like to achieve and then break them down into separate baby steps – your new goals for 2021.

2. Focus on the habits that will support the goals that you’ve now decided are important to you.

3. Let the wise, knowing, confident part of you stay in charge of your thinking. When you meet an obstacle, know that you’ll figure it out and keep going. “I can do this!”

If you follow these three steps, all from a mindset of self-acceptance, exploration, creativity, and passion, you’ll have a great year. Act on this with consistency and if you need any help, I'm here to support you.

Release and Invite In for 2021

Part Two of the End-of-Year Ritual: Release and Invite In 

In my last newsletter, I wrote about taking time to celebrate wins. The second half of my annual end-of-year ritual is to evaluate what you want to let go of and what you’d like to invite into your life. There are so many things, situations, habits, and emotions that might come to mind for 2020; the obvious and the not-so-obvious.

Remind yourself what was draining for you this year. What isn’t working for you anymore? What do you want to let go of? What relationships have become toxic? What habits and limiting beliefs are standing in your way? As you metaphorically or literally let go, you make room in your heart and in your life, for more.

It’s up to you to decide what to invite in, otherwise, stuff might just show up to fill that space and it might not be what you want! What energy, emotions, or characteristics do you want to invite in – some new way of being? What situations, projects, people, or exciting next steps do you want to pursue? What do you want your life to look like? Do your best to identify what is most meaningful to you.

The bottom line: let go of what is not serving you and mindfully invite in what you want! Then do everything you can to make that happen.

The evaluation process to celebrate, let go, and invite in with intention takes time and thought, so don’t rush through it like some dreaded chore. Honor the process and honor yourself. Block out some focused time, limit possible distractions, and make it a ritual. Contact me if you’d like a worksheet for this.

To set the tone, you might do some of the following: set the right atmosphere with candles or music, write on special paper or in your favorite journal, start with some meditation or slow deep breathing, and then write down all that comes to you for each category without trying to make it perfect. I also encourage you to WRITE it down rather than just think about it. Swimming thoughts in your head are much harder to capture and mold into an intention.

My wish for you is more joy, ease, and flow, in your life. I wish that you’re able to have fun dreaming, exploring, planning, collaborating. All of that will lead to taking new steps and experiencing new results.

Check out the blog post written by my friend, Ele Dootson, which gives more suggestions about how to make this process special. Burning Bowl Ritual to Release and Invite In.