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.