The Morning Routine

How do you start your day?

Are you snoozing your alarm for the 3rd or 4th time? Or once you wake up, do you stay in bed, pull up Instagram or TikTok to follow up with the latest news/posts, and doom scroll for the next 15-20 minutes until your body "feels" awake?

If you do this, you've got to snap out of it.

With this week's newsletter, I will be giving you the 'why' as well as tips & tricks to reset your morning routine and to be able to get control of your morning to tackle on the rest of the day.

First off,

The morning routine cannot be done if the night before doesn't prepare you for it.

I'll repeat that again

The morning routine cannot be done if the night before doesn't prepare you for it.

What I mean by this is if you're staying up late at night doing unnecessary things for you to wake up feeling groggy and making you sleep in, then that also needs to change.

Set the mood before you go to sleep. In this case,

Have your last meal 2-3 hours before you go to sleep. Your body typically digests food within that periodic window. If you seem to get home late and haven't eaten your last meal but are completely exhausted from your day, have a small snack but you need to make sure to digest completely to not sleep on a full stomach but also to have the energy for the next day. Additionally, if you normally come home late, I'd advise you to eat before 6-7pm so you don't feel so hungry when you get home and the need to scarf down a whole meal before you go to bed.
Have ambient lighting in your room throughout the night before you sleep. This signals your brain and allows the body to start shutting down and start relaxing. Create that environment for yourself to where you know you're going to sleep and sleep well.
Cut out blue lighting from your devices as well as cut any electronics out 30 minutes before you sleep. Again, just to emphasize in creating your environment for yourself. If bright lights are present, the brain is going to think there's still daylight out. Substitute using electronics with either journalling, reading a book, or stretching.

The Ideal Morning for YOU

Everyone's morning routine is different. I will give you my approach on how I go about my mornings and you can either pick and choose what could work for you and replace something with what you think would benefit yourself in the AM.

My Step-by-step process of my morning:

So first, I wake up from my alarm at 7AM. I snooze that then, I go straight to the bathroom to do my hygienic routine; I use the toilet, then go to the sink, wash my hands, brush my teeth, wash my face, and then finish off with my skincare/facial routine. This takes me about 15 minutes max.

Then once I'm done with the sink, I go back to my bed and make it. Making my bed has been something I actually started to enjoy because doing this as a first task in the morning has made me start the day with completing something. A simple task yet a task. I'm already starting off on a good note. I'm making wins for my day already.

After that, I drink about 8 oz. of water then open up the blinds before my morning mediation/mindfulness. This sets the tone for my morning because I let natural sunlight in to let me brain and body know it's time to wake up as well as some Vitamin D.

Once that's done, I head to my lounge chair and pull up my Headspace App. I've been using courses to keep me accountable so that I follow a regimen rather than go for a mediation a day. However, I did start with a meditation a day which Headspace has been resourceful for that (shoutouts to Headspace). Typically, meditation sessions take about 10-12 minutes. I've come to realization that this has become a nonnegotiable because of how much productivity I've had throughout my days as of lately.

Now once that's completed, I've already taken about 20-23 minutes of my morning.

From here, I'd go and get dressed. I usually wear similar shit throughout the week so this makes me less stressed and preserves my brain's energy consumption on thinking on things that don't need that much effort.

Lastly, I head to my desk and pull out my journal. I then write out 3 things I'm grateful for, what I'm feeling at that moment as far as emotions, and the top 3 things I want to accomplish by the end of the day.

Then I go about my day and the rest is history.

Your morning routine doesn't have to look like this but the whole purpose is to set yourself up for success. It's taken me months to get into the groove of this because I used to wake up at 8am before and definitely did not make time to meditate everyday. I also would scroll on my phone and stay in bed until 30 minutes later. But I remember one morning, I felt like I woke up from this trance & asked myself

"What the fuck are you doing, Tony?"

I know I needed to do more and I know these habits weren't healthy. So I chose to make this change and it's made me better. And I hope this can help you become better, healthier, and overall, an achiever.

Let's lock the fuck in gang.