Motivation Monday – Routine is the Key to a Happy Life
It’s Monday again. The sun rises an hour earlier for us, in Boulder, Colorado. As a morning person, I favor the morning, and I want you to favor the early morning because it’s a time of seeing and actualizing great potential.
I hope you have taken advantage of the time change and moved your wake-up time one hour earlier to max out those potent morning hours. If you haven’t, it’s not too late to move your bedtime earlier, in 15-minute increments, each day. By next Monday, you’ll have easily reached your goal.
Let’s discuss how you can maximize your early morning hours to motivate, energize, and plan your precious day.
I’m not a work-out-a-holic, but stay fit. I get exercise 5 times a week. 2 of those days, Rally Sport has my favorite classes in the late morning, so I don’t work out first thing. The other 3 days, I get my workout in the early hours of the morning.
Getting a good sweaty workout first thing has about a million benefits. I’ll list 5 here, to get you motivated!
- Your metabolism is motivated to keep you thinner.
- Toxins are released so you’re cleaning your temple.
- Feel-good hormones begin to circulate more.
- Clears your mind so you can think.
- Increases your endurance and strength for whatever the day brings.
If you get up at 5:00am, do a quick 30-minute workout of your own or download one from the billions on youtube, you clearly set yourself up for a successful day.
To continue to maximize your day, get in the cleansing shower. Not only does it clean your body, water has positive ions that wash away worries, overthinking, and creates the clarity only a shower can create.
You’re out of the shower, dressed, and Bee-u-tiful. Now what? There’s a window of 30-45 minutes after a workout to feed the body what it desperately needs after a workout. My favorite is an egg and fruit. You could do nut butter and apple, cottage cheese, a protein shake, or soup! I call that first breakfast, before my family awakens.
Say you’ve got another hour before you have to ‘be’ somewhere or ‘do’ something. Here are a few choices:
- Sit down with your calendar – this will help you from missing important deadlines, as well as plan ahead. I feel great when I book an airline ticket a few months in advance because I’ve got it together enough to know where I’m going and what I’m doing a whole quarter of the year ahead!
- Meditate – there’s a super cool philosophy called Theory U. It basically states, “When the subtle energy field is clear (without negativity, noise, etc.) then real work can begin to happen. There’s much more to it, but the gist is that if you can make yourself and the space around you clean and clear, the work you do will not take as long, will be more effective, and can permeate more ease and clarity throughout the world. Before you tackle that multi-layered project, sit still for 10 to 20 minutes.
- Read from inspirational texts from a book. I tend to shy away from the bright screen first thing in the morning. It’s bad for my overall eye-sight, and I could get stuck in a rabbit hole on Facebook if I’m not careful. Instead of looking to the news or blogs for your first burst of information, let the ancient or not-so-ancient texts inspire and motivate you to be the best person you can be. Light a candle and sit for just a couple of minutes as you read. A few of my favorites are, Be Here Now by Ram Dass, The Prophet by Kahil Gibran, What to Remember When Waking by David Whyte, and How to Know Higher Worlds by Rudolph Steiner. You’ll remember what matters to you, and it will linger like a lovely perfume for the rest of the day.
- Write in your journal when you feel like you can’t make a decision about something, or your dreams were exceptionally annoying, scary, or disturbing. I am a life coach, so I regularly meet with colleagues on challenging topics. But when I have a big question mark knocking at my head about a life decision, I need some extra reflection time. I have found that writing in my journal is a great way to see what truly matters to me at that moment. I can write out all the illogical emotions that jab at me, and see more clearly what my soul is pointing to for my future. If you’re not a big journaler, start today, it can be a window to see what’s going on in your subconscious, what sabotages your best efforts, and what mystic advice awaits for you at the end of the pen. I find to write with a pen is better than typing. Something more magical happens in the process.
Those are some nice and quiet activities to gently invite your day in, as opposed to hopping up, late, and stressing about what you haven’t accomplished. You will be much more ready for what your day has in store for you as you have centered yourself in a slow, kind, and loving way.
Get started today. Tonight, use a timer, reminder, whatever on your phone, mine tells me at 7 to get ready for bed. I put my young kids to bed at 7pm, I get an hour to myself, and then I go to bed at 8pm.
I am blessed to work for myself, so I can get my children fed by 5pm (most nights). They come upstairs at 6pm, and we just bum around for an hour, they slowly brush their teeth, play, talk, and take a bath or shower. Getting them to bed at 7:00 is a lot less stress than it used to be, now that it’s a routine.
For an hour, I am tempted to watch television, and sometimes I cave because I need to be doing type 4 productivity (spacing out), but I make sure there’s a good enough message that I’ll be going to bed with – no Stranger Things for me right before bed. I’m just too sensitive, and that lingers like a putrid perfume throughout my night.
Most of the time, I’ll read a fiction book, or a book that just makes me happy. Right now I’m reading U2 at the End of the World. I pretend I am touring with them, and I dream about how interesting fame can be.
Sometimes I’ll talk with my husband about the day, our dreams and wishes. It’s easy with kids to take this wonderful relationship for granted, but we make sure to find the time, although he leaves me to my own reflection in the morning hours, whether we get up together or not.
In a nutshell, you can uplevel your life for more happiness, centeredness (for the hard times that do come), and organization by getting up at 5:00 am. If you have to be at work early, give yourself at least 2 hours before you begin to work. This is YOUR time. Don’t let anyone hijack it. Guard it with your life. You’ll see how life changes into a more pleasant experience as you make it your routine.
Routine is not just for young children. Going to bed and getting up at the same time each day has been shown to maximize sleep, hormones, and overall satisfaction. Your soul feels that it can depend on routine, and can rest and relax knowing what’s next. Take time today to think about what a healthy morning routine is for you. Take time tomorrow to wake up a little earlier, get your body moving, and do something inspirational.
Love,
Kate Galt
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