The perfect morning in 3 steps

Let’s Dispell the “Hype” Around Morning Routines

Morning routines are all the rage for many people.

So, let’s cook up the perfect one for YOU specifically.

Morning routines can be incredibly powerful. But, they can also fail miserably. It all depends on finding the right one that is tailored to you. Because what works for me might not work well for you, and vice versa of course.

That’s what annoys me about a lot of the coaches and influencers….

They’ll give you the perfect recipe for your morning.

But rather, morning routines are like a buffet you can pick and choose from.

In this newsletter I will NOT issue a royal decree that you must follow any specific morning routine (or die trying). Instead, I’m going to cover the 3 stages of what I would consider the perfect start of a day.

For each stage, I’ll share the following:

• Why the stage is important

• What I personally do

• The variety of options to pick from

• Which options work well for which kinds of people

Alright, Let’s KISS!

Rule #1 of personal development:

Keep It Simple, Silly!

Overcomplication is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. The more difficult you make it, the smaller the odds of you following through. Life is enough of a mountain to climb without you bringing your own rocks alone!

Besides, this is not Olympic diving:

You don’t get bonus points for complexity!

You don’t need a 135-step morning routine.

Most of the overly complex morning routines are nothing more than “productive” procrastination. They might make you feel good, but when noon comes, you still haven’t achieved shit…

Here’s my hot take:

The goal of a morning routine is to shift you into gear quickly.

Stage 1: Waking Up

Insightful, I know! 🙂 

However, I’m sure you’ve had an experience where you woke up, stayed in bed and scrolled on your phone for an hour. Or maybe you snoozed your alarm and fell asleep again. Or you do wake up, but feel like a total zombie.

Stage 1 is all about avoiding these common pitfalls.

Here’s Rule #1:

Do NOT snooze the alarm!

When you do this, you immediately set yourself up for failure within the first few seconds of your day! You’re literally telling yourself (including your subconscious):

“My goals matter less than 10 minutes of terrible sleep”.

Forget about the time, doing this destroys your confidence!

The alarm you set is a promise you make to yourself! If you want to be able to have trust in yourself, you better keep your word.

Tip:

Make sure that your alarm is not within arm’s reach. This way you can’t simply roll over, hit the snooze button and fall back asleep. It forces you to get up out of bed first thing in the morning.

Step 2:

As quickly as you can, start drinking water!

Sleep dehydrates like crazy!

The reason why people often feel groggy in the morning is because of dehydration. Similarly, dehydration is the main reason why we get hungover after drinking, rather than the alcohol itself.

Aim for a liter of water as early as you can.

(That’s 0.264 gallons, for those using retard units of measurement)

Personally, I keep a bottle of water right next to my alarm so that my actions flow logically. As soon as I’ve turned the alarm off, the bottle is within arm’s reach and I grab it.

Again, look for a way to make this easy for you.

Note:

The above, I would consider “mandatory” for everyone. Regardless of who you are or what your preferences are, these will give you the best possible start. You might want to experiment with your ways of making this easier though.

From here on, it becomes more of a buffet to pick from.

And the final step of this stage:

You’ve got to get yourself energized!

You know people like this, right?

“Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my 7 cups of coffee!”

As an absolute night owl, I can tell you that there’s a HUGE difference between being awake and being awake. And so, you’d have to find a way to energize yourself.

Now, how do you energize yourself early in the morning?

Personally, I like using music and dancing/singling along (no joke).

However the key is to find something that works well for you.

You can think along the lines of:

• Doing some (light) exercise

• Splashing your face with cold water

• Taking the dog for a walk

• A (cold) shower

• Whatever secret you have up your sleeve

Stage 2: Get Your Mind Right

Have you ever experienced the following:

Something happened early on in your day, maybe someone cut you off in traffic. Hours later, when you were at work, you notice that the event is STILL on your mind. Perhaps you even notice you’re still fuming with anger.

We can use this concept deliberately and positively!

My main suggestions here are to:

• Read, or

• Write

Reading is pretty straightforward:

You want to be reading something that educates you, inspires you, fires you up to do more, and overall gets you into a positive mindset. This literally changes your thinking for the next couple of hours!

In this category, you could consider educational content on YouTube as well.

Just make sure you stay clear of garbage and doomscrolling!

My second recommendation would be writing:

When I say writing, I’m talking about your priorities and plans for the day. We have millions of distractions around us, so writing out what needs to get done is a good way to create laser focus.

If you struggle with focus or procrastination, I’d highly recommend it

Additionally, you could consider meditation to put you in a great state.

Personally, I like to make my priority list at night before going to bed and then review it in the morning. Then, I will do some reading for about 20 minutes to tap into a more resourceful way of thinking.

Stage 3: Get Busy!

The first step is always the hardest!

Once that step is taken, the second step follows naturally. From there on the third step and before you know it, you’re well on your way towards completing your journey.

Here’s the main idea:

If you can get yourself started right early on in the day, it becomes WAY easier to keep the momentum going throughout. The longer you stay being lazy in the morning, the harder it is to get into work mode later in the day.

For this stage there are 2 main methods:

• Eating the Frog

• Snowballing

Eating the Frog

This is a concept popularized by Brian Tracy.

He says to start your day by doing the most difficult and dreadful thing. Once you’ve finished that, all other tasks you have for the day will feel a lot less intimidating since you got the big daddy out of the way.

Where are my morning people?

This will probably work incredibly well for you.

For all sane people, let’s talk about the alternative.

Snowballing

I have no clue if this method has a name, this is what I call it.

This is the exact opposite of Brian’s idea:

Since I’m absolutely NOT a morning person, I stay far away from my most difficult task. It will not get done well until I’m fully awake. So instead, I start with the easiest task that I can quickly knock out of the park.

This way, I can ease myself into the workload a little bit.

It’s less “intimidating” to do something easy, so there’s less resistance.

And once you’ve started with one thing, the next thing will be a bit easier after that. You’ll be gaining more momentum as you knock these tasks out of the way and you can snowball to bigger and more difficult things.

Note:

Regardless of which route you take, make sure you’re working on the right things! Out of the thousands of things you could be doing, a LOT of them won’t do much for you and only a few tasks will really move the needle!

Finding Your Perfect Morning Routine

This is what nobody will tell you:

There is NO perfect morning routine!

Not in a universal sense, but there IS a perfect morning routine for you. The way you find it is by making your best bet. Change up your morning routine to what you think would work best for you. Try it for a few months and then make your decision.

If it works better for you, keep it and try to optimize it.

If it doesn’t work for you, go back to what you did before and try again.

(Note: In some cases you make a change and almost instantly know it’s terrible for you. In the vast majority of cases however, give it a few weeks to months, so you can get used to it)

The One Mindset That Gives You Power!

If life is giving you the “Everyday Crazies”, here’s your medicine:

Remember that there are unlimited things you can focus on today. Most of these things will NOT help you in achieving your goals. So focus your time, focus and effort on the few things that DO make the difference!

Watch This If You’re Trying to Fix Your Life!

For most people, personal development does NOT work!

The video below highlights the main issue with most personal development advice. It also helps you find out what the real problems are that hold you back from your goals.

Give it a watch (and a like while you’re at it 😉 )

Building Your Perfect Morning

Now that you have all the right information, it’s time to start picking the elements of your new morning routine.

Again, these are the stages:

1. Wake Up (Quickly) & Get Energized

2. Get Your Mind Right

3. Get to Work

For each of these stages I’d like you to think about two things:

• What activities do you think work best for you?

• How can you make it easy to get started?

That’s it for today!

For tomorrow, start with implementing your new morning routine. Remember that you’ll probably have to brute force it at first, because your mind likes to operate on autopilot as much as possible!

Remember, your best tomorrow starts today!

Make sure you work on what matters today & get enough rest so that you’re ready to go tomorrow!