4 reasons why your morning should look the same, every day.

I’ve always been an anti-early bird person.

It all stems to my parents. Conservative Christians, they owned the night, claiming nothing good happens after the sun goes down (I’m sure it wasn’t just them) and shutting down a Saturday night in the early evenings to prepare for church.

While I’ve never been one to sleep in, I like my nights and rebelled against the one-size-fits all philosophy, which seemed to be tinged in judgement.

Instead I took the ADHD approach to beginning my days. You start, without preparation, allowing anxiety and stress to drive your direction. Yell the loudest and I will take care of your task. Scare me and I’ll do it before you yell. Alternately, if my mood was not productive, the loudest and scariest tasks were pushed away with another strategy: procrastination. I did everything else BUT the things that would lessen the load on my mind and then scurry frantically to finish by the end of the day.

I used this Jekyll and Hyde approach for most of my adult life, hiding the belief I could never be a person whose days had any uniformity until a few years ago. It began when I attempted to begin the day with meditation, devotional and prayer. I kept waiting for it to fall off when I missed a day but I continue to use it. Then I added my room, cleaning it up each day before I began work. I felt such a sense of relief when I returned at the end of the day, weary and spent, finding the pleasant and reassuring order.

This year the final building block fell into place. I wanted to regain my athleticism, a goal I had spoken for many years. I was an accomplished athlete when I was young, but I could never put together the consistency I needed to reach my potential as an adult. Morning runs have always been tough, but each day as I rolled out of bed, ignoring the inner voice urging  me to get more sleep, I added exercise to my morning practice.

 

Maybe you are like me. You hate structure in the morning. It feels weighty and disappointing. You have failed so many times before and your family and work get in the way. I suggest you try it. There are real benefits to having a productive, focused, intentional jumpstart to your day.

• You get some of the hardest stuff out of the way.

If you stack your day right, your “bad-Monday” quota will go down. My current morning practice includes a shake with as much nutrition as I can pack in, a workout, a devotional and some light housework. When I start my workday, I feel ready to kill it. And, even if the remainder of the day isn’t as productive, it’s okay. I started strong. When I backload my day, normal challenges can derail the best laid, healthiest plans.

• It makes it harder for others to get in the way. Good for relationships.

It’s not their fault, but the people in my life can interfere with my goals. Friends inviting me for a drink. One of my daughters forgetting her left shoe. A client who needs my attention. A new opportunity I have to follow up on right away. If I put off ME time until later in the day, it will gobbled up often enough to slow my momentum down. For several years I’ve been a consistent exerciser, but knowing I at least got a run in every morning is a game changer.

• You strengthen your “completion muscles”

There is a dialogue between your brain and your body going on all the time. “I should do this,” your head says.

“But I’m so tired,” your body counters. Maybe we can do it later. I’ll feel better later.

“But if we got this done, you really feel better later. Okay, let’s do it later.”

And then you go back to sleep and after a while, your brain and body understands your promises mean little to nothing. That’s why the opposition feels so impossible. When I wake up in the morning, even after working out almost 99% of the time since I started over a year ago, I still argue with myself about whether this should be the day to skip. Every time I ignore the inner argument, I get stronger. And it has spread to other areas. I can promise to complete a blog post a week and it happens. I add a video a week and it happens. My completion muscles are huge y’all!

• You’ll inspire the people around you.

When I tell my workout stories, sometimes people respond with, “you don’t have to run every day,” or “Yuk, that’s the last thing I want to do.” But with every naysayer there are others who notice I am out there on the roads every day and they encourage me, ask me about it and get started on their own best-life journey. Creating a morning practice is good for those around you. They can trust you to take care of yourself, they see your commitment to doing better is uncommon and they start to think, if she can do it, so can I!

Wow, right? I bet you didn’t realize a morning practice could be so full of goodness. I didn’t either but I’m so glad I know now. Truly, the sky is the limit when you jump start your vision every day.

If you are interested in starting a best practice, use the ingredients in the info-graphic below. Choose one, or all of the items and try it. If you are like me, you’ll want to rush to “start” your day, but give it a chance. I bet you get more done in less time with a small investment in you. Good luck! I’ll see you out there. We’ll be the relaxed ones, enjoying our Mondays, wondering why everyone is so stressed.