Morning routine
2020 pandemic has given me an opportunity to transform myself into a better human being. Before lockdown, all my habits are on autopilot. I never thought about them even a single day. Habits are very essential in shaping your identity. The habits you follow will eventually lead to a person who you are
The morning routine is a set of actions that you perform in the morning after you wake up from bed usually, these are performed before you go to school or started working for the company. you will start doing more productive work with extreme focus and dedication. A morning routine can be anything from simple drinking hot water, doing heavy workouts for two hours, journaling, etc.
I have read the 5 am club by Robin Sharma which influenced me to follow the morning routine. Each person can plan their own morning routine which they are comfortable with. No morning routine has mandatory steps to follow. Always start your morning routine with easy tasks. For example: Folding your bedsheet, drinking a glass of hot water. Then eventually increase the weight of tasks.
How to start your morning routine ??
I started implementing routine long back. But guess what I never stick to it. First, it feels attractive and you are excited to start your morning routine. As days pass by you will get bored and find it unattractive. When you are not satisfied you may eventually give up. Many people also fail to stick to the habits because they are more focused on outcomes rather than looking to change the underlying system. It takes time for most of the tasks to show results. You might be at the edge of the threshold for the habits to show results. you need to focus on 1% daily improvements which lead to remarkable changes.
To stick with the morning routine for the rest of your life you need to follow four simple steps:
Make it obvious
Make it attractive
Make it easy
Make it satisfying
These four steps will make you shift your focus on the underlying process. If you want to become an athlete. Your focus should be on what are the qualities one should have to become a good athlete like persistence, commitment, and dedication. so you start preparing to acquire those qualities, eventually someday you will become a good athlete instead of focusing on the destination. Focusing on the outcome just adds additional pressure in the preparation. For a cricketer to be successful it does not matter how well he performed on the field it solely depends on the amount of practice he does in the nets.
Habit stacking is another powerful tool in developing a perfect morning routine. First, you can start with basic tasks or the tasks that excite you. Then you perform tasks that you need to for transforming into the person you aspire. Let's say you like reading in the morning but find it difficult to meditate. so You can say after I finish my reading I will meditate for one minute. Habit stacking makes it easy to stick to difficult ones. You can keep on adding tasks till you feel comfortable.
Finally, someone says that it requires 21 days for the habit to get into your personal routine. It is nothing to do with the number of days though it depends on the number of times he performed the same task in the given period. The number of repetitions is the important factor for the habit to stay with you forever
Morning routine includes focusing on all four major sets of life Heart Set, Soul Set, Mindset, Health set. It perfectly balances between these four sets. If any one of the sets mentioned damaged it has a huge impact on the individual lives.
My morning routine
I will go through some of the tasks that I do in my first hour
- Avoid going through the messages on the phone throughout the morning routine
As soon as one wakes up, the first thing many people do is go through their phone conversations, Instagram feed, emails, reading newspapers to know what is happening around the world. It has an influence on your day to day activities
2. Organising your daily activities
I do journaling for some time in the morning. It helps me to organize my day perfectly. It helps me to reflect on small daily goals. Organizing daily activities gives you the freedom to focus on the most important tasks. It makes the tasks less focus on autopilot. Some ideas you can include in your daily journal :
Three things right now you are grateful for
Five small goals you need to achieve for today
Daily activities logging
what are the problems you are facing take 5 minutes to think of a solution too etc
Apart from this, you can also include a habit tracker, also starting planning for monthly and yearly feedback mechanisms. It gives you insights into the activities that you are performing daily
3. Meditate
All successful people meditate for at least a few minutes daily. It removes all the stress and makes you feel relaxed. It removes all the unwanted thoughts that are piling up in your mind. In beginning, there will be distractions as you try to focus but remember every distraction gives you an opportunity to bring back focus on track. Just continue with the process. It is completely fine even if you are not doing it perfectly. If you showed up on a particular day it just builds the streak which makes you stick with meditation. Just try to meditate for at least one minute. The environment you choose also has an impact. Try to mediate in the place where you feel comfortable
4. Reading
Reading good books helps you in transforming your identity. I’m grateful to all the authors who have helped me to follow the morning routine. Spend at least twenty minutes daily reading your favorite books. You can choose the category that you are comfortable with.
5. Workout
As you wake up in the morning there will be an adrenaline rush. so if you do work out for some time it decreases dopamine and make you be active for the whole day. Some of the activities which you can perform: Go for a brisk walk Do 10 Surya namaskars for a day at least, do workouts that make you comfortable. At least spend twenty minutes every day. in the middle of a workout make sure to hydrate your body.
6. Relaxation
Sleep is an essential factor to perform the morning routine. Always make sure that you have at least seven hours of deep sleep. For elite performance, you need Deep relaxation cycles. For the muscles to be in proper shape you need good rest. It is in sleep your muscles expand. In the same way, you need to stay away from work at least two days a week so that you can come back with a focused and relaxed mind. For being productive you need to stay away from your screens and pursue your interests which increases creativity over the weekend.
On a final note, you need to be persistent. Never miss a single day even if you feel like not doing just show up. It is very difficult for the routine to start again from the beginning. Even if you don't see any immediate results just stay with the process. Track the routine in the calendar for you to be conscious of the process. Just Don't break the streak. Even if you break the streak just bounce back the next day so that you don't miss it for two consecutive days
Happy learning.
