Morning time is a sacred time
It sets our day up for success
But a successful morning starts the night before
- “Plan tomorrows work, today”
- Don’t go to sleep with any baggage
- Getting a good night sleep
Planning tomorrow’s work today is just knowing what you want to do for the day, there’s no question or wondering because you’ve already thought it out the day before. This allows me to focus on what’s right in front of me (like a morning routine) instead of what I need or feel like doing today.
Not going to sleep with any baggage is releasing all negative thoughts and attitudes before bed. It sucks going to bed in a bad mood and then waking up in an even worse mood. A pre-bedtime meditation helps with this and although it’s not bulletproof, it helps more than it hurts.
Getting a good night sleep, clear the mind, hit the bathroom, and read an actual book, try to turn the TV and phone off a half hour to an hour before bed time – use that time instead to stretch, have some quality time with your family, meditate, visualize goals or how your day is going to go, wash up – so many other things you can do besides watching TV. A good night’s sleep sets up the next day’s momentum because when we feel good, we usually perform better than if we don’t feel good.
Morning time rolls around, I love the SAVERS routine. This routine could be 10 minutes if you’re short on time, or an hour if you really want to spend some time on these important items. All of these activities benefit us in one way or another, building good habits instead of letting bad habits slowly take over our lives.
First I get washed up, hit the bathroom, wash my face and brush my teeth, then savers time.
Silence – sit in a few minutes of silence
Affirmations – what’s your go to mantra or affirmation that makes you feel good? Mine is “I give my best all the time with a positive attitude” I’ve been writing this saying every morning for years now.
Visualize – I spend a few minutes visualizing my goals, this really gets the blood flowing
Exercise – usually this is about 10 minutes of movement, stretching, mobility, some hangs – something to get the blood pumping and wake the body up.
Read – reading something of value, it could be a page or 10 pages.
Scribe – journal some thoughts down. This is where I review my power list (which I made the night before) , my workouts of the day, my goals, some positive sayings, and anything else that I need to get out of my mind to free up some space for something new or better.
This is just a guideline too, sometimes I do them in order, most of the time I don’t. I found if I woke up and tried to meditate right away I’d just fall back asleep. I like to get some movement in and wake the body up. Lately I’ve been using that movement session to bang out a run, so I’ll spend about 45 minutes getting outside and working out. Then I usually knock the rest of the savers routine out and it looks something like this: read, silence, scribe (affirmations, visualize).
Of course, “savers” sounds a lot better than “erssav” but do what works for you.
As the saying goes: take what is useful, ignore what is useless, and add your own flair.
I love this routine because it gives me a simple guideline to follow each and every morning, and gives me the momentum to knock my day out with focus but remember, a successful morning routine starts with the night before.
And as the other saying goes: If we fail to plan we prepare to fail
Go get it!
Joe DiAndrea 