Building Routines: Tips for Morning Motivation and Evening Relaxation

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time For Success podcast. I'm your host, Dr Christine Li, and this is episode number 197. Are you currently wondering how to put together great routines for yourself? If this describes you, I think you're gonna like this episode because in this episode, I talk about how I change my chaotic mornings and my anxious evenings into structured morning and evening routines that really consistently helped me to set myself up for success. If you're looking just to be a little more productive or a little more calm in each and every day, I think routines are a great concept to rely on and to insert in your every day. And they help us to feel a little bit more in control and to feel a little bit more enthusiastic about going for our big goals. So let's get your great routines started by listening to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:13]:
Hi. I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time For Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:56]:
So today's area of focus is gonna be routines. I was interviewed earlier today for the Mother Plus podcast by Stace and Steph, the host of the Mother Plus podcast, which focuses on helping mothers with ADHD. And their request was that I talk a lot about rituals and routines. So I thought I would take the bulk of that content over here and share the same information with you. I'm gonna start by talking about my own morning and evening routines, and then I'm gonna move out a little bit and just talk about the topic of doing routines well in general, and we'll take a higher level view of the whole thing. So to start, let's talk about my morning routine. The history of my morning routine starts way back when, about a decade ago, when I decided that I wanted to attract an audience in the online space on the web. And the common way of doing that back then was through blogging.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:06]:
And because I had a full time job back then and other responsibilities, The only way that I could do blogging was to carve out some time in the morning for writing. And I did that without much resistance, but it was interesting for me because I, up to that point, had been solidly an evening time person. I was definitely a night owl, maybe even a more extreme end of the night night owl. And to do this morning time work was just a whole new system of doing things for me. But I did end up really enjoying it because there's a lot of sunlight in the morning, and because there was no one bothering me in the morning, and because I found that I could concentrate pretty well in the morning, and, of course, get some blog posts written and published, and get my business, my online business off the ground in that phase of my life, and that was a really wonderful time. That simple strategy of just carving out a little bit of time and doing focused work ended up expanding and then including other things and tasks that I felt were helpful for just my getting my mind together, my life set for the day. And that routine then expanded to include things like a load of laundry, dieted meditation, statement of quick gratitude, just to myself, not written or anything like that, getting sunlight, getting a dog walk in, sometimes getting exercise in. I've been enjoying doing morning exercise lately.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:58]:
And then also squeezing in a podcast episode, me being the listener of that podcast or a section of an audio book. So some form of education for my brain in the morning. And that may sound like a lot to you. I don't know. Maybe it sounds like a little bit to you. But for me, it was great to realize that I could actually fit a lot of this in. And not by cramming it, not by being nervous, not by hyper scheduling, but just because I found that doing this layered stacking of habits was doable, was reasonable, was beneficial, and it made really good use of a limited amount of time in the morning. Sometimes, this morning routine can actually go on for some time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:50]:
So I don't mean to say that I'm doing this all very quickly. And I do oftentimes have the luxury of going very slowly in the morning and doing all of these behaviors. But more important than the time that we can dedicate to a morning routine, I think the most important thing about having a solid or working morning routine is that you are showing yourself that you are the boss of the day, that you are the boss of how things are gonna go across the day, that you are in control of at least this small portion of the day. I happen to be my own boss. If you are not your own boss, this is your time of the day to say, you know what? This is my time to direct my actions for the rest of the day. Even if I'm headed into work, or even if I'm going to my home office and turning on that laptop, and then going to be in meetings all day. It's all about just giving yourself the message that you can be calm, that you can be organized, that you can get things done, and that you have control and say over your time. I think there's something very healing about that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:10]:
It certainly helped to heal me from procrastination and the anxiety about getting things done and always feeling behind about things. I gradually, day by day, routine by routine, habit by habit, decided that I felt way better getting things done. And I felt way better not freaking out in the morning, not waking up feeling like I had already lost the day because I was already so far behind from the day before. That was really lovely, like life changing lovely. I don't want you to mistake this for something small because it really, I would say, saved my life. I I do talk about recovering from procrastination in this kind of maybe dramatic way, but I did change my life. And these habits really helped me to stabilize how I felt in my life. And I hope some of what I've shared or all of it may help you to do a little bit of the same, or maybe just turn your entire day around by just being a little bit more intentional, by being a little bit more kind to yourself.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:20]:
And I'll say a little bit more about that towards the end of the episode. So as a reminder, whatever you choose to do with your new or revamped morning routine, remember to have the attitude of a boss. You're confident. You're in control. You get to direct to the content and the flow of what is happening. And always remember that the way you start the day is an indication of how the rest of the day is going to go. So invest in that morning spirit, that morning routine, that morning path that you're laying out for yourself. I think you're gonna find that it really pays off.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:01]:
And remember to love yourself as soon as you wake in the morning. Just say some kind words to yourself. Remind yourself how lucky you really are to be alive, to be you, and to have the opportunities that you have in front of you. Alright. So now onto my evening routine, which has been a relatively recent development, I would say, just over the past couple of years. I used to just go to bed, but there's been a lot of information and messaging around the benefits of healthy sleep. And I certainly have been paying attention to all of that because I do have a history of not getting consistent sleep, not getting enough sleep, doing a lot of social media in the middle of the night, things like that, things that you might also resonate with and things that you might also do. But lately, I've been thinking about being in midlife and time rolling on pretty quickly, and the fact that I wanna age really vibrantly and healthfully and be really kick ass in my eighties.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:14]:
And I think I'm really getting the message from myself, my body, and the people that I'm learning from in social media that I need to start these healthy behaviors and really nail them down now when I'm not 80. And I think that is part of why I've started to pay much greater attention and much closer attention to what I'm doing in the evenings. And so what I've figured out lately for my evening routine is that I need to do some sort of winding down process. I can't work late, late, late into the night, and I can't just work, work, work, and then go to bed. There needs to be some sort of transition zone, at least for me, so that I'm not thinking about work or I'm not in this amped up work focused mode when I'm in bed. I wanna be relaxed. I wanna have an open mind, and I wanna have a mind that is just about ready to turn in. And I have struggled, I will be honest with you, with putting my phone down.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:22]:
I would say that is the remaining hurdle that I am currently trying to jump over or fix or put away. And I think I'll get there, but I really do enjoy doing the social media and catching up with things late at night. So I still haven't broken that habit. But that, I will say, is part of my developing evening routine. Right? I don't have to criticize myself because I do that. I just have to work that through, and I'm hoping I'm setting some sort of model for you for how to look at the things that you might want out of your system and out of your routine and out of your bedtime without hating on yourself, that you can actually just look at it objectively with a friendly tone and say, you know what? This may be the next thing that I need to remove, and we'll do that over time. Other things that I've been doing lately in the evening is I set a warm bath for myself with Epsom salts, and I have found that it's really a good time to quiet the mind. I sometimes listen to music with no lyrics during that time as well.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:35]:
And it's just, again, that transition bridge to resting, to feeling like my muscles are soothed and that I'm taking time again for myself during the day. I'm being very intentional, being very kind to myself, and putting myself through a routine. And hopefully, this pays off for the quality of my sleep, for the amount of sleep that I end up getting, and I do think I'm making progress in that overall direction. So at this point in the episode, I wanna ask you, how are you feeling about your mornings and evenings? Whether or not you have a routine. Is there something that you would like to implement, even a small thing that might make it go a little bit better for you, that it might make it more satisfying, more effective, more calming, more kind to you and the way your day needs to go, where it feels like you're building a platform where you can really grow and thrive on and thrive from, that it's not something that's making you feel a lot of regret or shame, of course, or feeling like you're letting your time run away from you. That it's helping you to see that, oh, I actually can regulate myself more. I can follow through with these things that I used to think were impossible. It's a way of just using your own time during the day as a great experiment, instead of feeling like it's just one long list of chores.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:14]:
It can be an area for growth. These routines can really nurture your heart, nurture your mind, but also nurture your progress in all the areas that you would like to develop. So whether it's being less anxious, being more focused, having a better social life, having a better relationship with your partner, whatever it is, these routines can be, again, that strong foundation for doing things that are positive for you and your life. This is always gonna be worth your time, by the way. This will never be a waste of energy because you are tending to yourself. You are learning to love yourself day by day. I just saw, I should mention here, a TikTok earlier today about this woman who was really just delightful, I will say. And she was saying that she used to be really hard on herself at work, and a colleague noticed this.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:17]:
And they were both in the math tech field, I believe, having to do with numbers. And the colleague showed the delightful woman that if you improve what you're doing just 1% a day, by the end of 365 days, you will have improved 37 times from where you started. And the the women, of course, started beaming when talking about this finding and this lesson. And, of course, now I'm beaming to be able to share this with you. I'm a big fan of the 1 to 5% improvement. I am not a big fan of doing these massive leaps, although I welcome them when they happen. But I do really tend to advise people to just be kind enough to yourself to do just the next step forward or the next 1%, and it's always gonna pay off because it's always an improvement. And it's always a confirmation that you want the best experiences and time and life for yourself.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:25]:
And what a wonderful message to give to yourself. All right. Now I'm going to shift to how to look at routines from a higher level perspective, or just thematically how to do routines. And I'll just go through a quick list of notes that I've written down for myself to share with you. The first one is you wanna use routines as a light framework rather than a rigid thing that you have to abide by. You can go that route if that works for you, and you don't have negative feelings about that, like if it's really pleasurable for you. But I think for most of you, I'm gonna bet that having this lightness about doing a routine may be more helpful. That it's okay to, in quotes, mess up.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:18]:
That you can forget the bath, and everybody's gonna live. You're definitely gonna live if you skip a bath night. Right? And just taking things a little bit more lightly so that you can, again, fit more of what you want to in, and stay more consistent on the whole. The second idea that I have here is that you want to give yourself the best chances of succeeding in whatever you wanna do. If that's putting down your phone at night, if that is getting dressed really quickly in the morning and being on time for work, whatever it is, make your mind, and your home, I should say, a very hospitable environment for that to happen. Right? So if you're trying to be healthy, you wouldn't fill your fridge with pure junk food. Right? That wouldn't make any sense. And so when we're trying to set up healthy routines, set your mind up with really loving thoughts, with really positive success thoughts.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:20]:
Just coach yourself. You know what? I'm new at this, but I have every confidence that I can do this consistently before the week is over. Something like that. Something that will get you stimulated, that will get you motivated to continue, that will get you to feel like this is not something to dread or be frustrated by. This is something that's more like going to the amusement park. It's something that we do for fun, this life experimentation stuff. So let's give yourself a better chance of succeeding. So there's some sub steps of doing the hospitable environment for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:59]:
You want to reduce unreasonable expectations. So often we say, let's say you haven't been going to the gym and you wanna get back there. And then you say to yourself, I'm gonna go there 6 days out of the next 7. And I can say, generally, that's probably gonna be an unrealistic expectation because you've been having trouble getting there once a week. So what's making you think you can do 6? I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying, don't set yourself up for an immediate failure because that may just be a habit that you do, that unwittingly gets you into not having the habits that you want. Alright? So remember to set reasonable expectations for yourself. The other idea that I have for you is to reduce any feelings of overwhelm.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:50]:
And if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that that means that you're gonna focus on one habit at a time or one task at a time, instead of thinking, oh, you know what? I'm gonna fix the entire routine by tomorrow. Right? We're just going to reduce the stakes. We're gonna reduce the feeling of stress so that we can really succeed. We're also gonna reduce any sort of negativity because I think you all know that I think this, any negativity is just going to be like a weight in your process, and we wanna feel light instead of weighted down. So instead of telling yourself, well, I might fail, you just wanna say, you know what? I might win and just switch it switch it really quickly over to the positive. You will not hurt yourself by doing this. You're just gonna make this again more like the amusement park visit. Next, you want to avoid thinking pessimistically about the future.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:50]:
That sounds like being negative, but it's a little bit different because I have found that it's quite easy to say, you know what? I might be really interested in this new habit for 3 days, but I know myself after the 5th day, I'm just gonna be so bored or so fried or so frustrated with myself or so uninterested, I'm gonna jump to something else, or I'm gonna fall off the wagon. And you don't have to do that. You can just say, I'm just gonna take it day by day. That is absolutely fine. It's actually really admirable, and it's smart success strategy, I would say. Just take it a day at a time. It is all gonna be okay. And the last tip that I have for you here is that you wanna focus on the present moment.

Dr. Christine Li [00:21:40]:
Focus on what you're doing right now. Don't concern yourself about what happened yesterday or what's going to happen tomorrow. Give yourself that peace to just say, I'm here right now. I am well. Let's go. Alright? So I hope you've enjoyed this episode, all about routines. We all do routines even when we're not really conscious about them. Sometimes not having a routine is your routine.

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:08]:
So give yourself permission to be more of an engineer, boss, creator, inventor when it comes to your routines because you might find a little bit of the joy at the end of this process where you feel more calm, you feel more proud of yourself, you feel like you've gotten a little bit more sleep, and you can share some of this advice with your friends and make the ripple effect of this routine business go far and wide. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. If you'd like a free download to help you build your own routine and to remind you of the tips and tricks that I've said in this episode, all you need to go and do is go to https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/routine. Again, it's https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/routine. I'll see you next week for another episode on the Make Time For Success podcast. Take care.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:16]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time For Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, make time for success podcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name, procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:57]:
Talk to you soon.