Mastering Your Days: Morning Routine Secrets Revealed

Christine Li  0:01  
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 136. 

Are you tired of waking up to chaos, feeling rushed and starting your day off on the wrong foot? If that's you, this episode is for you. In this episode, we're going to talk about the art of the morning routine, and how to uncover how you can transform your panicky mornings into ones that are peaceful and productive. I will be sharing a few personal stories of my relationship with the morning time, there are going to be good, bad and the very ugly stories but don't worry, I will also be sharing a bunch of pragmatic tips and techniques that you can use to make it's a gradual shift from chaos to calm in the morning. This episode is for anyone who's interested in making better use of their mourning time. Let's go listen to this episode together. Now if you end up liking or loving this episode, please feel free to share it with a good friend.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a 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. 

Hi there, everyone. It's Christine. And today I have a fun episode with the subject being how to create a satisfying morning routine. And another title might be just how to make your mornings better. I'm not so wedded on you having a routine but I am interested in helping you to make your mornings feel a whole lot better. I recently was coaching my success lab members. I do this every weekend on Saturdays Saturdays in the mornings, we get together on Zoom. And I have different subjects each weekend. And this one week, I decided to talk about the morning routine. And we had such a wide ranging discussion, I thought I would share some of the comments that I made in that coaching session and share with you some of the lessons that I learned in that coaching session with you as well. So let's dive deeper into how to design your day or more specifically your morning, more mindfully. For me, the morning historically has not been the most productive of times, especially in the years way back when when I was very actively procrastinating I would wake up frazzled, tired, anxious, freaking out. And I would even start the day already behind schedule late for something or someone it was really not a pretty picture. And this cycle of morning stress just kept rolling on and on and on. It seemed like that would be my permanent status. But I am grateful to report that that was a very long time ago, a very old memory now. And what I have these days is a very calm, quiet and relatively productive morning routine for myself. Mostly, this happens daily, not all the time. But for the most part, I really enjoy the mornings, I really take my time when I have the time. And it really is calm no matter what. But I have to explain that several different habits had to come into play for me for that to happen for me to make the transition from frazzled and freaked out to calm and orderly in the morning. So I'm going to share it looks like I'm going to share three or four major points today, again, to help you have a different view of the morning space in your own life. So the first point that I have is that in order to make the transition from frazzle to calm, you have to decide to create your time on purpose that you have to decide that you are a designer of your time. And I will share another story a story of my entry into the online business space. So this was a long time ago again about 10 years ago where I was I'm working as a psychologist, I still am a psychologist, but I was working one on one and in groups, but live I was working face to face with people. And then 10 years ago, I decided to take my work and my message that procrastination can be cured and gotten rid of online because it was so important to me to spread the word. So when I made that decision, back then the vehicle that people use to spread their message was blogging. And now I feel like a dinosaur because blogs are still around, but they're not really as centerstage as social media, and videos and things like that. But I was a blogger when bloggers were blogging. And I realized that in order to be a blogger, I needed to work out an extra corner of the day, to do concentrated, focused writing. And I was working in the city, I was commuting, I was doing things at home as well, I had a busy schedule. But I really have this burning desire to start trying my hand at blogging. And I quickly realized that the morning was really going to be my only shot at getting a nice space of time to focus on writing. That was the time that I picked, to do the blog writing, to experiment to be by myself to be in my thoughts. And it turned out to be a beautiful experiment, because all of a sudden, instead of feeling frazzled, and anxious and worried and running out the door in the morning, I was waking up earlier, I was enjoying the sunshine, I was enjoying the quiet I was enjoying that no one was bothering me, I was enjoying that there are no emergencies ever in the morning. And it seemed like time was mine to control. It was all very peaceful, and it was all working pretty smoothly. And that was my just nature given lesson about the value of the morning. And I think when we have a history of procrastination, we can miss that lesson entirely. Because we're oversleeping because we're exhausted because we wake up at 11 or noon. And I think that was a very lucky strike for me that I decided I wanted to do blogging, and that I picked that morning time as my time to write. And so since then I've really valued my morning time. And then I got really conscious about making sure that I could have that morning time, it just became more and more valuable to me. So for you, I would love for you to think for yourself. If you could harness some extra time and some extra energy for yourself in the morning. What would you want to use it for? I used it for blogging, but maybe you have your own ideas. Maybe you want to plan your next adventure, maybe you want to start exercising in the morning, maybe you want to tidy your cluttered spaces. What is coming up for you. I think sometimes we don't even think about how we want to use our time because we don't think that we're going to be able to grab that time. So we don't even have a vision for ourselves of how we want our time to look like but I believe now that I've had this experience that we really need to dream about what we want. First we need to envision what we want first and then all we have to do is make it happen. Okay, the second major point that I have for you about morning spaces is that we not only need to decide to create our time on purpose, but we also need to get very good at being consistent with ourselves. In order to have time in the morning. You have to wake up in the morning and that can really be a whole project unto itself. Many people that I've worked with have said that they struggled to wake on purpose. They struggle with the snooze button and they do a dance back and forth with the snooze button. Or they wake up feeling really kind of black and feeling groggy and feeling lethargic and feeling unfocused and definitely not on top of the world. So how do we arrange a transition where you start to like waking up you start to like seeing the sunshine you start to like the mornings I

have three suggestions for how to make this work out. The first is that you pick up the book by Mel Robbins called the Five Second Rule it's Mel M E. L.  R. O. B. B. I. N. S. and again the book is the five second rule. And the book is really a story of how Mel used to be someone who did the dance with the snooze button had a lot of trouble getting up had a lot of trouble with motivating herself until she realized that she could do a countdown 54321 and give herself that deadline for getting up in the day. And it was magical for her. It's worked for many, many people. But I think the book is good not just for that valuable tip, but also just about her story of making a transition from being under productive and not filling her potential to being the number one most requested speaker in the world today. So it's a great book, I think it's a great technique that you can try out even without picking up the book, so that you can make the morning wake up a little bit easier. The second tip that I have is one that I created myself, I don't actually use this technique, but I do think it would work, you want to take a post it note pad, a set of post it notes and put it by your bed. And then you want to just aim for 10 days in a row of something, give yourself a small goal. Maybe it is that you only press the snooze button once. And then if you succeed at that, then you give yourself a hashtag. And then you want to keep that streak going for 10 days, I always suggest post it notes because they're easy to come by. They're fun, they're bright colored, they're inexpensive, and they can help you track your behavior, right maybe after 10 Hashtag days of waking up pretty smoothly, you're going to notice that it's not so difficult. After all, it's the first two or three days that feel kind of painful. But by the time you get yourself to 10, you can celebrate, you can celebrate not only getting to 10, but you can celebrate the fact that the whole thing feels a whole lot easier. The third tip that I have for you is that you can start the day, instead of feeling like you're going to set straight off into anxiety, you're going to start with a conscious gratitude practice, you're going to put your feet on the ground, and you're gonna say to yourself something positive. Like I'm so grateful to have woken up today. I'm so grateful for today. I'm so grateful for life, and living. And I expect things to go very well for me, throughout this day, something like that, you come up with the words that are going to set you up for gratitude. First thing in the day, this suggestion, this exercise is going to take you a grand total of 30 seconds. So you know, don't give yourself the excuse that you can't have gratitude in the morning because it could be the very first thing that you do. And that it can really set the stage for a good rest of the day a day filled with gratitude, with things going your way with openness in your mind and heart. Okay, now I've given you the three sub tips, they are to use the five second rule by Mel Robbins, to use the post it notes to track those hashtags for your new habit in the morning. And you can try the pure gratitude practice that 32nd tip that I have for you. But here's the secret without doing something without making an improvement. You're never going to feel like your mornings are really fun. Sometimes we think, Well, I'm just going to wait until I can stand the mornings before I'm going to change the morning. But the secret is, you have to make the changes before you get the fun results. You have to make the changes before you get to enjoy the new habits. And I think sometimes we hold ourselves back by thinking that we can't change and or thinking that you don't know how to change. And or thinking this is never gonna happen, right? This is impossible. I can't envision it, I can't do it. I don't have the time for it. I don't have the energy for it. And the secret that I just explained to you really shows you that until you make a shift. You're right, you're not going to have that energy. But you absolutely have to make that shift. So do this for yourself. Don't do it for anyone else. Do it for your own mindset, your own life energy, do it for your life. The third major tip I have for you today is that perspective shifts are always going to be a great tool that you can use and that shifting your perspective about the morning is going to benefit you for years moving forward. Like my morning shift did for me like I feel like I'm going to enjoy the morning. For the rest of my life. I no longer have to wake up feeling like I'm in a panic mode. First thing in the day. That's a beautiful perspective shift. It was a beautiful life shift for me. So to explain the perspective shift idea, I'm going to describe how I coach my clients. Whenever I coach my clients I First ask them for their wish, what do they want? Give me one wish that you're hoping for, that you might be struggling with that you don't know how to implement. And then I will listen and listen to the wish. But then I always ask a second question, what is your resistance to implementing it? I assume that if the habit isn't already installed and implemented, there must be some resistance to doing so. Right? We're feeling like it's too difficult. We're feeling it's going to take too much time. It's too expensive. You're not cool enough? You're not smart enough? You're not pretty enough. It's Thursday, whatever you have, you have some sort of resistance, otherwise, it would be in place because you want it it's your desire. So we have to look first a layer deeper, and just examine what's holding you back? Let's figure this out. Find out why. Find out what's the sticking point and then use our brilliant brains to work around. Why why is it so sticky? Why am I so stuck? And why am I resisting this habit that I really desire? Why Am I blocking myself from something that I actually want. And by doing this exercise, identifying your wish, and then looking at the resistance to implementing it, that process will teach you how to craft your days on purpose, you're going to decide that I'm not going to let the day craft my behavior, I'm going to craft my day with my behaviors that I'm going to be the architect of the day, I'm going to eliminate this overwhelm that I always run into middle of the day or the morning or the night, I'm just going to design my day so that I have great healthy habits, I have my productivity, I have a great exercise routine, I have a great social routine, I have a great health and wealth routine, all of these routines are in motion, because I've designed them this way. That's the self talk that I would love to coach you all into having it really helps to make the mornings, much more pleasant as well. So let's take an example of what you might want to do with your mornings, you might want to decide that you're going to try exercising in the morning. And that's in some ways a big ask, because sometimes we're in a rush time is tight in the morning. And exercise sometimes can take a lot out of us, right getting the clothes, sneakers, the attitude, it all has to be put together in the right time with the right mindset, sometimes the right weather. But my question to you here would be, can you design one habit that would get you an inch closer to being someone who exercises in the morning. So maybe you're not looking perfectly polished and running to the gym in the morning, maybe you're just saying to yourself, you know what, I'm going to be more mobile, I'm going to be more in motion in the morning, I'm going to take the dogs for a more vigorous walk, I'm going to make the bed with a quick run around the bed a couple of times, I'm going to toss the laundry in, whatever you're going to do, it's going to get you an inch closer to that vision of exercise in the morning. So again, you don't have to do formal exercise. But just being more motivated towards reaching that goal is going to get you an inch closer, you're going to be more alert, you're going to be more mobile, maybe you're going to cook your eggs while dancing. You get to choose your you get to be the architect and the designer. But you're going to start seeing things as going in your favor. Rather than seeing this idea of being an exerciser in the morning as being this enormous mountain that you have to scale because that's just going to put you in a foul mood, you're going to feel hopeless, you're going to feel helpless, you're going to feel like why should I dream about things anyway. And I would love for you to shift that perspective. So that you can see that you can support your own ideas, you can support your own dreams and wishes and you can make them happen.

I have one more point that is important about designing a great morning routine. I would love for you to see the idea of improving your morning not as something extra to do. When we see things as being extra. Then our exhaustion wins out because we decide, You know what I'm already spent, so I can't possibly add another thing to my list of things. And then all discussion of improvement is shut down. It's quiet, and you're stuck with your morning where you feel stuck. And I just don't think that's a good idea for anyone. I'm here to tell you, you're here listening to me. Because maybe you're looking for this kind of advice that you want to see improvement as just pure improvement, that when you elevate your performance in any way, everything gets elevated your mood, your energy, your outlook, your health, your mindset, your everything. So if you see that attitude, you see that putting in your effort, investing in yourself with your efforts with some time and money and energy, that it's all paying you back 10 times over 100 times over your life long over and over and over again. So that new idea that you have for your morning, it might just be the grand solution to all the things you didn't even know you needed solutions for. So get flexible with yourself, decide to commit to improving period of your day. It doesn't have to be the morning it could be how you spend your lunchtime it could be how you learn things on your commute home doesn't matter to me, it matters to you. So decide for yourself, what space am I going to craft? What am I going to design how I'm going to be a better architect? And how am I going to fit this in get bossier with yourself when it comes to fitting stuff in for yourself. You can do this when you get bossier with yourself in a good kind way. Things start to happen. Have an attitude that you can be calm and you can be productive. It doesn't have to be stressful, and add some fun, like dancing or cooking or sharing your ideas for what you're going to do with your friends. Add some fun in for some extra fun, bonus points. I hope you craft a beautiful, great morning and or morning routine. And remember that it can be simple. It can be small, it can be just an inch, but it can really help you to learn how to master every part of the day, every day and I wish you this mastery soon. 

Thanks so much for listening to me and my thoughts about my morning routine and your morning routine. Please join me again next Thursday when the next beautiful episode drops. Thanks so much. I'll see you soon. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.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. We'll talk to you soon!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai