As mentioned in my last blog post, Womens Daily Devotionals I Love, consistency is my focus for 2022.
Consistency goes hand in hand with self-discipline. One thing I have worked on for myself is creating new habits that make positive impacts on my life and in my days. Since mornings are the beginning of each new day, I wanted to start habits that would help make each day successful.
Just to be clear, I’m not a natural morning person, but making these changes and creating routines for myself has made me appreciate the am hours more than I ever knew possible.
Here’s how I have been starting my days…
Waking up by 7:30 am. Since I am an entrepreneur, and I work from home, it’s so easy to get super lackadaisical with my days. My days have been so messy and unstructured, which has left me craving stability and schedule.
When I worked in corporate America, I had set hours. Since becoming a blogger/YouTuber/content creator, I have had no real “Office hours.” I would easily work +80 hours per week, then came baby.
After we had MacKenlee, I quickly realized that I could no longer work all day every day with intense focus. In fact, I could barely work short stretches of time with any sort of focus at all. And that’s how I’ve been living my life and running my business for the past four years.
No wonder I’ve had anxiety. I’ve had zero structure to my days.
Check out this blog post about my very real struggle with postpartum depression.
Once I had this epiphany at the beginning of this year, I immediately implemented a bedtime and wake-up time for myself. It’s insane that I have had a sleep schedule for my daughter since birth, but for myself, I just would go to bed when I felt like it (most nights between 1:00 and 2:00 am) and then wake up when I woke up.
Executing a bedtime and wake time routine has been such a game-changer for me.
Now that I have my sleep schedule squared away, here’s what I do first thing.
As soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning, I do a mini yoga session. I’ve found that this short yoga sequence (around 5-7 minutes) not only stretches out all the kinks I’ve worked up in my sleep, but it wakes my body up in a slow, natural way.
My morning yoga routine is something that I have created myself. I’ve taken basic moves like downward dog, child’s pose, and planks to create a few minutes of total body stretches. I follow this same routine each day.
I love feeling like the first thing I do in the morning is wake up my body slowly. It’s such a nice feeling, stretching my way into a slow start. Even if this was the only thing I did, I feel like it’s a perfect morning routine.❤️
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As soon as I’m all stretched out, I start drinking water. I try my best to down between 8 and 16 oz. before I have my first (and only) cup of morning coffee.
I head into the kitchen and prep my cup of energy, I mean coffee, lol. I only drink this brand of no acid coffee and it’s easily my favorite brand of coffee now.
While my coffee is brewing, I fill up the pot with fresh water so Matt doesn’t have to do it and feed Soka. I sometimes get sidetracked and end up cleaning kitchen counters, putting dishes away, etc. but I try to stay on track as much as possible.
Because I want to give God the first part of my day, I don’t allow myself to open social media or emails before I get through my morning devotionals.
Once my coffee is made, I snuggle up in my favorite rocker/glider chair next to my fireplace (fire lit!) in the bright sunshine. Time to crack open my journal and Bible for the day.
Matt and I love this chronological study Bible.
If it’s not a particularly sunny day and I know I need a dose of Vitamin D, I’ll use this HappyLight. I really do find myself in a better mood when I use my HappyLight, so I now keep it in my office to sit in front of while I work.
I start each journal entry by writing out my Bible verses from my devotional that morning, then any notes, thoughts, or even definitions that I find helpful to accompany those verses. I love finding deeper meaning in the verses or devotionals and writing out those thoughts because physically writing them out helps me to best process them.
After my devotions, I write a gratitude, intention, “To Lists”, quote and various journal prompts that feel important at that moment. Comment below if you’d like me to write an in-depth blog post sharing exactly how I compose my daily journal entries and what I use to do them.
My devotional and journal time takes about 20 minutes uninterrupted. I rarely get through a devotional and journal session without at least one interruption, lol.
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Once my coffee is gone and my journal and Bible are put away for the day, I get some food in my belly. Most mornings I start with a piece of fresh fruit, like a banana or an apple. I try to wash all of my produce before storing it so I don’t have to wash fruit before enjoying it. That one simple step makes my life so much easier.
Would you like to see a tutorial on my homemade produce wash?
One habit I’ve tried to incorporate into my day, but not necessarily in the morning, is to be sure to eat one apple daily. I believe there’s a reason we’ve been taught that an apple a day keeps the doctor away.?
For breakfast, typically I have a bowl of oatmeal with berries, oat milk, honey, and vanilla. Occasionally, I’ll have a bowl of cereal, gluten-free waffles, or something else, but I try to stick with oatmeal.
Breakfast is eaten on the go. Because Matt often gets out of bed after me, I head back to make the bed in between bites of oatmeal. He has his own morning routine, but we do cross paths all morning long. In fact, a lot of mornings we sit down and read the Bible together. We’re currently in the Old Testament.
I’m trying hard to get out of my black yoga leggings and sweatshirt rut. Because I work from home, I tend to wear the same things. I want to get use out of the beautiful clothes hanging sadly in my closet, so I’m trying harder to put on real clothes each morning.
As for hair and makeup, I tend to keep it simple to no makeup at all if I’m not leaving home that day. Because my skin has been so angry with cystic acne, I try to give it a break from makeup products as often as possible. My skin has a need for no makeup some days, I just know it.
On the days that I do have somewhere to be, I get dressed, apply my makeup, and do my hair while eating my breakfast.
I try to plan out my outfits whenever possible because there’s no better way to guarantee a late arrival than not knowing what you are going to wear. If you have to try on multiple looks before leaving your house, then you had better build that extra try-on time into your schedule.
If you listen to our free podcast, Hello Baby, then you know that Matt’s biggest complaint about me is my tardiness. He considers it blatant disrespect. I’ve always viewed it as no big deal until I saw how upsetting it was for him.
It just goes to show how different your upbringing can be from your spouse. Being late in my family is almost expected, lol.
One big change I’ve been working hard on in 2022 is to be on time, not only for my husband but for my own sense of professionalism. I’ve started to put everything into my schedule for 10 minutes earlier than it actually is to allow a grace period and keep my drama free morning in check.
If you find yourself also being late to virtually everything, try changing the arrival time for everything in your calendar and your brain by 10 minutes. It’s going to drastically impact your morning routines.
One thing I’d love to mention is the Billion Dollar Morning Routine or the Million Dollar Morning Routine. Based on what I have read, this means:
- Having self-care
- Having self-love
- Setting a vision and a direction for the day
- Invest in yourself by reading, brainstorming, and meditating before you start your productive day
According to research, these are the things that most self-made millionaires and billionaires do each morning.
The other thing I have read is that the most successful people in the world make their bed every single morning. Why? Because starting your day off with accomplishing one small task will encourage you to complete another small task and another and another…
Sounds easy, right? That’s because it is. If you’re not making your bed daily, try doing so every single morning for one week straight and see how that impacts your days, your mindset, your attitude, and your productivity.
Check out my free morning routine checklist here:
Please be sure to save this morning routine checklist!
All of these things are so simple, but how often do we skip over or forget to do one of them? Having a solid morning routine checklist list this that you quickly glance over may help you keep the first part of your day on track.
I find that having a morning routine in general sets my day up for success. I’ve started the practice of repeating to myself over and over while doing my morning yoga, “Today is going to be a great day.”
What’s on your morning routine checklist? Do you have anything different than I do? I’m hoping that you got some good ideas from my personal morning routine checklist that you can use.?
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Hi Angela – I’ve been listening to your podcast and just discovered your blog. This post is especially helpful for me as I’ve been struggling with a morning routine now that I’m two years into working from home. Pre-pandemic I was up at 6:30am every morning and out the door by 8:30 with an hour commute to get to work. Now that I don’t have that pressure to get out the door, the snooze button has become hard to ignore. Do you have anything you do to help you fight the urge to just sleep another 30 minutes since you don’t HAVE to be up? Thanks for the advice!