A 5 Step Guide to Create A Morning Routine That Sticks

What is the one way you can set yourself up for success every morning? It’s simpler than you think. You can start your success by being successful first thing in the morning. And you can do that with a morning routine. Today we are going to talk about how to create a morning routine that sticks.

A 5 Step Guide to Create A Morning Routine That Sticks

Routines are just a series of tasks and actions linked together in a logical manner. Once you have a list of what you want to do , you simply have to put it together.

If you don’t know where to start, take a look on the internet. There are dozens of articles about the routines of successful people. A suggestion: Successful people share morning routines – Business Insider.

But for now, here is the 5 steps to making a routine.

• Make a list. Figure out what it is you want to do. Chances are if you are thinking about making a routine, you already have some idea of what you want to do during those times. For instance, you might want to incorporate exercise in your morning, or have everything in place at night to avoid the last-minute rush. So make a list, incorporating things you already do regularly (like shower or brushing your teeth) as well as the things that you want.
• Start small. You can’t change the world overnight. Pick things that are small enough to do easily, without having to fight yourself. You might want to incorporate journaling, perhaps, and it would be easier to journal for 5 minutes or one paragraph than to set yourself the task of journaling for five pages.
• Don’t put everything on the list. Don’t make your routine so long that it will take hours to accomplish. Yes, some of the most successful people have intricate, large routines, but at the same time, they also have developed these routines over years, and have plenty of time to accomplish them (these people invariably have staff). So limit what you put on the list. You can always add more later.
• Make it logical. Once you have your tasks, you need to order them. It is better to make them logical. For instance, if your morning routine includes getting dressed, showering, and reading two pages of a book, it is more logical to shower and then get dressed, not the other way around. Reading could go either before or after these other tasks, depending on your own preference.
• Know the why. Know why you are doing each task. This will allow you to substitute tasks if you need to. For instance, if you have added “walk a mile” to your morning routine, you might have done so to raise your heart rate or to get your step count off to a good start. If one morning you get up and you can’t see five feet because of the blizzard, you can substitute some other exercise based on your why. If your why is to get steps, you might walk around the house, or walk in place, or use the treadmill that is holding all your clothes. If it is to get your heart rate up, you might find a video on the internet of body weight exercises that will allow you to accomplish the same goals.

Make sure that however you put this together, you have it written down. Mental routines don’t get done. Having the tangible list in front of you will make sure that you won’t forget anything.

Making A Routine Stick

Once you have a routine, you are only half done. You have to actually DO the routine to reap the benefits. And even worse news: you have to do it regularly. After all it is a routine.(I know, I know, no easy out here). Here are three things you can do to get the routine to stick.

• Give yourself enough time. One of the reasons people give up on their routines is they can’t get them done in a reasonable amount of time. Your routines should be short enough that you can accomplish them in 30-45 minutes. If you use a timer, you can keep track of your time and not worry about running over.
• Use a checklist. Write down your steps, but if you can make them into a re-usable checklist, so much the better. You can use software for this, or print a piece of paper and stick it in a poly sleeve, checking things off with a dry erase marker.
• Monitor your resistances. There might be things on your list that you resist doing. If there are many of them, it can destroy the will to do the list at all. If you have more than one resistance, try removing tasks until you only have one that tugs at you. With the one, ask yourself why. Is it too big? If so, make it smaller to remove your resistance. Is it something someone else wants you to do? Remove it. Get to the root of your resistance and find a way to make the resistance disappear.

My Morning Routine

To give you another example (this one from a regular person without staff), I will share my routines with you.

1. Rise at 6:15. This gives me 75 minutes before I need to be at my desk for work.
2. Go downstairs, drink a glass of water and pour myself my first cup of coffee.
3. Sit down in my recliner and do my modified SAVERS (insert link) routine (silence/meditation; read my daily readers; write 500 words; do my gratitude journal)
4. Do a quick pass through my email to delete junk and read my daily motivational emails
5. Do a sudoku to warm up my brain
6. Get the free prize of the day in Emoji Blitz
7. Read my comics on my tablet
8. Do a session of DuoLingo
9. Go upstairs, get dressed, do face, hair

This routine doesn’t change much, even on vacation and weekends. (Except I don’t get up so early.)

My Evening Routine

My evening routine has the purpose of setting me up so that I am not rushing around trying to think in the morning. So I think of it as a pre-bed Morning Routine. I am not a morning person, so limiting cognitive function in the morning is essential to me*.*

1. Clean up the kitchen and make the coffee. This serves the purpose of limiting one of my stressors (coming downstairs to a messy kitchen) and then I have coffee waiting for me when I get downstairs in the morning – the coffee pot is on a timer.
2. Check my calendar and the weather.
3. Go upstairs and pick out my clothes for the next day. What I wear is driven by the temperature and what sort of meetings I have.
4. Take a shower. I do this at night so that I can avoid the rush in the morning. I like to dawdle in the shower, particularly if I am not awake, and this does not lend itself to my getting out the door on time.
5. Go to bed. Since I get up so early, I try to be in bed by 10, but that rarely happens. I have been known to go to bed at 8:30 on Thursdays so I am not dragging.

Routines are the stuff that success is built on. Succeed first thing every morning, and you will succeed the rest of the day!