From my extensive research I have found that successful people all have one thing in common. They get up early in the morning and have a very specific routine that they follow, no matter what. It is this routine and consistency each and every morning that sets them up for success.
Starting and maintaining a positive morning routine is an investment of a life time. It provides structure, builds life-changing habits, and creates momentum for the rest of your day. According to research, when you create and follow a morning routine, your stress and anxiety levels will begin to plummet and your life satisfaction levels will begin to soar.
In the words of Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning:
“How you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days — which inevitably create a successful life — in the same way that unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre days, and ultimately a mediocre quality of life. By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible.”
If you want to make your morning routine stick, focus on making it a habit. A healthy morning routine instills a sense of purpose, peace and productive ritual to your day.
Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, says maintaining a good morning routine is no different than having a positive outlook.
“Over my 50 years in business I have learned that if I rise early I can achieve so much more in a day, and therefore in life. No matter where I am in the world, I try to routinely wake up at around 5am. By rising early, I’m able to do some exercise and spend time with my family, which puts me in a great mind frame before getting down to business.”
One of my goals for this year is to instill a better routine into my mornings. One that I stick to no matter what. There is no best formula for how your morning should look but some of the activities that successful people do every day include meditation, exercise, stretching and drinking green smoothies. Then prioritising their top three income producing activities of the day, which they then execute. What they don’t do is get out of bed, react to emails, jump on social media and then find its lunchtime and half the day has already disappeared.
Each and every day there will always be important and urgent tasks that you have to get done, such as client work and sales conversations but there are also a raft of tasks that are important and non-urgent. These important and non-urgent tasks include eating well and making sure you are taking care of yourself. Let’s face it you can serve no-one if you are exhausted and not up to the job. And yet time and time again I come across business owners that have not prioritised their personal well-being in their daily schedule. They keep saying they don’t have time for exercise and yet studies [keep showing] SHOW that exercise helps make us more productive. This is the conundrum. We keep thinking we don’t have time when actually if we don’t take the time to do these things we won’t be able to sustain running a successful business.
Like everything, when you start to implement your morning routine, start with small steps. If you currently get up at 7am then trying to get up at 5am will be a stretch. Why not just get up 15 mins earlier for a week and then the next week another 15 mins earlier. Soon you will reach your goal. Likewise, don’t try and meditate for an hour, 15 mins is a great start. It’s the same with exercise too. If 30 mins seems to long start with just 15 mins. Like everything it is the intention and commitment to take action that is JUST as important as the duration of the activity.
So, what are you going to do today to start putting better morning routines in place? I’m going to take some of my own medicine now and go for a run!
Wishing you a great flow filled week.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
