Morning Routines – Entrepreneurs Will Benefit From Having a Strategy
When it comes to morning routines, entrepreneurs tend to do their own thing and not adhere to even a loose schedule. I was that way during my first couple of months as an online entrepreneur. Then I realized my morning routines were the glue that had held my life together previously. Once I embraced this concept my business took off and my life changed in amazing ways. I’d like to share my journey with you so that you may come up with your own morning routines – entrepreneurs love a step by step strategy that works!
Define Your Perfect Morning
Here is my question for you this morning. What’s most important to you? What is the one thing you really want to do on a daily basis that would make a big difference, but you just can’t seem to find the time for? Have you ever thought about what a perfect morning would look like for you?
In short, what good habit do you want to cultivate that would make a real impact on your life? Think about this for a moment. It could be in any area of your life from exercise and healthy eating to self-improvement or getting ahead in business or at your job. It could be working on your relationship with your kids, finding time for creative pursuits, or getting in the habit of reading every morning.
Once you’ve figured out what you want to work on, what you want to improve, and what’s important to you, we’ll think about how you can make it part of your morning routine. Sit back and imagine your perfect morning. It isn’t stressed or rushed. Most importantly it’s a day when you have time for everything on your list. Maybe it means having time for a long shower. Maybe it’s going for a run before breakfast. Maybe it’s having a few minutes to connect with your spouse over coffee or maybe it’s carving out an hour first thing in the morning to work on your side-business.
That’s a lot of “maybes” but the key is to start with what’s most important to you and think about how you could fit it into your morning routine. Remember, you’re just dreaming and imagining at this point. We’ll work on figuring out where to find the time to fit it in and how to make it all work out later on. For now I simply want you to paint a vivid picture of what your new morning could look like.
I want you to become very clear on what you want that perfect morning to look like. Imagine it in as much detail as you possibly can. Write it down in a journal or on a piece of paper that you can refer back to as needed. In short, define your perfect morning.
Why is this so important? Because you can’t start to make any meaningful changes until you know what your goals are. You need to know your destination before you can start to pick a route and figure out how you’ll get there. That’s what today’s task is all about. It’s figuring out where you want to get to. Don’t stop until you have it figured out and firmly pictured in your mind.
Impact of a Morning Routine
I love mornings. Each new day brings new opportunities and it’s a chance to start fresh and do better. How you start your day, or more specifically how you spend those first few morning hours has a big impact on the rest of it. Think of it as setting the tone for your entire day. That’s why making over your morning is so important. It’s about much more than those first few hours.
I’m sure you’ve experienced this yourself. Let’s use the snooze button as an example. You set an early alarm to make sure you have time for exercise, meditation, or simply some much needed “me time”. You have every intention of getting up and doing whatever you’re setting out to do when you set the alarm in the first place. Some mornings – hopefully most mornings – you get up when the alarm chimes and go for that walk, do your meditation exercise, or read a book for twenty minutes. Then there are those days when you just can’t make yourself get up. You hit the snooze button multiple times, or turn the alarm off altogether and go back to sleep.
Think about how the rest of those days went. Did you notice a difference in how you felt? How much did you got done on the mornings when you got up with your first alarm? Were you able to do all the things you set out to do? How did those days compare to the ones when you hit the snooze button over and over again?
If I had to take a guess, I’d say that the mornings when you got up as soon as the alarm went off went a lot smoother. I bet you accomplished what you have planned to do, too. Chances are that sleeping through the snooze button didn’t just affect your morning, but the entire rest of your day. You set the tone for how your day is going to go first thing in the morning. That’s what the old saying about getting up on the wrong side of the bed is about. Let’s make sure we get up on the right side and start our day off in a positive and productive way.
If you don’t sleep in and make it a point to get up earlier than you must, a whole host of other options become available to you. You can now explore the idea of journaling, you can begin a daily meditation practice, you might be able to start an exercise regimen, or all of those. By rising early and not sleeping in, you get to begin to work on your material first, not your boss’s or your company’s. Resist the temptation to check email or social media and use those precious minutes to do your most important work.
This doesn’t mean that you should never sleep in. There will be times when you will be exhausted, and you will not be able to get up in the wee hours of the morning to do your most important work. But those times should be the exceptions and not the rule. If you continue to get up early and make progress, your habit or system will create the motivation. You don’t need to be motivated to get up early, you will use your success to create the motivation to get up early.
Morning Routines – Entrepreneurs Invited!
I’d love to guide you through the process of making over your morning. As we’ve already established, this is an important tasks and a good thing to work on and pay attention to. Not only will you enjoy your mornings more even if the alarm goes off much earlier than you’d like, it will make the entire rest of your day go much smoother. Please reach out to me and we’ll connect for a journey to shape your morning routines. Entrepreneurs, coaches, and authors will all benefit from this interaction and connection.
I’m author, publisher, and entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and would love to connect with you. If you are new to the world of online entrepreneurship please check out my comprehensive training on how to set up funnels that work and learn how to gain an unfair advantage when it comes to building a lucrative online business.