Transform your morning in four steps
Let’s be clear - I am NOT a morning person. However, for YEARS, I aspired to be one. And one day I realized… the way to become a morning person is to just, wake up. It’s THAT simple. To become the person you aspire to be, you just need to start acting AS IF. So, I started waking up and doing these four things every morning (okay, most mornings… we aren’t perfect around here). Are you ready to learn how to transform your morning in four steps?
Before you can transform your morning in four steps, it’s so helpful to understand the science behind it. The truth is, I still loathe getting out of bed. But, I became aware of how my brain works, and that changed everything. See, the amygdala is the part of your brain that hates waking up. The amygdala is the “threat detector” and one of the oldest and more primitive parts of the brain. The amygdala is constantly scanning our environment to assess our level of safety and alert us to any signs of trouble. It's a basic survival mechanism with the goal of protecting us and keeping us safe - and when we’re warm and cozy in our bed early in the morning, and that alarm goes off to wake us up, our amygdala is like, “time to press snooze!.”
This is where your morning routine’s bestie comes in - the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is at the front of the head and is responsible for planning, organization, logical thinking, reasoning, and managing emotions. The frontal lobe is like your little life coach saying, “Wake up! You are going to love it once you get out of bed.”
Once I learned that it was just my amygdala trying to protect me, and NOT my body actually needing the sleep, it was so much easier to stop myself from pressing snooze. Now, when the alarm goes off, I am actually aware of the amygdala chatter and allow my frontal lobe to chime in, reminding myself that my brain is just trying to protect me, but it’s actually time to get up!
Transform your morning in four steps
The 5 Second Rule
The first step to transform your morning is to practice the 5 second rule. I learned about this method while doing Mel Robbin’s Wake Up Challenge, which I highly recommend to anyone looking to start a morning routine. You can sign up for the challenge for free here. The idea behind the 5 second rule is when your alarm goes off, count down 5,4,3,2,1 and then get right out of bed. Sometimes, I have to count down from 5 a few times, but the concept stays the same - count down and get up. Snooze is no longer an option.
Don’t Check your Phone
You may have heard this one before, but truly - don’t look at your phone. Avoid checking your phone AT ALL COSTS. Mel says it perfectly when she describes that you want to own your morning - choose the energy you want to bring into your day and even more importantly, don’t get sucked in and waste those precious morning hours.
3. find your morning nook
Building a habit takes repetition, and I’ve also found that it helps to repeat that in the same spot, every day. When I wake up, I know I am heading straight to the little morning nook I’ve created in a quiet corner of the house, where I have my journal, my pen, my yoga mat and my daily meditation book waiting for me.
4. do the s-a-v-e-r-s
Now you’re ready for your SAVERS - and if you don’t now what that means, you likely haven’t read Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, so go and read that now (like, right now). SAVERS stands for Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading and Scribing - six habits that will transform your morning before 8am. Having these six components to my morning allowed me to build a habit more easily. There was no question of what to do after my alarm went off. The SAVERS allowed my still-half-asleep brain to seamlessly fall into a morning routine.
I can’t promise you’ll feel transformed on day one, but I can guarantee from day one, you’ll feel better. And I’m all about the little things we can do to feel better. It adds up. Are you ready to transform your morning in four steps? Let me know if you try it - and if you need a morning buddy, I’m here for it!