Self Development Taya Bregant Self Development Taya Bregant

How To: Building Your Ideal Morning Routine

How did you wake up today?

For many people, the first few minutes after waking involve hitting the snooze button several times. After finally getting up—often later than intended—they spend a dozen or more minutes scrolling through social media or responding to messages and notifications from the night before.

However, research suggests that starting your day in such a reactive state can have serious downsides. It affects not only your attitude towards the rest of your day but also your health and mental well-being.

Beginning your day as described above can worsen your mood from the start and unnecessarily stress your body and mind in that crucial first hour. This can lead to lethargy throughout the day, increased susceptibility to triggers, and a generally unfulfilling day—all because we didn't start our morning in an energizing and fulfilling way.

It's therefore important to build a morning routine—however long or simple—that works well for you and your lifestyle.

Everyone has different lives, time constraints, and duties, so naturally, not every routine will work for everyone. The key is to focus on those components you value and that make a big difference in your morning. Incorporate these into your mornings as regularly as you can. The goal is to make your routine functional, practical, and energizing for you.

My intention today: I want to provide you with a variety of ideas you can mix and match for your own morning routine, helping you truly elevate the start of your day according to your preferences and needs.

I hope you'll find something useful here to help you build a morning routine that will inspire and prepare you well for the day ahead.

15 IDEAS FOR WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR MORNING ROUTINE

  • Getting a good night of sleep the night before: Paradoxically, one of the best things you can do as part of your morning routine is to ensure you're getting a good night's sleep. This makes waking up at an earlier time much easier and helps you feel energized the following day.

  • Waking up early: Rising early allows you to get the most out of your day and enjoy some unrushed personal time before heading out.

  • Making your bed: This simple habit helps start your day off right. By making your bed first thing in the morning, you've already accomplished something worthwhile, which helps you tackle the rest of your daily tasks.

  • Movement: Incorporating some form of movement into your morning can be very helpful, waking up your body and stretching out any sore or tense spots. You don't necessarily need a rigorous workout; even a few effective stretches or a stroll around your neighborhood can be great options.

  • Eating a nutritious breakfast: While not everyone enjoys breakfast or makes time for it, if you're someone who does, including a nutritious meal in your morning routine can aid digestion and fill you with valuable energy and nutrients for the day.

  • Planning your day: Taking a few minutes in the morning to plan your day and set your intentions can have an incredible effect on your productivity. It helps you get more done efficiently and ensures you're approaching your day with the right attitude and mindset.

  • Making time for a hobby or creative pursuit: Another idea is to dedicate 10 or more minutes to a hobby you enjoy or a creative project you're working on. Many people find they're highly creative in the mornings, so if you can take advantage of this by fitting in some creative time, you might be surprised by how much you can learn or improve.

  • Spending some time outdoors: If possible, spend some time outside or get natural sun exposure in the morning. This can help give your body the cue to wake up naturally and allow you to get some fresh air.

  • Meditation: Many people find it helpful to dedicate a few minutes of their morning to some form of meditation. This can provide greater clarity of thought and help you approach your day in a more objective and calm state.

  • Connecting with loved ones or pets: Making time in the morning to talk with someone who means a lot to you—whether in person, over the phone, or via text—can add grounding value to your day. Similarly, if you have a pet, spending a few minutes with them can elevate your mood and make you feel more connected to the world around you.

  • Listening to a podcast or good music: Putting on music you enjoy or an interesting podcast can empower you to have a great day, spark new ideas or ambitions, and generally elevate your mood.

  • Drinking water: While it's important to drink water throughout the day, having 1-2 glasses in the morning ensures you rehydrate after a long night's sleep and helps boost your energy levels.

  • Not rushing: If possible, give yourself enough time in the morning to do everything you want without feeling rushed. A hurried state can add stress and put you in a bad mood.

  • Learning something new: Taking a few minutes in the morning to practice a skill or learn something new is always valuable. You might have less control over your schedule later in the day, so morning can be an ideal time for this. Expand your knowledge on a topic of interest by reading, solving a quiz, listening to an intriguing podcast, or watching an educational video.

  • Limiting screen time: Many people start their day by checking their phones and social media. However, this puts you in a reactive, almost autopilot mode, which isn't ideal for your self-esteem or motivation. Instead, try to completely avoid checking your phone and social media for at least the first 30 minutes after waking up. This gives your body proper time to wake up naturally, rather than immediately consuming media.

SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER


Now that you have some ideas for what to include in your morning routine, here are additional factors to consider for further refinement:

  • Amount of sleep you need to function best: This will determine the optimal times for you to wake up and go to sleep.

  • Your living situation: Your routines and daily flexibility will differ greatly depending on whether you live alone or have a family or others to care for. Determine when it makes the most sense to do each part of your morning routine based on your situation.

  • Breakfast: Not everyone enjoys or makes time for breakfast in the morning. Consider whether you want to include it in your routine and plan accordingly.

  • Getting ready: Realistically estimate how long it takes you to get ready in the morning—from waking up to leaving your home. Ensure your morning routine allows enough time for preparation to avoid constant rushing.

  • Time allocation: Consider how much time you want to dedicate to your morning routine from start to finish. This will allow you to perform everything you want in a relaxed manner while still keeping it time-efficient to fit your other daily obligations.

RESOURCES

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Self Development Taya Bregant Self Development Taya Bregant

Building Consistency - Finding Something And Sticking To It

Everyone struggles with being consistent.

It is no easy task. Staying consistent doesn’t only entail starting something but requires exactly what it says: consistency. Some sort of rhythm or routine which allows us to perform an action on a regular basis.

While consistency is hard to cultivate and even harder to maintain, there are some ways which I talk about below, that can make this process easier for ourselves in the long term.

Before we get into discussing a more hands-on approach for how you can build your consistency through any activity that you want to pursue, I wanted to first also briefly touch upon how we can benefit from staying consistent with something in the long run and what actually are the main reasons for why we fall out of being consistent with something.

I hope you find something useful and worthwhile in today’s post :)

Today’s intention: Realize how a steady-paced consistency can benefit you in the long run and practical tested advice for how to keep consistent with something.

WHY IS CONSISTENCY IMPORTANT ANYWAYS?

Here it is important to firstly clarify, that you do not have to be consistent with every single activity that you do, but rather to focus your consistent energy and intention on an activity or set of activities which you would like to build consistency with in the long run.

What you decide that you want to become more consistent at will depend entirely on your personal goals and passions.

For example, if your goal is to improve your endurance and perhaps one day be able to run a marathon, a useful activity to become consistent at would be going on a daily run.

Similarly, if you have always dreamt of publishing some sort of written text or book, then adopting a daily routine of writing or scripting can directly benefit you towards getting closer to your goal.

Consistency or in other words, having a set yet functional routine when it comes to performing an activity (whatever that may be), is extremely impactful in the long run because over time instead of purely relying on motivation or willpower to get to doing that activity, it will bit by bit become a habit of common practice. Over time, the activity will be easier to perform and you will face less friction when it comes to getting started with it.

Now why is this useful?

By building consistency and discipline with a certain activity, you are able to become a prolific goal achiever.

You are able to grow and improve in your areas of weakness and with consistent practice, get closer to your goals in whatever area of your life they may lie in, whether it be health, finances, education, career, relationships or personal interests. With consistent practice you are able to sharpen your skills and expand your knowledge of something to new dimensions, while adopting strong and healthy habits to support you in the process.

In short, consistency is important because by being consistent you can improve at anything you wish to work on and reach the goals you set yourself at a much faster yet reliable rate. And best part is, it can be applied to any area of your life that you would like to work on.

SO WHY IS BEING CONSISTENT SO DIFFICULT THEN?

That's a good question.

A critical study within social psychology from 2009 found that on average, it took the participants of the study between 18 and 245 days to develop a daily habit of doing an activity in relation to eating, drinking or movement.

While this range is certainly quite large, suggesting that the different kinds of habits that we want to form will require different levels of input and consistency. For example, the goal of starting to drink at least 2 liters of water a day will most likely require a different level of effort and technique than when it comes to wanting to adopt a habit of exercising each day for 30 minutes.

This is one reason for why we often fail at being consistent with something.

The other reason is that before an activity becomes of habitual nature to us, it takes a lot of willpower and energy for us to motivate ourselves to perform the activity and this accumulated over a long spread of time can be energetically demanding, not to mention demanding of our attention span which at its best on average can hold between 10-15 minutes focus (Bradbury, 2016).

Biologically, our brain is built to prefer the path of least resistance which translates to performing the activity that requires least effort. Therefore if we really want to develop a steady routine at an activity, we have to do some careful planning to ensure that the process will be an enjoyable one for us, since the consistency itself will at least initially, require quite a lot of our energy.

Therefore to sum up, being consistent at something is difficult because some activities naturally take more effort and time for us to make them into a consistent habit and secondly, before we turn an activity into a habit, it requires of us a considerable energetic investment to get us to perform the activity.

HOW TO BUILD CONSISTENCY

Now let's talk about some practical advice on how we can become more consistent at something.

Here are some things which have worked well in my experience:

  1. Decide your what and why: The first step is to determine which activity you want to become more consistent and also fundamentally consider why you are choosing to focus on this activity in the first place. You want to make sure that this activity that you want to pursue in the long run is aligned with your goals, priorities as well as your values since this will at your core, be your main source of motivation for performing an activity, especially during the times when it might get hard to keep up the consistency.

  2. Building routines that work: To help with your transition from using willpower to building a functional habit, it is useful to build routines that will make this transition more effortless. For example, if you want to become more consistent with wearing sunscreen especially in the summer months, it can be useful to keep your sunscreen in a visible place in the bathroom and to apply it during your morning skincare routine. Similarly, if you would like to adopt the habit of reading each day, you can tie it to an activity which you currently already do such as reading during your morning breakfast or coffee.

  3. Find how to boost your motivation: In the initial stages before something becomes a habit, it is useful to look into ways to keep yourself motivated. One way of doing this is to measure your progress of performing the activity to show yourself that you can build consistency at something and to boost your esteem in a healthy encouraging way. A way to measure your progress could be to build a simple table like progress tracker or to have a calendar printed on your wall where you cross off a day or week of completing something.

  4. Create accountability: To further help you in keeping consistent with something, it is critical to also build a system of accountability to further keep yourself on check and to ensure you are moving in the right direction when it comes to building consistency. Ask a close friend or family member if they would be willing to be your accountability partner to remind you to do your stated activity and to check up on your progress. Alternatively, you can get a similar effect from various apps that allow you to digitally track your progress while offering you access to a wide community of users that can provide you with the needed accountability.

  5. Perfection isn't the aim: One last note which I wanted to emphasize is that in this process of habit and consistency building, we are not striving for perfection, meaning that if we occasionally miss a day or slightly fall off track, it is of no use to beat ourselves up about it. Instead, it is much more useful if we consider why we fell off track in the first place and to simply just pick ourselves up and start again. Not doing something for a day won't cause the world to end, so just give it another go. Doing your best is already enough.

REFERENCES

  • Lally, P., Van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2009). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674

  • Bradbury, N. A. (2016). Attention span during lectures: 8 seconds, 10 minutes, or more? AJP Advances in Physiology Education, 40(4), 509–513. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00109.2016

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