Wake Up with Purpose

What is your morning routine? If you just said to yourself, routine? I get up, hit the ground running and I’m out the door twenty minutes later. Also if you laughed because your routine is spent frantically herding kids like sheep and it’s a whirlwind of chaos, I’m going to challenge you to rethink how those few extra minutes of sleep may actually be setting your day back. During the “work week”, my routine has been relatively consistent for many years.

Wake up -> Coffee -> News -> Inspiration -> Shower -> Time to Crush

The inspiration for me is often quotes, stories, but mostly video and audio content. I love searching YouTube for motivational videos and coming across the greatness of Les Brown, Tony Robbins, Eric Thomas and countless others. When I tell people I consistently get up 60-90 minutes before I leave for work, they look at me like I’m crazy. I don’t know, for me, it just works. I believe this puts my mind in the right place to conquer any of the day’s tasks and to be the best version of myself on that given day. I was referencing my routine with people last weekend, and I frequently talk about this routine in Transformation Thursday, a course I teach for adults in our homeless shelter. A friend who was in on the conversation last weekend sent an article that was shared by the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network. The article is titled, The morning routine experts recommend for peak productivity, the article written by Eric Barker sums up five keys:

1. Stop reacting. Get up before the world starts making demands so you can figure out what’s important to you.
2. Decide what matters today. You won’t get everything done, so what will move the needle? What will let you end the day feeling like you accomplished something? No more than 3 goals.
3. Use your “magic hours” for those three things. Your peak productivity time is probably an hour or two after you wake up. If you know your best hours are at another time, fine. Protect your “magic hours.”
4. Have a starting ritual. Go to the place where you get stuff done. Get your coffee. Anything that tells your brain it’s time to rock.
5. When things go sideways, use “positive procrastination.” If you can’t tackle the super scary thing, do the pretty scary thing. Designating a super scary thing in advance as a decoy can make that pretty scary thing much easier.

I would be lying to you if I told you I went into my routine with this type of rigor. However, I frequently do the first four, I review my schedule, drink coffee and focus on the day’s tasks and how I will execute. My one addition is the inspiring or motivational content to hijack my thinking for the day (it’s kind of like a performance-enhancing drug).

Another popular morning routine principle is out there by Robin Sharma, it’s called the 20/20/20 formula. Robin believes you should spend your first 20 minutes in intense exercise, followed by a 20-minute review of your plans and goals, and finally a 20-minute routine on learning. Robin’s theory has gained a lot of traction with those who practice and preach motivation and inspiration.

Regardless of the routine you latch on to or create for yourself,  it’s very important to incorporate one into your day. One of my favorite speakers, Eric Thomas, says “stop just waking up like an accident.” Eric continues the speech by asking; what do you want in your life? If you have a plan when you wake up, you will put yourself in a place to deliver the best of yourself to the world. Wake up with purpose, you deserve it!