10. 7 things to do before 9am

In the past I would have described myself as a ‘night owl, seeming to come to life in the evening when most people were winding down for the day. I was definitely not a morning person. I would state as much, like it was a predetermined state of being that was part of my genetic make up and so I had no control over it. Some people like mornings, some don’t… and I was in the latter group. In retrospect I realise this was not part of who I am, but rather a result of years and years of bad habits, inconsistent diets and lack of routine. This was amplified at University where I would frequently work into the small hours, eating custard creams and drinking coffee to see me through until the task was complete. Then I would wake as late as I dared before grabbing a quick shower and running out the door to catch a train, skipping breakfast - but I had a flask of coffee in hand so I’ll be fine… right?

Now I realise the importance of my mornings, and that the early hours of every single day play an important role in determining how my day will be. Once you realise this you become a lot more conscious and intentional about how you choose to spend that time. That’s why I’ve pulled together a list of the 7 things I do Monday – Saturday (Sunday cheat days are a law unto themself). It’s by no account the only way to go, but it works for me, ensuring I start the day with that motivated feeling, setting myself up for a more productive day.

Wake early

I know, bad start, but hear me out. There is a feeling you get by being awake before everyone else - because that’s what it feels like – like the rest of the world is still asleep. It similar to that feeling you get when you have an early morning flight and you’re up at ‘stupid o’clock’ to get a taxi to the airport. That sneaky feeling like you’re some sort of cat burglar, stalking though the darkness while everyone else is tucked up in bed. You’ve stolen the advantage, you sneaky bastard you. Look at what you’ve already achieved and everyone (and I mean everyone) is still in bed. Occasionally, if you’re out and about you bump into someone else and it goes one of two ways. Either you secretly acknowledge each other and how awesome you both are because you’ve started the race before the whistle and haven’t been caught… OR, that person has just shattered your illusion that you were the only one with plans to win that days race. Either way, you’re still ahead of the game, just with option 2 you’ve created an adversary to compete with the next morning.

Now Breathe

Take 5 minutes to just take a few really deep breaths. Sounds unimportant I know, I mean you already know how to breathe, and a few deep breaths are just eating into valuable action time (there’s a chance you will get a high from how much you can achieve before breakfast). Imagine how the people you admire start their day? Do you imagine them stumbling out of bed, half asleep to the toilet, peeing with their eyes closed trying to steal another 30 seconds of slumber? Probably not (although in fairness if your chosen icon is Johnny Vegas or Louis C.K then that might not be a great analogy). Chances are they look after themselves, and don’t hurry themselves out of bed until they feel alert, and ready to face the day. They don’t hit the snooze button either. While it would be great to be able to jump out of bed and straight into productive mode, for most of us that’s just not the reality, at least not most days. More than that though, you need to give yourself time for your body to wake up, for your mind to focus on the tasks ahead and remind yourself that it’s going to be a good day.

Drink water

You’ve been asleep for hours (at least 7 preferably, although if your like me this takes a conscious effort too), your body is dehydrated, drink water. Enough said?

If you need more convincing, then drinking a glass of water not only helps with rehydration, but it helps get your brain invigorated, boosts your metabolism, and helps to flush out toxins from your skin. Ideally you should be drinking little and often throughout your morning, hell, throughout the whole day. Just keep hydrated… it’s the easiest thing in the world to do, but I bet you could be doing more?

Journal

In my last post ‘So I’m becoming one of those guys’ I described a bit about what’s involved in this. Essentially, I’m talking about a thought download… a morning brain dump, where you just write for 10-15 mins without stopping and just see what comes out. The goal is to be able to read it back and become aware of the thoughts that are coming out so you can begin to recognize what aspects of your thinking you might want to address. Check yourself for exaggerations or distortions of the truth. Are you really telling it like it is? Take another look. Perhaps your concern is making it seem worse than it is, or your enthusiasm is making it seem better than it is? Are you assigning blame? Look for a tendency to blame circumstances or someone else for your problem instead of seeing yourself as the cause. Are you expecting things to change on their own? It’s easy for us to fall into the trap of blaming our circumstances for anything not going well in our lives, so we naturally expect these circumstances or the people involved need to change in order for the problem to be solved. Without going back into it just now, remember – you are responsible for how you think and feel (thoughts create feelings, feelings create actions, actions determine results) and so things only get better when you get better. Passive hope without action has never and will never improve circumstances.

Journaling is trickier than it sounds, so there are a few things I have tried that have helped move the process along for me. Start by writing 10 things that are good for you just now. As quick as you can, without stopping to think, write down 10 things that you are grateful for, or happy about in your life. For some this will be easy, for others it will be incredibly hard. Not because you don’t have positive things in your life, but like me, you are so used to focussing on the negatives that when you ask your brain to look at the positives it doesn’t know where to start. You might start with the big things like I have a house, I have a car, I have food, I have kids (that’s right.. food popped into my brain before my kids… ssshhhh). If you’re like me then it’s even more important that you do this. Very quickly it showed me just how ungrateful I am. Me?... ungrateful. Dammit… I didn’t see that coming. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate that I am very lucky in so many ways, but I don’t spend any time thinking about all the good things in my life. I can ruminate for hours on the small sh#t that annoyed me, playing out imaginary confrontations and alternative scenarios. So why don’t I dwell on the positive? I could spend hours just looking around and reminding myself how good things are and how much worse they could be; however I only tend to feel like this when something tragic happens – forcing me to momentarily remember what’s important. That fleeting perspective that adversity brings, that inevitably eases and I’m back to ignorance of just how lucky I am. Why can’t I spend my days with a big smile on my face, in a state of permanent gratitude. Sure, things can be better, and I’m working on that, but there’s plenty for me to be grateful for – as writing my morning lists show. 10 things every morning and I try not to repeat myself. It’s hard, but like I said, not because the positivity is not there, but I’m just not used to looking for it.

A few more useful questions I have found to keep your journal flowing are:

- ‘What was the best thing that happened...yesterday / today’

- ‘What was something I did well’

- ‘How could I have made it better’

- ‘How can I make today great’

Make your bed

Really?... ok mum! I know it sounds a bit unworldly, but this one incredibly simple act, which is easier than anything else I’ve suggested, starts your day with a win. It sets the tone for the rest of the day and provides a sense of achievement before you’ve even ventured away from your bed. It can start a domino effect - with one task already ticked off your list, encouraging you to do another, then another, and by the end your day you’ll have completed a sizable list of accomplishments, big and small. It’s an easy habit to start, takes little to no effort and lets face it, you’re not a kid anymore so just make your dang bed!

Move your body

I can not stress enough how beneficial it is to get your body moving in the morning. Despite the obvious health benefits, just getting up and doing something physical will help your mood. Don’t feel like it?... neither do I sometimes. Do it anyway. You know it will help your mindset, make you feel good, wake up your body, and get all the positive chemicals running through your body. You’ll want to eat healthier, partly because your body will crave it and partly because you worked hard and don’t want to undermine the work you are doing. After a few weeks, maybe only a few days you will feel and see the benefits. But you need to be consistent. It needs to become habit. Not a choice that you have to make every morning… will I, won’t I. That requires a helluva lot of motivation. – to convince that bleary eyed, half asleep morning version of yourself to go and do something taxing… tiring? I mean, ‘you’re already tired from yesterday, why would you do that to yourself. You can just lie in today, and you’ll start tomorrow… sound good… ok’. It just won’t work. It needs to be a decision you make, a constraint you put on yourself – I am getting up at 6am and doing exercise – period. While your body will still put up a good fight, there will be a lot less chatter from your brain because you’ve already made the decision. Now what you have to do is decide whether you are going to bail on your plans… the plans your rational, less sleepy brain made the week before to start looking after yourself. Does your sleep addled brain now know better than last weeks, wide-awake clear-thinking brain? Are you really going to manage to convince yourself that not doing what you promised yourself is in your own best interest? Maybe… but’s it’s a much harder argument to win. Start small. There’s no need to jump straight into (or ever) doing a 10k morning run before breakfast. 10 mins on a treadmill, 5 mins on a rowing machine, whatever works for you. Or, like me when I started out, you could opt for 15-20mins of HIIT training. Now I enjoy a varied workout regime, with Pilates, HIIT/HIRT, stretching routines, boxing workouts, weight training all contributing to a well-rounded approach to my fitness. But it started with 15mins of HIIT a day. I think a mistake a lot of people make is starting with running as they think it’s the easiest and most familiar way to start. Now, I’ve tried running, numerous times in fact, and I just don’t like it. It puts too much pressure on my joints, I end up with back pain and while I end up a sweaty mess and shadow of my former self, I simply don’t enjoy it. Maybe I need to persevere, I mean, all the runners I know seem to really enjoy it. I think there must be a point that people reach where running transcends the physical activity and becomes something greater… I’m not taking about ‘the wall’. I’ve hit the wall and pushed through, but I’ve never reached that euphoric state that some runners talk about… the almost meditative trance that takes over. When I finally decided to get in shape there was no question - I was doing it! I just had to figure out the how.

So, after a month or so of morning runs, in winter which probably doesn’t help, I decided that this was not a maintainable option for me and ‘will power’ alone might see me through for a bit longer but not for life. As it happens, on particularly bad mornings, when its was treacherous with ice, I had started doing HIIT sessions in my living room, and you know what? I enjoyed it… it just clicked. Not in any small part because it meant I didn’t have to go out in the freezing cold to work up a sweat and injure myself. But whatever my motivation - that was it, a method was derived… my path clear… and my enthusiasm replenished. So you need to find what works for you and don’t be too hard on yourself if it doesn’t all go according to plan. The main thing is that you do it – whatever it is. If you just get up, flail about your living room in an attempt to do star jumps then fine… great job… you got up and did it and should be proud of yourself. In time the ‘it’ will develop and improve, along with your motivation. Trust me, when you start seeing the result you will not look back.

This leads nicely on to –

Eat a healthy breakfast

After your new morning workout you’re going to be hungry, and you don’t want to go and undo that hard work. You’re feeling good, pumped… ready for the day. You don’t want to go and eat a huge unhealthy breakfast that drops you right back into ‘sluggish’ and ‘lethargic’, or worse yet, skipping it all together! That simply won’t do, and it won’t help you lose weight if that’s your goal. Of all the meals to eat healthfully, breakfast must be the easiest, with cereals, oats, fresh fruit and juices all being an accepted part of the morning meal. So just choose wisely from the already approved list of consumables. Instead of coco-pops try porridge, instead of white bread try wholemeal, instead of full fat milk try semi skimmed. Then develop from there, adding blueberries, banana, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, strawberries etc until you crack it. Explore new foods, and combinations as your knowledge grows, enjoy experimenting with smoothies and how many (healthy) toppings you can get on your porridge… eating should be fun, but that doesn’t mean it has to be unhealthy. In a nutshell, it should be light, healthy and fuel you for whatever you have planned for the day.

Feel free to mix it up, change the order, swap in your own motivational must haves – read for 10 mins before getting out of bed, listen to motivational podcast, look at yourself in the mirror and do daily affirmations to remind yourself your going to ‘boss’ the day. There are really no rules. Just find what works for you and realise that if you really want to improve and become incredible then this time in the morning really matters. Make it count!