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- 5 Pillars To Win the Day
The way you start your day sets the tone of your day.
If I had to point to one thing that formed the foundation of the life I have today, it’s my morning routine.
I used to have so much anxiety, fear and confusion that made each day harder than it needed to be.
Getting into personal development, one principle that I heard until my ears bled red was having a morning routine.
So I tried it.
For over 5 years, I have been experimenting and tweaking my morning routine. I focused on optimising for well-being, productivity, clarity and focus.
I’ve had routines that ranged from 15 minutes to an hour and a half. (extreme I know, but I enjoyed the experimentation).
Over the years, there have been 5 elements that have always stuck with me and made my days that much better.
Take and implement what you want to optimise for in your life.
Leave what doesn’t.
This is what worked for me and you know your situation best.
Let’s get into it.
The 5 Pillars To Win The Day
A good start to the day is the best way to make sure the rest of the day goes well.
And if the rest of the day goes to shit because this happened and that happened, at least you won the morning.
So to win the day, here are 5 pillars you need:
1. Hydrate
When you wake up in the morning after 6-8 hours (hopefully), your body has been without any liquid.
With a body that is on average 60% water, it’s crucial to drink some water once you’ve woken up.
Common negative side effects of dehydration include:
headaches,
sleepiness,
dizziness and
low blood pressure.
Dehydration can wear you down, decrease your willpower and lead to you starting your day on the back foot.
The first thing you want to do upon waking is drink 250 - 500ml of water. If you’re a little bit of an overachiever, then aim for 1000ml.
It would be awesome if you could have the water with some electrolytes, but it’s not a must if you can’t access them. Salt is an easy form of electrolytes.
Hold off on drinking coffee for at least 60 - 90 minutes after waking. It's been shown that caffeine can contribute to more dehydration.
Water first, the coffee.
2. Plan Your Day and Journal
Without a clear destination, you can end up with a day that falls victim to aimless wandering and ineffective busyness.
To make the most of each day, you want to be clear and focused.
There are two ways you can do this and you want to do both:
#1 Plan Your Day
If you don’t have a plan for the day, you’re going in any direction without a clear outcome for what you want to do.
Having a laid-out plan reduces the number of decisions you have to make about where you're going and what to do.
A clear plan channels your time, energy and effort towards the right things.
You want to plan your day the night before so you can start the day with clarity and simply get to work.
#2 Journaling
Another reason so many people struggle to win their day is because of their minds.
Their minds are racing with thoughts that aren’t aligned with their goals.
They use more energy to avoid these thoughts which leads to less energy used to get to their goals.
This is also why you’re so tired at the end of the day. Instead of suppressing thoughts that don’t align with your goals, clear them away.
Journalling is great for this.
You’re getting the thoughts out of your head and onto a page.
With less thoughts in your head, there’s more space for clearer, focused thinking.
And you can take this a step further.
Journalling is powerful for reprogramming your mind.
Your perception of life is created through the thoughts, beliefs and stories you have.
When you write down the thoughts that are infesting your mind, you’re able to examine them.
“Why am I thinking that?”
“Does this thought serve me or hold me back?”
“What would I like to believe is true instead?”
As you write down these thoughts and the stories you tell yourself, you can change them to more empowering thoughts and stories.
Journalling also allows you to write down and brain dump any ideas you might have.
Our minds aren’t great for consciously holding a lot of information and working through it.
Journalling is useful for working through big, complex ideas and clearing your thinking.
3. Movement
If there was a magic pill that could give you:
A better, positive mood
More energy
Lower stress
Greater focus
Better sleep
Regulated emotions
It would be the best-selling pill on the market.
Unfortunately, this pill hasn’t been created, but there is something that comes close.
If not better:
Physical movement.
There are endless benefits to making physical movement part of your daily routine.
And physical movement doesn’t have to be a full workout that feels like you're punishing your body.
You can do yoga, swimming, pushups, hiking, daily walks, rock climbing, martial arts, etc.
Anything that you can do that gets your blood pumping and that you enjoy for 20 - 60 minutes a day.
4. Meditation
There’s no doubt that you saw this one coming and that’s for good reason.
For one, in my own experience, meditation has helped me conquer my anxiety and depression.
It’s given me:
A better relationship with my thoughts and emotions,
The ability to show up better in my relationships,
More focus do more work and
Greater presence in my life.
When you can be in the present moment and are aware of your surroundings and internal world, you can respond and create life the way you want.
From a place of conscious awareness, you can choose what thoughts to entertain, process your emotions without exploding at others, choose where your attention goes and ultimately how you live your life.
And the beauty of meditation is its simplicity.
A simple 10 - 20 minute session daily is enough to reap the benefits of a clearer mind and a more present you.
Whether you do this on your own or with the help of a guided meditation, you can unlock great levels of your potential from daily stillness and mindfulness.
5. Visioning
This is something you’ve possibly heard of before but not like this.
It’s commonly advised in the personal development space to write down your goals every morning.
Though this has never resonated with me, I understood the importance of keeping your goals top of mind.
So instead of a very ‘basic’ tool, I recommend visioning.
Visioning is the practice of creating the vision of your life 3 - 5 years from now and looking over it every morning.
Having goals is great, but what do those goals lead up to?
What you want to focus on is creating the ideal life, not achieving a single goal.
You want to get clear on what it is that you want in life and start bringing conscious attention to it.
This is what visioning is.
When you have a big-picture view of what you want your life to look like, the goals automatically present themselves.
Want your own house? Your goal might be to save more money or start looking at properties.
Want to be confident and have tons of energy? Your goal might be to get in shape and clean up your diet.
When you have a vision, working towards the goals becomes easier because there is a deeper mission to it all.
Everyone wants to make more money, but very few do. But if you want to travel or buy a new house, you have more reason to make more money.
Because it’s not just money you want, there’s a deeper reason behind it.
The beauty of visioning is that as you go about each day and start imagining your ideal life more and more, you will receive new insights and ideas.
This means that your vision becomes more specific and your mind becomes more focused on achieving the vision.
As you get clearer on your vision, you’ll also start seeing new ways that allow you to actualise and make it a reality.
TL;DR
5 Pillars To Win Your Day
Hydrate
Journal and Plan Your Day
Movement
Meditation
Visioning
A great day starts with a great morning.
Take one of these elements if you don’t have them as part of your routine yet and experiment.
What can you add that will improve your life in a significant way?
Commit to one of these pillars for at least 30 days before adding another element or changing.
P.S.
If you’re looking to upgrade your life or a specific area, but don’t know where to start
Book a free call with me and let’s have a quick chat:
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