How A Morning Ritual Brings Order To Your Day (+ Free Routine Template)
The day starts slow. Lots to do. The head is foggy. Where to begin? I’ve been there and I’ve seen others struggle. Lazy beginning of the day, no direction, time wasted on figuring out what to eat, what to wear, no stretching, no hydration. As one of my mentors once said “Without the rituals, the day wins you over.” It is so true – the day will just stream-roll over you if you don’t have a plan.
Why you need a morning routine
If you don’t have a game plan for the day, things will happen but you will be at the mercy of chance. I’ve been living without structure for many years. When I finally tried an actual step-by-step morning sequence it was a true game changer (find my sample routine here).
The problem I had with many routines (or rituals) before was that I found them too heavy, dense, demanding. I don’t want to write a page of journaling in the morning. I don’t need to drink a pint of water right after I wake up. Gym visits in the morning are not my jam. Some people might like it and it’s probably amazingly effective for them.
How to adopt an energizing morning routine without resistance
The key here is to compile a list that works for you. Simple, effective, one that does the job. You can iterate over time.
Develop a simple routine, print it and keep it next to your bed. If later you come up with a new step, add it to the sheet, just write it with a pen.
It’s a lot easier to follow the steps if you have them next to your bed on a physical, easily accessible medium, such as a sheet of paper.
Using a phone is not as good because you need to unlock it, search for the image, and you may get distracted by apps and notifications along the way. It might be a decent idea to fit your list into an image and use it as a background on the lock screen, but you have to be really crafty to do that (the text will be tiny too). Here is a pretty cool example.
Set your routine and follow up to the best of your ability
After you make the list and have your first morning with the routine, you should stick with it for 30 days (granted, this is just a nice round number, it would be more like 66 days, to be accurate), then make adjustments as needed. It is experimentally proven that to develop a habit you need a certain number of days repeating it. Curiously, it's not always a fixed number of days, refer to "Psychology Today" for some scientific insights.
Nobody is perfect and sometimes I stray away from my own rituals. That’s completely fine and I don’t beat myself up for waking up a little later on a Sunday and skipping the full 8-min stretch routine once a week. The point is, you need to have a structure, designed, written down, and easily accessible. Something you can always go back to.
Here is a Free Routine Template to get you started
Here I will share my version of the list and a template that you can print and write your own steps into the fields. It will help you get going with the new approach of starting your day and you won’t have to figure out where to begin all on your own. I encourage you to make your own list later and I would love it if you shared it with me.
Did it resonate with you? Share this on your favorite social media. Drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you: contact@vasilym.com.
