This Small Morning Habit Switch Transformed My Mornings

And it’s so simple, it’s crazy!

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Mornings — they’re powerful!

Depending on how my morning goes, often the rest of the day follows on the same note. Have a stressful morning? Then that stress often bleeds into the rest of the day. Have an amazing morning? The rest of the day seems to perfectly fall into place like a day on the life in one of those happy -go-lucky Hallmark channel movies (my fave by the way).

I realized though that my mornings were not setting me up for success. Completely disregarding the fact that I didn’t have any morning routine whatsoever, I was also using one very simple habit that was NOT serving me at all.

What’s the first thing you do when you get up? Or what all do you do religiously in the mornings?

Now, I know most of you are thinking — “She’s probably going to say that not going on her phone right away in the morning changed her life..” Cue the eye rolls and the sighs.

But heck no! I totally get that it would be better for me to not look at my phone immediately when I get up, but how else will I know if I missed some clearly life-altering facebook messages or DMs from friends, clients, or Dwayne Johnson (a girl can dream, right?)?

No, I most definitely won’t suggest doing something that I barely can convince myself to follow-through on. However, I will suggest something that has to do with the phone — namely what you do with it in the mornings.

I don’t know about you, but one of my key morning habits that I would do without fail (and I really mean religiously) was to go on Snapchat and get caught up on the celebrity gossip.

Now why is this so detrimental? Or why was it detrimental for me?

The morning is a time where your mind is still the most vulnerable, and the most malleable. You can literally shape it into what you want or need it to be that day. (Given that you’re not suffering from a hangover, headache, or anything like that.)

So your morning habits count WAY more than at any other time, and influence a HUGE part of your day.

For me, when I immediately grabbed my phone and read who broke up with whom, what kind of scandal this B-list celebrity got caught in, etc. it did a few things to my brain

1. It had me focus on people outside of myself. Instead of spending the first few minutes of the morning figuring out what I want to do, accomplish and implement that day, I was focusing on other people. People who I didn’t know and, quite frankly, didn’t matter to me. They wouldn’t be able to help me accomplish my goals for the day, nor would they be able to help me if I was disappointed in myself if I didn’t make progress.
2. It had me focused on superficial things. Now, I consider myself a relatively deep person. I’m THE person to talk to when you want to talk about feelings, emotions, whether you think you’re a sociopath or not, why your dad didn’t come to your piano recitals, why climate change is really a feminist problem, and whether or not marijuana should be legalized. However, if I start my day off reading trashy magazines, etc. it narrows my focus and mind on equally superficial things for the rest of the day. It’s WAY harder to become open to more deep and substantial thoughts.
3. It had me focus on the WRONG things. How is this different than point 2? Well, I would like to say that I’m a unique human being, as are you. However by reading these magazines, it only reinforces society’s wishes and standards in my mind, before it had the chance to put up defenses. Do I NEED to feel more pressure about getting a child before I hit 30? Nope. Do I really NEED to feel inadequate in terms of not having made 1 million dollars in my 26 years? Honestly, I can think of better things!

So what do I do instead now?

I will say it wasn’t easy in the beginning, but it’s been SO worth it!

Now, I read a positive non-fiction book in the morning instead of reading what Heidi Klum and her daughter are doing now.

I feel much more confident now that I’m not comparing myself to sexed up glamorous photographs of supermodels. I feel much happier now that I’m focusing on my own goals and choosing my own thoughts, instead of focusing on what society wants and focusing on others.

I find the purpose is just making sure I’m spending time thinking about myself and how I want to become a better person rather than focusing on other people’s lives which has absolutely zero impact on me whatsoever.

Plus, do I REALLY need to know if Ariana Grande is engaged or not? (I mean that actually sounds interesting, let me check! …..kidding!)