I started writing a piece entitled “Upgrade Your Morning Ritual” when I first started my blog almost a year ago, but as many times as I went back to it, I could never finish. The reason being, I don’t post any advice that I can’t myself follow most of the time. After lunch, my day is usually great as I’ve gotten quite good at turning my day around, even if I started off on the wrong foot. But I often ask myself, “Why can’t I start my day off on the right foot?!” Upgrading my morning ritual has been an enterprise into which I’ve consistently put effort and at which I’ve consistently failed. Since I started working, my typical morning has looked something like this:
1. Hit the snooze button until doing so yet another time would make me late for work.
2. Curse myself for not sleeping earlier the night before.
3. Rush through brushing my teeth, showering, and getting dressed.
4. Skip breakfast at home and rush to work.
5. Buy unhealthy fast food next to work and down it in less than 2 minutes (no exaggeration).
6. Feel a little off the entire morning because of my hurried pace.
The only element that I have fairly consistently upgraded is breakfast. Because my finances have been tight over the past couple of months, I have been making breakfast the night before from leftover groceries. You might call it a blessing in disguise. There are so many other things I want to change about my routine, but I realize that transforming myself from night owl into early bird will be more difficult than I had envisioned. Rather than overhaul my entire morning ritual all at once, which has previously proven futile, I’m going to focus on improving only one thing each week. So starting tomorrow, I will wake up 5 minutes earlier each day to make my bed. If an upgrade to your morning ritual is also long overdue, then start this with me and together we can build a better morning brick by brick.
Larger problems broken down into smaller parts, is a good way to deal with them.