This Morning Ritual Guarantees A Great Start To Any Day

There are numerous benefits to having a morning ritual. Studies has shown that waking up earlier makes you more healthy, more positive, less stressed, and less of a procrastinator.

Even the famous founding father Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Who wouldn’t want to be that?

The prerequisite to having a successful morning ritual or routine is to have a successful evening ritual. I wrote about my evening ritual in this post. Only after getting consistently good sleep will the effects of a morning ritual be fully realized. It took me 3 months of practicing and perfecting my evening ritual before I attempted to setup a morning ritual.

But once you are practicing your evening ritual habitually, having a morning ritual further accelerates the compound interest of life’s goodness. Here is my morning ritual.

The Morning Mindless

Without question and without exception, I will do the following tasks in order. You will notice a lot of these steps depend on the flawless execution of my evening ritual from the night before.

1. Shut Off Alarm

Pretty straightforward. I don’t give myself the option to snooze because the temptation to use it is too much for me to handle. This forces me to set my alarm properly the night before, and have it be my “final” wake-up time. If I’m not confident in my ability to wake up on time, then I must set it later, or risk missing my alarm altogether.

2. Use the Bathroom

Pretty straightforward as well. After several hours in bed, I’m at the mercy of my biology and need to do my business.

3. Weigh Myself

This step is customized for myself so I can collect data on my health stats. I am working on building up my Personal Scoreboard, using data to track myself. More posts on this in the future.

I picked morning just to be consistent. As long as I weigh myself consistently at the same time of day, I will have accurate and reliable data.

4. Put On Workout Clothes

From the previous night, I am already wearing my shirt and underwear. Now, I just need to put on my socks and shorts (and sweater if it’s cold). All these items have already been prepared for myself through my evening ritual the night before in my morning basket.

5. Grab topped off water bottle, laptop, and headphones

Again, these should already be in my morning basket, ready to be grabbed based on my evening ritual. All I need to do is mindlessly pick them up. The beauty of having a solid evening ritual is that most of your morning ritual is already done. That is the power of preparation.

6. Walk out of my bedroom to the living room

If I stay in my bedroom, I must face the constant temptation of retreating back into the comforts under my blankets. I know I’ll succumb, so I remove this possibility by simply walking out. The change of environment sends a clear signal to my brain that bedtime is over, and crushes any lingering hopes of retreat. This is similar to how the Spaniard Cortez burned his boats to force his men to carve out their path in the new world.

Fuel The Body

Just like a car, our body needs fuel too. Therefore, getting water and nutrients into the body is a must in order to jumpstart my metabolism.

Being a simple person, I like to keep my breakfasts very easy. Usually, this will be either pistachio butter toast or some fruit. If I’m feeling fancy, I might make some eggs too.

Do Deep Work

The morning time is precious—nobody else is awake at this hour to be a distraction. I use this time to perform deep work—focused work that is becoming increasingly rare in today’s world of instant gratification. (I summarized Cal Newport’s book on Deep Work here.)

I default to writing on my blog or reading during most mornings. But occasionally, I’ll also spend some time knocking out a list of tasks that I know I won’t otherwise get to do otherwise if I know my day will be really busy.

Exercise

Now, I don’t do anything fancy like go to the gym. So I’m not an expert at all when it comes to physical fitness. And I’m not even close to being the most physically fit person on the planet.

But I know I need to exercise to maintain my health. And so I do the basics.

I usually do some pushups and core exercises. Then, I go outside for a morning jog.

There’s nothing to it, other than to just do it.

Get Ready for Day

After coming back from my morning run, I start preparing for the rest of my day.

My morning hygiene consists of taking a shower, brushing my teeth, and shaving. I will then proceed to open the blinds, signaling that my morning ritual is complete.

Start the Day

Whether it be work or play, I am now ready to face the rest of my day, knowing full well that I had a good night of rest and a fabulously fruitful morning. It makes me feel unstoppable!

Conclusion

A morning ritual provides a nice calm and quiet to the beginning of the day before it begins. It helps build momentum so that we’re all fully ramped up when the day has fully started, facing all the pressures of daily life.

I’ve said it but I’ll say it again: a morning ritual is only as effective as its equivalent evening ritual. Therefore, get the evening ritual right first before attempting to work on a morning ritual.

The key to a successful morning ritual is the preparation of the evening ritual the night before. It’s like a 2-person relay race—the first runner must setup the second runner well in order for them to both do well. By doing all the proper preparation, most of the morning ritual will have already been done.

What do you think of my morning ritual? What does your morning ritual look like? Comment below!