(This is for the people that were in attendance of my presentation on 2/5/2019. The presentation was a condensed snippet of a longer program that I am developing. The time constraints under which I spoke did not allow me to delve into some other points that I have had people inquire about)
Win Your Morning (but if you can’t WIN it....don’t lose it by default, for goodness sakes)
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Lose” part of your evening - sacrifice is a better word. As the day winds down, there really isn’t a lot of productivity or “advancing of the cause” going on. Who knows? Maybe you are an owl that gets a lot done at night. We don’t have a lot of owls showing up for a 7 a.m. meeting voluntarily. Owls go to dinner or lunch meetings. Besides, the day is almost over. You will be in bed soon.
You “lose” part of your evening - to set the table for Winning Your Morning. Here are a few examples of sacrificing your evening so you are set up for success
-Get Gas on the way home - nothing great will happen at a gas station. You need gas. You
just want to get home after a busy day. Get the gas THEN! In the morning, it may be really
cold. It may be really windy (who wants to start their day with their hair messed up). You
may get gas on your hands and you KNOW how hard it is to get that smell off. The
pumps could be down. There is that momentary stress of the car telling you are low on
gas. Need I go further. There is only downside risk at the gas station. Don’t let it effect
your entire day.
-Locate your keys - and have them where you need them. I marvel at people that always put
their keys in one place. I’m not that guy. Until I become that guy, my keys need to be on
the counter. The LAST thing you want as you head out the door is to be doing the desper-
ation “where the h—l are my keys?!?!” stress exercise.
-Load the coffee pot - no surprises or messes in the morning. If these are going to happen,
put them at the END of your day. You won’t lose any sleep due to a surprise here. In the
morning, you just hit the button
-Get your clothes ready - in the morning, you may think of a perfect outfit. You grab it
from the closet only to find a wrinkle. You either need to iron or change plans. Not a
big deal but it interrupts flow. You want the morning to be a momentum builder.
-Your “to do” list - or whatever it is you need to call the things you will do the next day.
It’s great to have an operating system like this. Don’t waste valuable morning time creating
it! You get great ideas in the morning? I do. I merely AMEND/ADD to what is already there.
-Load your purse/briefcase - find the things that you need....get the things you don’t out of the
way. This is a fairly mindless activity that saves time in the morning and prevents distraction
The above are just a few examples. You can come up with more.
Life is also about - the quality of questions that we ask ourselves. Here is a good one: What am I doing tonight currently that is enhancing my life? If you need to, get out a pad of paper and track what you actually do. Is watching that CSI rerun worth the hour of sleep I could devote to my morning? Is it worth watching rather than doing a few things that set me up to win tomorrow? Do a hard self check here. Changes are easy to make when you have a motivating reason to do them. What could be more motivating than setting the table to have a great morning which leads to more great days....which then becomes ONE GREAT LIFE.
I heard/saw several comments - about how much I do in the morning. This leads me to believe that people may feel that they can’t do this. I showed a slide for every item. If I took Morning Pages and Exercise/Meditation off the table (which are very personal and specific to me..not you), do you know the other items add up to less than 10 minutes...way less. Flip on the coffee pot (1 second), make the bed (2 minutes), take blood pressure (1 minute tops), weigh (10 seconds), take my supplements (30 seconds), pound some water (30 seconds to a minute), feed and scoop up for the cats (2 minutes).
And, yes - those are all on a checklist. I FORGET an item every day. I don’t know about you but I kind of like it that a pilot goes through a written checklist before my flight takes off. Keep in mind, this is his JOB. He should know it by heart, right? NOPE! It’s too important. He/she is human. You are human. Your morning routine is just as important. It is your preparation for takeoff into that battlefield I refer to as “Life.”
Battlefield? - I heard that this outlook might be a little negative. Not at all. M.Scott Peck wrote in the classic, “The Road Less Travelled,”......LIFE IS DIFFICULT. Those are the opening three words to the book. This is a positive statement. What if he began with, “Life is easy.” Think about that for a second. Besides KNOWING that isn’t true, you only have down to go from easy. If you KNOW that life is difficult, you then build strategies to make it EASIER. The Morning Routine is that strategy. Your INTENTIONAL strategy!
This is MY WAY - to Win the Morning when it comes to the things I do. What is YOUR way? What are the things you could do? Crank up some great energetic music? Reading great stuff? Listening to something uplifting (rather than the news)......Listen to some soothing classical music (might be a better energy for you)? Dance around and get YOUR groove, your mojo popping?
Start to build one. It’s a FUN thing to do. Review it. Take some things off. Add some things. Play with it.
Have an absolute blast!!!- as you build your morning routine. Mitigate ANYTHING that could go wrong in your morning by losing a little evening. Your days involve the world and it’s agenda. You do a lot of reaction to that. You have more control of what happens before you walk out that door than you can even imagine. Make the most of it.
WIN YOUR MORNING!
