The Morning is the most important part of your day.
Starting your day with a good or bad mood can change the way you’ll perceive your day’s events.
Most of us start our morning by rushing out to work, taking your kid to school, panically answering emails from the day before or even with a wake up call from your boss that started their day 2 hours before you and is now stressing you out.
If you start your day stressed, you’re going to have a shitty day. Guaranteed.
If you’ll start your day in peace and in a positive state – your days, decisions and perception of reality will improve and be more optimistic. Leading you to have better days, make better decisions and better enjoy your life. Everyday.
If you could choose between having a good day and a bad day, what would you choose?
Set yourself up for a good day
Block email for the first hour
Checking emails first thing in the morning is one of the worst thing you can do to yourself.
Do you know what’s waiting for you in your inbox? Work. You are basically setting the tone for your day to be stressful.
When you check your email first thing in the morning you are automatically putting yourself in a reactive mode, meaning you lose control over your day right at the start.
Gain control over you day just by not checking your inbox for the first 60 minutes.
Get up, focus on yourself or your family, and only then check your email. The fact that your phone is right next to your bed, doesn’t mean you have to enslave yourself to it.
Meditate
Meditation is one of the best things you can do for yourself. It’s a great way to balance your thoughts, clear your mind, prioritise what really matters and just be present in the moment.
At the beginning of the meditation session you will be overwhelmed with thoughts, worries and assignments you need to take care of in the day. As you progress all that stressful noise will become a still, calm water. In you will gain clarity and perspective, giving you more control over how you start your day.
Don’t start your day in panic and feeling of being overwhelmed. Meditate and clear your mind. Get yourself ready for the day, don’t just drown in it.
Get inspired
Another good practice to set your day to be positive and controlling your morning mood, is to get inspired as early as you can.
Getting inspired will fill you with energy to tackle the different challenge throughout the day.
You can get inspire by watching TED talks, listening to a podcast you like (Gary Vaynerchuck is a really good listen in the mornings), or just listen to upbeat music.
Give your brain something to work with and you will see how you become more positive within seconds.
The 5 minute journal
Writing is also a great way to start your morning. You can just scribble some stuff in your journal, pouring thoughts out just to clear your mind (I use Day One for that).
You can also use something like ‘The 5 minute journal’, which will take only 5 minutes of your morning routine and will set you up for a positive mood.
The logic behind it is very simple – you have a structured format of questions that you need to answer on, that are all positive and will help you focus on the good things you have going on in life.
Starting your day by being reminded of all the good things you have to cherish will boost your energy for sure.
Drink water
When you wake up from sleep, your body is dehydrated. It’s a fact. And it doesn’t matter how much water you drank in the previous night.
While most people do the mistake of drinking coffee to wake up, water is actually the better solution.
By drinking 2-3 cups of water as soon as you wake up, you will ditch that sleepy feeling right away and bring energy to your body.
No one can promises your day will be filled with only good news and all your problems will go away, but follow this 5 simple tricks and I can promise your quality of life and amount of good days a year, will increase already on day one.