How to improve quality of life by having the right daily habits - Third Step
Last habit is to have a great morning routine that fits with your lifestyle.
The morning routine has helped millions of people dramatically improve their productivity and performance. Both Robin Sharma and Tony Robbins have been the big advocates for their morning rituals and have coached so many others to form their daily morning routine.
To be honest at first I am skeptical about this as being a working mom and not a morning person, I am not able to spend 1 hour on morning routine but I have the following condense version of morning ritual really boost my productivity and quality of life.
Please note in the second habit of processing the items, I do that the night before and review what next day will be, which saves me time in the morning as I planned out the day from the night before.
If you prefer to do them all together in the morning as you have time. Feel free to modify to base on what it is optimal for you. It just didn’t work for me as my morning is hectic with family and kids and not to mention the work emails keep trickling in from 6am.
In the morning I won’t look at my phone until I use first 10-15 minutes to finish the following first 4 steps. Cell phone is such a distraction and if you are able to put it away in another room, that must be even better.
1. Silence – This involves taking a deep breath for 3 minutes and in the meantime, I take time to think of the things I am grateful for. This step puts me in the position to control my day. By doing so I am in control my day instead of looking at my phone and get reactive by the notifications.
2. Affirmation – We need to feed our mind with positive ideas. They consist of messages known as affirmation, for example, ‘I am fulfilling my potential’, and ‘I am growing stronger’. This instils positive ideas in my mind making me feel positive. I am able to concentrate my target of the day start on a high notch.
3. Exercises – Don’t pick the exercises that need any equipment to work out this step. All I do is pick up exercises like push up, sit up, squats etc. If you can do a longer version of exercises - please do!
4. Reading – Whenever we read, we learn something. Based on my schedule and lifestyle, what I do differently is to have my audiobook or youtube inspirational video as my morning reading instead of physical books. So I can save the time when I am brushing teeth, getting breakfast ready for the family, I am also able to feed my mind with positive ideas.
I will pause my morning routine when I am spending time with family for breakfast and dropping off my son to school. It is important to enjoy family time without distraction. When I am driving to work, I resume my morning listening to audio books.
5. Review the Day and Scribing – When I get to work - I would quickly glance my work calendar and my tasks of the date. I like to spend 5 minutes to scribble the following:
Three items I am grateful for when I woke up and thought of.
List one thing that would make today great - that is probably the focus and must do of the date.
Wrote down the daily affirmation.
Any lesson learned from yesterday
Any new commitments for today
It does seem a lot when you first do these three habits but if you stick to it, day by day, you will find out how easy it is and how nice you can achieve the calm, easier, happier mindset because you have great daily habits to help!
