Your morning routine sets the tone for your entire day.
Do you start the day in a good mood, or are you rushed and irritated? If we don’t make time for ourselves at the start of our day, it’s likely we won’t make time at the end of our day either.
Sticking to a healthy morning routine increases self-discipline, improves your mood, and makes it easier to choose more positive habits throughout the day.
When we don’t take the time for our self-care, we easily fall into bad habits and live life on autopilot. I know early mornings are not fun, but even if you don’t have a lot of time you can still make the most of the time you do have.
Eliminating these 5 bad habits from your morning routine will leave you with more time for the inspiration and focus needed to start the day at your best.
5 Bad Habits to Remove from Your Morning Routine:
1. Rushing
Sleeping in until the last minute will make you rush in the morning. It may seem like you’re getting more sleep but it’s not worth it. Rushing to work will only leave you feeling irritated and stressed out before you even get there. This sets you up to be in a negative mood throughout the day.
Instead, make it a habit to wake up earlier so you can have time for a self-care morning routine. You can start with just 5 or 10 minutes at first, and slowly increase it. Take time to stretch, meditate, read an inspiring book or positive affirmations. This will make you feel refreshed, calm, and in a positive mood to deal with the day ahead.
2. Using Social Media or Watching TV
While it’s important to stay up to date on current news and events, much of television and the news today is filled with negativity and stress-inducing stories. This is not a good way to start your day, especially when you’ve just woken up.
Upon awakening your headspace is probably already in a negative state – not feeling fully rested or worrying about the workday ahead. Watching television wastes a lot of time, time that you could be spending doing a routine that centers you and reinvigorates your motivation for the day instead.
Spending time on social media in the morning is a big time-sucker. Looking at where your friends went to dinner last night or did over the weekend can wait until another time of day. When we first wake up, our mood is easily influenced by our environment. While it’s not all bad, social media can often lead us to negatively comparing ourselves to others. This is not a good headspace to start your day. Ditch your television and phone, and instead focus on your own emotional and mental needs before you start your day.
3. Eating an Unhealthy Breakfast
It can be extremely tempting to eat junk food in the morning. Especially when you have to wake up super early or are dreading the stressful day ahead. However, eating an unhealthy breakfast (i.e., lots of refined carbs and sugar) will only make you feel bloated and crash later.
Food high in refined carbs and sugars only give you a temporary boost of energy, but then they cause you to come crashing down, feeling even more tired than before. They also impact your blood sugar causing it to be imbalanced, leaving you moody and irritable.
Eating high sugar or refined carbohydrates in the morning will also cause you to crave more of it for your lunch and dinner. Having a healthy first meal creates a positive chain reaction for the rest of your day.
There are many quick and healthy options such as hard boiled eggs, fruit, oatmeal, or smoothies.
You should also avoid surgery coffee or energy drinks. That $5 Frappuccino is only empty calories and sugar. Energy drinks contain too much caffeine, which disrupts your natural supply of cortisol, the hormone that helps us wake up in the mornings.
All in all, taking the extra time to eat a healthy breakfast has many benefits, such as:
- You get a natural, longer-lasting boost of energy with no crash after.
- You’ll feel energized rather than bloated and brain-fogged.
- You feel proud of yourself for making a healthy choice and, thus, are more motivated to continue making healthy choices the rest of the day.
- You reinforce your commitment to self-love and self-care by making the time to give your body the nourishment it needs.
4. Not Setting Intentions for the Day
Instead of racing through the morning, take some time to reflect on your intentions for the day. Remind yourself how you want to show up for the day. Refocus on the goals you’re moving towards, even if they seem far away right now.
Setting your intentions for the day centers you on your top goals and values. When you don’t take time to reflect on your intentions for the day, then it’s easy to fall into a negative mindset.
A great way to set your intentions for the day is to take some time in quiet reflection. Take even just a few minutes to focus on your breath and breathe deeply. Or, you could reflect on what you’re grateful for. Next, read your affirmations or goal statements to remind yourself what you value most and are working toward.
Another good habit is to set your most important tasks for the day. Author and founder of the blog Zen Habits, Leo Babauta, suggests setting three ‘MITs’ (most important tasks) each morning. These tasks are the most crucial for you to get done that day, even if you do nothing else. It can be exercise, self-care, paying an important bill, or an action that will bring you one step closer to your goals.
5. Having Negative Expectations for the Day
I think we all experience a sense of dread before going to work in the morning. We get caught up worrying about what might go wrong or fearing that a painful experience will happen again.
Having negative expectations for the day becomes so habitual that we don’t even realize we’re doing it. It drains our energy and sets our focus on all that we don’t want or like about our lives.
Instead, choose to let go of bad experiences that happened in the past and remember that each new day is a blank slate. Don’t expect yourself to have a horrible day, being tired or irritated by your coworkers.
Having positive expectations for the day won’t guarantee you’ll have a perfect day, but it’ll change your mindset and cause you to look for the good throughout your day. Remember that it’s not just our thoughts, but our expectations, that tend to manifest into our reality. What you habitually expect to happen often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, start expecting good days and for things to go your way.
Conclusion
These five bad habits may seem menial, but over time our habits build up and majorly influence our lives. Don’t wait until the end of the day when you’re too exhausted to make time for your self-care and goals. Take even a little extra time each morning to set yourself up mentally and emotionally for the day ahead.
Living intentionally means taking the time to center yourself in your values, intentions, self-love, and goals. Replacing negative habits with positive ones will ensure you live your life aligned with your highest values and goals.
Are you writing the articles in your website yourself or you
outsource them? I am a blogger and having difficulty with content.
Other bloggers told me I should use an AI content writer, they are actually pretty good.
Here is a sample article some bloggers shared with me.
Please let me know what your opinion on it and should I go ahead and use AI – https://sites.google.com/view/best-ai-content-writing-tools/home
Hi there, Yes I write all my articles myself. I don’t know much about using AI for content writing. I am a bit old fashioned and enjoy the writing process although it is time consuming. Personally, I don’t think that using AI would have the same quality or uniqueness that writing articles your self will have. But it depends on your blogging goals/focus too. Anyway, good luck with your blogging!