How To Start Your Day
How you start your day will determine how prepared you are for it. If you start your day running behind you will usually find yourself trying to catch up most of the day. If you start your day with negativity it seems to follow you most of the day. However, when we start our day off right it can set the tone for the entire day.
Here are a few tips to start your day:
1. Wake Up Early Enough To Ease Into The Day
Starting your day like a horse busting out of the gate is a recipe for disaster. If you redline your morning routine with no margin for positivity, you’re more likely to emotionally combust. Give yourself time to start off with calmness of mind and thoughtfulness for the day. Wake up at least an hour before you have to start getting ready for the day. This will give you time to ease into all you have going on. Give yourself things to look forward to in the morning. Here are just a few ideas some of my coaching clients have done:
- Try some new exotic coffees
- Do a new workout routine
- Read a book you’ve been wanting to read
- Take a motivational course that you’ve always wanted to do
- Take a walk around the block
- Meet a friend for a super early breakfast
- Spend time in meditation/prayer
- Sit in silence just relaxing
- Watch a TED Talk/motivational video
- *Write gratitude cards to people that have impacted your life
- Journal
*Here are some gratitude cards that I love and have used before…
2. Do Something Positive To Start The Day
The first few things you do in the morning can greatly affect your entire day. Make sure you start off with something that is physically or emotionally positive. Either work out your body, or work our your mind, or do both at the same time. I start each day of the week off with reading a non-fiction book that gets me going with learning and motivation, this gets me thinking and learning for the day. Whatever you do, make sure it is life-giving and not life-draining. Don’t fill your mind with CNN (constant negative news). Don’t let the first thing you turn to be stories about murder, corruption, disease, scandals, etc… these things only fill you with the wrong mindset. Never give your first part of the day to things that will get your blood pressure boiling or your fears stirred up. Here are some current books I am reading that I highly suggest you get (click on the books to purchase on Amazon).
3. Expect Great Things For The Day
You tend to get what you expect. Our expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Don’t allow low expectations and pessimistic thinking to control your life or you’ll get just that. Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t– you’re right.” Our beliefs shape our behavior. Start to raise your expectations and optimism for the day. Be a thermostat, not a thermometer. A thermometer just reads the temperature, it has no power to change the environment. But a thermostat sets the temperature and changes the environment. Take control of your day by taking control of your attitude.
4. Talk To Yourself In The Morning
Remember the old Saturday Night Live sketch Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley? Talk show host, Stuart Smalley, would wake up every morning and confidently say, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” Though this was a satirical self-help show, science proves how powerful these statements can help our self-worth. In an article in Psychology Today, Dr. Ronald Alexander wrote,
“An affirmation can work, because it has the ability to program your mind into believing the stated concept. This is because the mind doesn’t know the difference between what is real or fantasy. When you watch a movie, and you start to laugh or cry, your mind is empathizing with the characters on the screen even though it is only Hollywood magic.”
Consequently, the worst thing you can do is start your day off is with negative self-talk. The moment you start narrating complaints about your weight, your looks, your fears, your day, etc. is the moment you welcome defeat. Starting your day off with the right words gives you the strength and mindset you will need to accomplish all that is before you.
Certainly, there are many more ideas to start your day off right, but these are just a few that will serve you tremendously well. Whatever you do, just do something that will help you win the day.
