- See, here's the thing. I can do this
fine. You're the one who can't. So what's your video about today? - Morning routines. - Are you going to
tell them that we don't make the bed? - Yeah. - And are you going to tell them that
you don't like to talk to me in the morning? - Yeah, I was going to. Do you think I'm a morning person? - I think that you think
you're a morning person. - I don't think I think I'm a morning
person. - Yeah no, you're not. - Are you a morning person? -
Yeah. - Are you? - Yeah. - Huh. - You don't think so? - I don't know.
- Well you're not a night person. - No, I'm not a night person. - You're
not, so you're not a morning person, you're not a night person. I always just
thought you had to be one or the other. - I like to get up in the morning. -
Yeah, you just don't want anyone around. - I don't want to see
people in the morning. Well hi, I'm Dawn from The Minimal Mom and this
video is part of our Mega Motivation collaboration. So I have 20 other friends talking
about their morning routines as well. So I trust that between
all of us collectively, you're going to get some really great
ideas and be able to come up with a routine that you can stick with
and that's going to work for you. So you can find that playlist down below. But today I want to talk about three
things that I've had to change with how I look at my morning routine to be able
to set myself up for success every morning, no matter what my mood is or what it
is that I feel like when I wake up. So number one, I had to reconcile my
fantasy morning routine with what was actually practical
day in and day out. And so in my fantasy morning routine,
I would wake up at five o'clock. I would make the bed. I would sip on some hot lemon
water while doing my devotion, and then I would get in
some kind of exercise. So I would get those things that should
be the most important checked off right away in the morning. So that way,
if the rest of the day went haywire, at least I already had those things done. And so that was what I was idealizing. The problem was that those two things, doing devotions and exercise, they were not enough to get
me out of bed in the morning. If that was what I knew I
was getting up to, I'm sorry, but I would just rather
stay in bed. My nice warm, cozy bed and sleep a little bit longer, especially when the kids were younger
and if they were still sleeping. And so after a couple of mornings
of trying that and not succeeding, what did I conclude about myself? I stink at morning routines. I'm
lazy. I can't get up in the morning. I'm undisciplined, right? And apparently I'm not very spiritual
either because this should be a priority and I'm not making it a priority. But I did realize there was something
that motivated me to get out of bed at five o'clock in the morning. And that was, if I had something that I was working
on, that I was really excited about, I always felt like I was most
creative first thing in the morning. And so if I was designing a website, that would spring me out
of bed in the morning, but I definitely was not
sipping on lemon water. It was all out coffee with
cream and honey in it. And so here's what I had to
recognize, that this wasn't bad. Just because I wasn't doing the things
that I thought should be most important and first place in my life, this
wasn't bad. So what I've realized, here's how now I currently set
myself up for success in the morning. So I try to time my wake up time with
when the sun is coming up. I get up, I make a cup of coffee and I actually
stand and I look out our kitchen window and I look at the sunrise.
In the past there was a shed there, and now it is so much
prettier without a shed there. But I had read one time that if we're
feeling at all anxious, stressed out, that one way to ground ourselves
is to literally look at the ground beneath our feet. And I
also love in John Eldredge's book, Get Your Life Back, where he talks
about the grounding effects of nature. And so I've really found that even like
when it's cold out and so I just want to look out the window, even by just taking a few minutes to
look at the ground and the sunrise, and it's, how consistent the
sun is every single day, right? And to take a quick inventory, my
needs are met today. We have food, we have shelter, I have clothing, I
have people around me that love me. And so I'm like you, like I can get going with my to-do list
in my head and get overwhelmed easily. And so by taking a few minutes in the
morning and just looking out the window. I mean, the kids or Tom walk into
the kitchen and they're just like, what are you doing, you're
just staring out the window. But I'm intentionally
grounding myself for the day. And then I either go to the kitchen table
or I come in here or I go out to the camper sometimes, and I plan out my day. I list out my frog projects.
I've talked about frog projects. I mentioned them last week too. I'll link to my video down below
that's all about frog projects. It's those things that hang over your
head that you keep putting off that you don't want to do. And so
I just, I do a brain dump, I list out my priorities for the day,
I call out my frog projects. Like, what do I need to get done today so that
it's not hanging over my head and if I can do it right then and there I do it. If I have to wait until eight o'clock
before I can do it, then I will. But I get started every day now
with doing those things that I don't want to hang over my head. And so really stopping
to take a look at, okay, how am I idealizing these morning
routines? If you are not a morning person, getting up at 5:30 is not practical. Even though you see all the videos about
my 5:30 AM morning routine and people swear by it and how productive they are
and how it starts their day off right, if that is torture for you to get out
of bed at 5:30, and most importantly, if there's nothing motivating you. So often we stack these things like I'm
going to get up at 5:30 and I'm going to work out. Well, I hate working
out and I hate getting up early, so why do we think that we're going
to be able to stick with those, right? We can do it for a day or two, maybe even a week if we have
somebody meeting us at the gym. But as soon as we have a late night
the night before, our kids kept us up, our spouse kept us up, the
dog kept us up, it's gone. It is out the window because it isn't
something that we enjoy or that energizes us. And it's a lot of work. I really honestly feel like we're
setting ourselves up for failure. So taking a step back and saying, how can I set myself up
for success in the morning? What do I need in the morning? And another thing was breaking the habit
of going on social media first thing in the morning. I think it was a little over a year
ago we did Mel Robbins' Mindset Reset, and she talked a ton about not going on
social media right away in the morning and how it really sets us up. I mean, when we're comparing ourselves
and being judgemental and critical of other people first thing in
the morning, that derailed my day, and often it greatly impacted my mood. So instead of being able to wake up
and feel grounded, I felt on edge, and I noticed I was crabby with
my family and it often left me feeling very unmotivated. And so I had to break that habit of
going on social media first thing in the morning. But honestly it is one of
the best things that I have ever done, and now I'll go on it later in the
day. It's usually maybe lunchtime, if I stop and take a break, but I've noticed just for my own mental
wellbeing and feeling like I'm getting the day started right, and that
the world isn't completely crazy, I just have to keep it out and it
has really made a huge difference. But for me, when I look at okay, what
do I need to get my day started right? It's grounding myself and then knowing, just knowing what the
day is going to bring, what I need to get done and
what those frog projects are. And so then I work for a
couple hours. And like I said, this used to cause me a lot of guilt
because I thought I should be doing my spiritual stuff first. Or maybe I
should be connecting with the kids, or maybe I should be doing exercise.
Like, those are all very important things. But I realized the whole time
I was doing those things, like my devotion or walking, I was preoccupied thinking about the
work things that I had to do for the day. I mean, Tom's favorite thing that he would want
to do would be for us to sit first thing in the morning, just to have
coffee together, visit catch up. And I've even found with that too, I am so distracted because I'm
just thinking about like, okay, what is it that I need to do?
What is it that I need to do? And could that be remedied by
planning the stuff the night before? Yes, it could, but I was never able to be diligent
enough to be in that habit. I don't know, for me, I shut down after
seven o'clock at night, I feel like the critical thinking part
of my brain is done. And for some of you, that's when you're coming alive, right? So your evening routine is actually more
important than your morning routine. For me, I don't want to make
lunches the night before. I don't want to lay out my
clothes the night before, all those things that everyone tells
you for time management and morning routines, I don't want to
do that. Seven o'clock, I don't want to do a single
thing. I really have tried. I've really tried to plan my day the
night before and all those things so that I didn't have to do it the next morning
first thing. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work for me.
Like I said, I don't, I don't like having to do
stuff in the evening. So again, it's figuring out what works best for you. Do you want to do this stuff at night
or do you want to do it in the morning? And so understanding
ourselves and how we're wired. So now I work for a little bit. But I do, I do come back later and do those
things. I don't make the bed, but I'll engage everyone in the family,
I'll brush my teeth, do my devotions, I just end up doing it later in the day. When I was having to bring them to school
every day, I had an alarm on my phone. At seven o'clock I stopped, I went to the
kitchen, I helped them with breakfast, I helped them pack their lunches and get
ready for the day and then brought them to school. But I still had that time before that, to collect my thoughts and get
set for the day. And so, again, my encouragement to you is figuring out
what do you need to get your day started right, and not trying to stack our morning
with things that are just completely unrealistic and setting ourselves up
for failure. I think that's the worst, right? Is when we set ourselves up for failure
with things that we just know we would never be able to stick with. And lastly, I think not underestimating
the power of simplifying. Simplifying our kitchen and our bathroom
so that everything that we need to access in the morning, it's really easy to get to and realizing
that when there's clutter and stuff around us, it can cause us to
feel a little bit stressed out. And so that doesn't necessarily get
our day started off on the right foot. And so I've said this before, but I feel like as we just
kept simplifying our house, many of these things work themselves out, like our morning routines and getting
everything done in the morning that we needed to, it all just
became a lot easier. And so it was easier to get the
day started on the right foot. So I would love to know, have there been any things that you've
been able to work into your morning routine, any favorite tips that you have when it
comes to morning routines that really help your day get started right? I love, like I know some of you will
do gratitudes in the morning, which I think is such a great
practice. For others of us, we need to do that devotion
first thing in the morning, and that's what grounds us. Others, we want to have the time with our loved
ones before they head out the door to work. And so what is it that you figured out
that works for you and do you feel like it's changed in this past year and a half? Because I definitely feel like I've had
to make adjustments and have a little more grace with myself as far
as my morning routine too. So I'd love to hear if you have
noticed that as well. But as always, thank you so much for watching. A thumbs up is the best
compliment that you can give us. And if you haven't done so, we hope you subscribe so that we can
spend more time together and don't forget our Mega Motivation playlist all about
morning routines can be found at down below.
