Morning Routine: Small Changes, Big Impact

The goal of this episode is to show you the POWER of establishing a morning routine, even if it's just 10-15 minutes! 

Go back to the episode from 12/29/25 to get your reference for the 7 Areas of Life Balance I mentioned here, but here are a few things you could implement that would be QUICK and APPROACHABLE for each area. Pick the one that you want to work on MOST and set your alarm tomorrow for just 15 minutes earlier. TELL the people around you you're making this change and TRACK it for 30 days. You will be unstoppable!

Mind/Mental Health: Try out a 10-15 minute practice of gratitude journaling, affirmations (I've been liking the I Am app), reading a book

Body/Physical: 10-15 minutes of stretching or an ab routine, quick walk, skincare

Soul/Spirit: Daily devotional, 10 minute written prayer, 10 minute meditation

Family: send a few messages to family members you aren't feeling connected to, review your calendar for your next opportuniy to see one

Community: send a supportive message to a friend, write a letter each day to mail to someone

Spouse/Partner: write down one thing you love about them each day (watch your love for them grow!!), pick out a question each day to ask them while you're getting ready in the morning

Career/Business: take 15 minutes to make a 3 step to-do list for the day, do follow-ups for your business, clean out inbox

Let me know which area you are going to start with and how this is going for you! I'm happy to hold you accountable! I'm rooting for you!

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Transcript

0:45

Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm so happy you're here. I really wanted to talk today about morning routines and before I scare you off, because I know some of you are not morning people, and I never was either. So please don't be scared off by the idea of a morning routine. I also know some of you're like. I've tried and failed a million times to do a morning routine and I'm just not successful at it. Or some of you maybe really have a really good solid morning routine, and. This episode could help you to continue to expand that or could help you to think about your morning routine in a different way. That feels a little bit more empowering, I guess. So I'm really excited to talk about morning routines. This is something that has come up recently because I recently switched jobs. I did finally get a job. If you've been on this. Saga with me for as long as I've been job searching, which has been a long time. I accepted a position at a company that someone in my book club works at. I'm really excited. It's fully remote, which I'm very enticed by and. Have started my first week and am really excited about that. So excited about that. But with that happening, I was con, I was continuing my morning routine, even when I quit my previous job officially and was unemployed for a few weeks and just full-time job searching. I found that the mor, my morning routine. Really grounded me, and I think I would have felt a little bit more aimless if I had quit doing that, even though I didn't have to report anywhere at 8:00 AM or 8:30 AM or whatever time I pretended that I did, because really I did. I was reporting to my job search and that was important. So I was acting as though I was still reporting to a job because I have developed a morning routine over the course of the last really. Like seven years and yeah, I guess that would be because it was right before my husband and I, or right when my husband and I finished college we first started living in downtown Kansas City. I remember that I was really unhappy with like the, just the way that I was feeling in my body and my life and my mind and my job. Just a lot of things. And I started to make like one small change and really it was waking up 30 minutes earlier to do some exercise. And I'll get into the nitty gritty of all of this in this episode, but. It really has changed my life and I think that having a establishing some sort of morning routine is really beneficial and can really start your day well. And no matter who you are, what phase of life you're in, it doesn't have to be super lengthy. Like I will say in this episode, I'll share my how my morning routine is now, and it is like a two and a half hour probably process, but it is, that is not where I started. So. Disclaimer real quick before we get into the episode that this episode is not about convincing you to have the same morning routine as me even convincing you to have. A a long morning routine. Like I said, mine is probably like two and a half hours at this point, which is kind of wild. I never would've thought that I would be that type of person because I am not naturally a morning person. I was not born that way. Ask my mom or my sisters or my husband, they all know I am grumpy when I first wake up in the morning naturally. And I always used to be the person that slept in as as long as I could. Would put my alarm off as long as I could so that I was rushing, right? Like right before I had to leave to get out the door to go to work or wherever or school or wherever I was going. I was never, I would never have called myself a morning person and I actually kind of am now, which is wild. But all that to say, I am not trying to convince you to do my routine because. I if, if someone had tried to tell me to start this routine like seven or eight years ago, whenever I started implementing habits in my morning, I would've been like, yeah, right. That's not happening. So. Definitely. I'm not convincing you to do that in any way. And the last thing is I, part of the reason this was brought to my attention recently is because I started doing 75 hard, which I've, if you've ever heard of it, it's a structured, it's kind of a program. It's not really, but it's it's mind body focused program. And I'll talk to you about like the different things that you have to do with 75 hard. But the reason, this is part of why I. Thought of it is because I started doing it, but. It brought to my mind the like how beneficial this morning routine has been for me, and I just want to disclaim that I am absolutely not trying to convince you to do 75 hard either. So I actually think I, it's in the name, it's hard and there is like a 75 soft version too, but I never would've considered doing 75 hard until recently. I was sitting down with a group of girlfriends and some, one of the girls was like, yeah, I think I'm gonna start 75 hard or 75 soft here soon. And I was, and I was like, oh man, that's a big challenge. Like that's a long time. First of all, it's over two months. But I was like, what all does it entail? And I started looking at it myself and. The basics of 75 hard is that you have to do two workouts a day for 45 minutes, and one of them has to be outdoors. So your outdoors one could be a run or it could be a walk, or it could be two walks that are 22 and a half minutes each. And then your other workout can be indoors. It could be strength training, it could even be yoga. It could be. A a HIIT class. It could be whatever. It could be any kind of exercise that you wanna do inside. It could be a walk on the treadmill or something like that. So 2 45 minute workouts a day. Drink 120 ounces of water, a gallon of water. Read 10 pages of like a personal development book. I think it just says read 10 pages. But really the idea is that it's a non-fiction self-help personal development style of book. And then the others are stick to a, pick a nutrition plan and stick to it. And that's one. Box. I have a little checklist box that I'm going off of, so I could share the link to that if you wanna print the same one off as me. If you do decide to do 75 hard, but that's one of the check boxes is. Pick. Pick a nutrition plan. Follow a nutrition plan. And then the other, the other one that goes with the with it that is nutrition as well, is no alcohol and no cheat days on your nutrition plan. And you can pick literally whatever nutrition plan you want, like if you wanna do Whole 30 or if you wanna do keto, or if you wanna do. I think is paleo a certain kind of diet? I'm doing two B mindset, which is something that I've done for a long time now. I just, the no cheat days and the no alcohol, that's the part where it's a little bit harder on the weekends and things like that. But those two. And then the last one, what is the last one? Oh, the last one is taking a progress picture every day. So not hard, but the other things are pretty difficult. A lot of people would think. And what I realized whenever I was looking at the stipulations was, you know what? I have like half of these things already built into my day because at this point, with this two and a half hour morning routine that I've developed over time, I. I work out every morning of the weekdays, so weekends are a little bit more challenging, but of the weekdays, I work out every morning, usually 30 to 40 minutes, but I, there's a, I follow programs on body and there's specifically one that's 45 minutes, so I was like, oh, I'll just do 6 45 and that'll be my 45 minutes each day, and then the 45 minutes outside workout. For a long time now, my husband and I have taken our dog uttered on walks. We do about a 25 minute walk in the morning and a 25 minute walk in the afternoon after work, and that's how we break up the workday, which I highly recommend. If you want to start any sort of morning routine or even like after work routine, I think it's the best way to break up the day because you're doing something physical and if you have a partner or a dog or something like that, you get that little piece of connection. It's just. The best way to separate work and life, especially if you ever work from home. And so I was like, okay, well those are two things that are already worked into my day. 120 ounces of water. I, I drink, I typically drink between 120 and 150. I'm actually trying to cut back on that, but I'll stick to one 20 for this because I guess it can, it can affect your like. Uh, it can affect your electrolyte levels and deplete you of sodium, which can make you lightheaded or dizzy and not no bueno. So I already drink a lot of water, but one of the reasons that I drink a lot of water is because way back when I first started my morning routine, that was part of to be mindset program. One of the first things is water First. She always recommends water before anything, and so I would give myself the deadline basically of my workout in the mornings. When I first started doing like a 20 to 30 minute workout in the morning, I would give myself the deadline of, I would fill my water bottle at the beginning of the workout, 24 ounces, or however big my water bottle was. Right now it's 24 ounces and I needed, I gave myself the deadline of by the end of the workout, I need to have drank all of this water. And that gives you a really good head start. If you do that in the first 30 minutes of your day, 24 ounces of water, even if it was like 16 ounces of water, that gives you a really good head start on that 120 ounces of water. So I already do that. And then as far as the. Progress picture, that's pretty easy to pop in. Like right after I pee, I can take a picture in the mirror. Not hard. And then the personal development, way back when, when I first started, I was doing 10 to 15 minutes of a devotional or some sort of personal development book, like Atomic Habits. Or for a while I was doing five, what is it? Five habits of. I have habits of successful people, something like that. I can't remember. I'll look it up after this, but I've already built in a lot of these things, and so I was like. Oh my God. Having a power, like having a morning routine is actually so powerful because it immediately made me feel like, wow, I can do 75 hard and it probably won't be that hard for me. And that is a mind blowing thing for me. Look, I really am not trying to brag or anything. I truly am just trying to tell you that years ago if you had asked me if I could do 75 hard, I'd be like. No, there's no way I'm doing that. It's way too much. Way too restrictive. Way too. Yeah. Just it, it was way too much. I would fail. I would feel like I would fail. Whereas now after seven to eight years of developing a morning routine, I notice that like half of these things are already built into my routine and that. That made me look at 75 hard and be like, oh, is that it? That's all you have to do. And so all this to say, I'm not trying to tell you to do 75 hard. I'm not trying to tell you to develop a two and a half hour morning routine. I'm not even trying to tell you to exercise or eat a certain way or drink 120 ounces of water. I truly am just trying to show you the power that establishing a morning routine can have over any area of your li area of your life that you are focusing on. Because if you've listened, I did an episode several. Several weeks back. I think it was the first episode of the new year maybe, and it was about the seven areas of life balance and how when you're feeling really depleted in a certain area. So the areas are like soul. Spirit is one, mental or mind is two, body physical is three, family is one partner or romance, like romantic relationship is one. Community is one, and then career or business is one. So if you're feeling really depleted or like one of those is really low and you really wanna focus on it, then that could be one that you focus on for 20 to 30 minutes in your morning routine. But you don't even have to start with 20 to 30 minutes. I mean, that can be a lot for people like. Stomaching getting up at 6:00 AM instead of six 30 for some people is a lot, or maybe even later, I don't know. I get up at six o'clock and I usually try to start my day, my workday at eight 30, so that's how I know that it's like a two and a half hour morning routine. But the cool thing that I love about this is that not only does it have a compounding effect, which if you're watching the Winter Olympics, like every, when, anytime an athlete, a professional athlete is asked about how they got there, it's not necessarily, I mean, sometimes they are more naturally skilled or naturally talented, or they have genetic components that make them better at that thing. But most of the time it truly is just the compound effect of they were consistent for days, months, years of their life at doing that thing and practicing that thing. And that's what got them where they are now. And it's really just that compound effect of, if I do this every day or if I do this. Regularly, then it will compound and then I'll be able to add onto it. And once you already have an established routine, it just makes it so much easier to add onto. And so that's why I want, like, I would highly encourage you to think about which area of your life you want to improve in or that you want, you just wanna give a little bit more attention and pick that one and Start to develop a 10 to 15 morning routine that will help you in that area. And I wanna give you a couple tips for how to do that. Okay, so my first tip is start with something that is very bite-sized and approachable. So for me, back whenever I started, I had started, the area that I was really unhappy with was really my body, my physical health, just like I paid no attention to it before. And so I was like, you know what? I'm an adult. I'm gonna start paying attention. I only get one body. And at the time I had a lot of family members that were having health crises and I was like, you know what? When I'm older, I wanna be able, and so I really need to get some habits instilled within my exercise and nutrition and water and sleep and all of those things. And so. I was like, you know what? I don't exercise at all. I did not. I never used to exercise. When I did, I'd be outta breath. My sister Bailey, who used to host the podcast with me, we would laugh because I remember like summers where I was like, okay, I'm gonna become a runner. And there was one in particular where she came with me and we ran like a block and I was like, go on without me. I was so out of breath, I could not do it. It was just ridiculous. So I was never an exerciser before, but I really wanted to focus on that. And so I found a program, it was called 21 Day Fix. It's within the Body Programs. I can link it for you if you want. And it was, each workout was between 20 and 30 minutes. And so for me that was really approachable and you can do it from your living room. And at the time we had a one bedroom apartment and that was the easiest thing to do. We actually had a gym as well at, in the complex, and I did at some point start taking the workouts over there because our, um, the neighbors we had underneath of us were like. They knocked on my door one day when I was doing like a cardio workout and I was like doing these jack things and they were like, whatcha doing up here? And I was like, oh shit. I'm working out. Like, okay, I'll go start. Whenever I did cardio, I would go do it at the gym after that because that was really embarrassing. And also, I didn't wanna be waking them up because I was waking up 30 minutes before. Regular, like before I would normally get ready, and so it was early in the morning. But anyway, besides the point I recommend that you start with something bite-sized. So like 10 to 15 minutes, 30 minutes max, max 30 minutes. And if you want to start with. Body or physical health, maybe you can start with just a walk, a 15 minute walk, or if you wanna start with soul spirit like you've been feeling, not like yourself, you're feeling really diminished. Maybe you could get a devotional if you believe in God, or you could get in, you could download a meditation app and get into a meditation practice. Or you could just buy like a cute journal and in the morning you have 10, you set an alarm like a 10 minute timer and you write things that you're grateful for, for 10 minutes, or you just journal for 10 minutes, like mind dump, brain dump. That could be one for the soul or spirit. If family is one of them, then maybe you could wake up 15 minutes earlier and you could send a few messages to people in your family that you don't feel connected to right now and you just wanna get connected to. But no matter which area it is that you're focused on, all of these things are going to, any of these things will make you feel like a little bit of confidence boost in the day. You've already done something that you are proud of for the day. You've done something for yourself, which is super important, especially for, I know I have a lot of friends that. Our moms right now, and young moms especially, and I think a lot of the time it's really easy to just succumb to whatever our kids need. And I, I truly, I'm so sorry if I am overstepping here because I'm not a mom, but I do believe that one of the best things that you can do for yourself or for your kids is take care of yourself. And if you are taking care of yourself before you take care of anyone else in the morning. That can be so powerful for the rest of your day because you've already set yourself up. Well, you're not going into your day scrambling, frantically, chaotically, all of that. And I just truly think that it can be a game changer. The other tip that I have for you, and I say this all the time, so sorry if you've heard it before, but plug your alarm, your phone, whatever it is that wakes you up in the morning. Plug it in across the room so that you aren't. Snoozing it and then getting back into bed or snoozing it and like doom scrolling in bed on it or something like that. I would heavily recommend you can adjust your notifications on your phone, especially iPhone. I don't know about Android, but on iPhones you can adjust your notifications so that you don't get cer certain notifications until after like 9:00 AM or something. So if it's work or if it's Facebook, or if it's Instagram or something, and you get really distracted by that, and before you know it, you're 10 to 15 minutes that you allotted for yourself to journal or to. Go on a walk or something like that before you know it, that's gone. I would definitely recommend utilizing those features to, to do that. And then the last thing that I would recommend with the morning routine is tell the people that live with you. If you don't live with anybody, that's great, but tell, like if you are trying to wake up 15 minutes earlier to journal or do gratitudes or do a meditation, or go on a walk, tell your husband, tell your kids or tell, just tell the people around you. Tell your roommate just so that they know and so that you're communicating, because I know for me, when I first started doing the walks with Ed, so I, I started with my workouts in the living room when we lived in our apartment. And then whenever we moved into our house, I started adding on a walk with Ed our dog. Once we got him, and at first Jared did not come with us, but I told him like, I'm gonna, every morning I would be like, Hey, I'm gonna take Ed on a walk. Hey, I'm gonna take Ed on a walk. And eventually he started walking with us, which I actually love that, it wasn't my intention to get Jared to go on walks with us. It was just my intention to communicate it to him. But then it can, it flows into everybody else in your life. And so I think that there's a lot of freedom to establishing that boundary, establishing that routine, and Then just already having it built in and it becoming muscle memory because it truly does. So communicate with the people around you And then track it. So that's my last tip. If you know me, you know I love to track things, so track it. Do like a 30 day checkbox. Literally just a simple checkbox or something. And each morning that you do your gratitudes or you do your walk or you do your 15 minute a routine or something, check it off. And after 30 days. Ask yourself, could I add 15 minutes more to do something else? Like maybe you could add 15 minutes to prep your breakfast, like a healthy breakfast. Or maybe you could add 15 minutes to do your skincare. Or maybe you could add 15 minutes to. Doing like the side hustle business that you've been doing, like add that on regardless of what it is. I really think that you can find so much power in a morning routine, and mostly because my, like my energy's not great in the morning, but I have so much more of it trying to do something after work. Like if you're trying to change something about your life, like your body or your career or your. Relationship with your partner or the way that you eat or anything like that if you're trying to change something about yourself. Girl, it does not happening after work. Like I, I mean, maybe it is, maybe you're more powerful to me, but I just think that the energy that you have, and cortisol is higher in the morning. So it boosts your alertness and your metabolism and your blood sugar. And so this is just, I mean, it's just hormonally true and like biologically true that in the morning this is the case. Now I'm not saying I wake up and I'm like, woo-hoo. Yeah, and you probably won't either, even after you establish a morning routine. But this is the time where you can really make changes, I think. And once you start to make one change, they just, you can really build on them. And I really just believe that it can be. A game changer. So hopefully this is helpful. I hope I convinced you to do like a 10 to 15 minute morning routine. I think I'm gonna go ahead, I'm gonna put it in the show notes like. For each seven areas of life balance, I'm gonna put a little quick, like this would take you 10 to 15 minutes to do in each category so that you have some ideas and you can pick and choose. And that way you don't have to do all the work yourself, because if you're feeling really depleted in a certain area or you feel like you really wanna make moves in a certain area, but the day just goes by without you realizing it, the morning is where you can make those moves. So I'm gonna share that in the show notes. So look there. Otherwise, thank you so much for listening. Love you. Hope your morning tomorrow is wonderful. Bye.