Why Your Morning Scroll Is Making You LESS MONEY!

What is the first thing you do when you wake up?
If the answer is reach for your phone, this episode is for you my friend!
Because that one habit, that one automatic, unconscious habit is costing you way more than you realise. Your Energy, Focus, Output... YOUR MONEY!
I spent years starting my days completely on someone else's terms. Emails before my feet hit the floor. Everyone else's agenda before I'd even decided what kind of day I was going to have. THEN I'd wonder why I felt frazzled by 9am.
Your morning doesn't just set the tone for your day. It sets the tone for EVERYTHING.
This episode is a full breakdown of what actually makes a morning routine work & why the version most women are running is quietly keeping them stuck.

In this episode:
* Why picking up your phone first thing is one of the most expensive habits you have
* What happens to your nervous system in the first 30 minutes of waking and why it matters
* What my actual morning looks like and why I protect it like it's non-negotiable
* How to build a routine that works for YOUR life

Own the Morning, OWN the day!

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Transcript

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Your morning routine is making you less money. And I know that's a big call, but stay with me. Because most high-achieving women have one of two morning situations. They have this incredibly complex two-hour routine they found on YouTube. They do it perfectly for three days, and then life happens and they drop the whole thing. Or they have no routine at all. They're on their phones before their feet hit the floor, skipping breakfast, no transition to work, just straight into reactive mode. And they're wondering why by 10am, they're already feeling behind. This is Next Level with Nick. I'm Nicole Abbott, high performance health and identity coach, surfer, and mum of three. This podcast is for the woman who wants to feel amazing, sustain her success, and love the life she's building. We talk all the good stuff, no fluff and no filters. Let's go. Your morning is not just a wellness ritual. It is the strategic setup for your entire day. The decisions you make before 9 a.m. or the decisions you don't make determine your energy, your focus, your mood, and your output for everything that follows. I'm going to show you the five mistakes most high-achieving women are making in the morning. Walk you through what my morning actually looks like, not so you can copy it, so you can see what's possible. And then give you a five-step framework for building one that works for your life. When you pick up your phone before you've even had a chance to wake up properly, you've basically handed your nervous system over to someone else's life. Someone else's urgency is now your urgency. Someone else's opinion is now the first input into your brain for the day. Your brain, which is this beautifully open, natural, creative state when you woke up, gets obliferated the second you start scrolling. Here's what I used to do. I'd wake up, roll over, grab my phone, and I'd check my emails in bed, checking what had come in overnight, what I had to do for the day. And by the time I got to the kitchen, to my girls, to my husband who'd just made me a delicious coffee, I was already so reactive, already in stress mode, already behind on things I hadn't even started yet. And I would just snap in the morning for the smallest things, unwarranted things, because I'd spent the first hour of my day feeding my nervous system other people's problems. You are robbing yourself of the clearest thinking you will have all day. That first 30 minutes is yours, so protect it. Mistake number two, skipping breakfast or intermittent fasting without understanding where you are in your cycle. Now, this one's gonna ruffle a few feathers, and I'm so okay with that. Intermittent fasting has been marketed hard at women, and a lot of women are doing it because it's a trend, not because it makes sense for their physiology or their goals. Here's what I know from my own experience. During burnout, when my stress was chronically elevated and my cortisol was dysregulated, I found fasting so easy because I wasn't hungry at all. I'd lost my appetite, I'd skip breakfast, I have coffee, I'd get to 11 and I feel like I was going to pass out. So I'd eat something small and then I'd crash again at two, reach for my third coffee and wonder why I had no energy. I claimed I was fasting for all the health reasons. And at the time, fasting felt so easy to me because chronic stress had suppressed my appetite and I didn't even realize it. So if you're under high stress, if your cortisol is dysregulated, if you're training hard and skipping breakfast, you're literally adding fuel to a fire you don't need to be making worse. Your body needs protein and fuel in the morning to stabilize your blood sugar, to regulate your cortisol and give you something to run on. Now there is a hack I love if you need your coffee before you can think about food or before you can think about your morning workout. A scoop of protein powder in your coffee. It blunts the cortisol spike you get from caffeine on an empty stomach and gives you protein first thing, which means you're not just running on caffeine until you decide to eat. You can drink it, it tastes fine, especially if you're already a flavored protein person. Or better still, do what I do and used unflavored collagen protein. It's actually really good. Mistake number three is making it too complicated and then quitting the minute something doesn't work. You see someone's 5 a.m. routine, journaling, meditation, yoga, sauna, cold plunge, green smoothie, and you think, how the f are you supposed to do all of that? I'm a busy mum and I barely have time to eat in the mornings. So throw all of that out of the window because the goal is not a perfect morning routine. The goal is a consistent one. 15 minutes that you'll actually do every single day will beat a two-hour routine that you do three times one week and then forget about. If you're starting from nothing, pick two things, just two, and do those things so reliably before you add anything else. Mistake four, copying someone else's routine instead of building your own. Now, this is the one that trips up most people. They find someone like a successful business owner, a health influencer, or a podcast host, and they copy their morning routine. The problem is that routine was built for that person's life, their goals, their body, their kids' schedules, their physiology, and their current season of life. My morning routine works for me because I designed it for my life. It took testing and trying to see what works for me and what feels naturally aligned to where I am at. Some things I've dropped, some things I've added, and it changes week to week. It's not perfect, but it's mine. Mistake number five: no transition into work mode. You go from the morning chaos at home, school lunches, drop-off, maybe a workout, and then you go directly to sitting at your desk trying to focus. And you wonder why it takes you an hour to actually get going. Your brain needs a signal, and I wish I had learned this years ago. It needs a transition, something that tells it this part's over and this part is beginning. Without that, you carry the energy of everything that happened before into your work. The rush drop-off, the argument about the lunchbox, the 17 unread messages on your phone. The transition doesn't need to be long. It can be five minutes, it can be making a specific drink and sitting down before you open anything. It can be a 10-minute walk after drop-off. It can be a deliberate practice of writing out your top three priorities for the day before you touch your inbox. You do need something, otherwise, you never actually begin. You just slide from one mode to another, frazzled, never really arriving anywhere. Part two. My morning. Okay, here's what my morning looks like, not as a goal, but as a reference point. I wake up 5 a.m. and yes, this may sound early to some people, but I am a morning person and I go to bed really early. I love mornings, and for me, that is when I'm most energized and when I feel creative. When I can get moving and fill my cup early, my whole day feels so good. First thing is my gut healing drink. I have had gut issues in the past, and this is a non-negotiable. And honestly, it makes me feel so good to start the day with something that actively looks after me from the inside. Then I make my protein coffee. I wish I was a workout without it kind of girl, but I'm just not. Three mornings a week, I'm at the gym at 5.45 for my strength and mobility sessions. The other mornings I walk, or if there are waves, I love to get an early surf in with my girls before school, and they are my favorite mornings. On weekends, I don't plan anything, I just move how I feel and with what we're doing. But I definitely always still move. After movement, I come home and do my 15-minute gratitude and manifestation practice. Then I have breakfast. Breakfast is always a high protein smoothie, and I'm loving my warm oats with seeds because I've been experimenting with seed cycling and I take my morning supplements. Then I make the girls' lunches and I prep mine at the same time. I do a quick tidy up and I'm at my desk by 8:30. Nothing wild or crazy, it's not glamorous or insta-worthy, but it's consistent. Your version will look completely different, and that's exactly how it should be. Here is a simple framework that you can use to build your morning. Step one, protect the first 30 minutes. No phone, no news, no one else's problems. What you do in this window is up to you, but it belongs to you. Step two, move your body. It doesn't have to be a full workout, a 20-minute walk counts, a 10-minute stretch counts, something that gets you out of your head and into your body before the day starts. Movement regulates cortisol, it shifts your state, it sets the tone for the whole day. Step three, fuel with protein within the first hour. Your body has been fasting overnight. Give it what it needs to function, and protein is what it needs. Even if it's just that protein coffee, just get something in. Step four, one intentional practice. Gratitude, meditation, journaling, visualization, breath work, something deliberate that is not reactive. Something that just has you investing in your state. Five minutes counts, ten minutes is better, but five minutes every day beats 20 minutes three times a week. Step five, transition into work. Before you open your inbox, write down your top three priorities for the day. Not your full to-do list, your top three. The three things that if you did not do anything else that day would make today a win. Then open your inbox. You have arrived. You know what you're doing, and the day belongs to you. Here's what I want you to do this week. Two things. First, write down what your morning looks like right now, from when your alarm goes off until you start work. Then write down what you want it to look like using the five steps as your guide. What would your ideal morning be for your life right now? Look at the gap between those two things and find one thing you can change this week. Because every great morning routine started with someone deciding to change one thing. So start there. Don't just listen and move on. Grab a pen, write down your next level move, and actually do it this week. That one thing is your 1% and your 1% compounds. If this resonated or someone in your life needs to hear it, share it. Find me on Instagram at underscore Nicole Abbott or head to NicoleAbbott.co. See you next week.