Why “Perfect” Morning Routines Don’t Matter — And What to Do Instead Ep 121

Coach Chris & Coach Carlie push back on one-size-fits-all morning routines and lay out a calmer, more personal approach built on sleep, values, and biology. From caffeine and genetics to flexible rituals and training early, we show how to design mornings that actually fit real life.

We discuss:

• cultural pressure to optimize every minute
• defining a morning’s purpose before picking habits
• caffeine sensitivity, anxiety, and genetic differences
• reflection over rigid habit stacking
• cozy rituals, partner check-ins, and fluid routines
• sleep as the non-negotiable foundation
• training early without adding extra pressure
• avoiding Navy SEAL standards for civilian lives
• personalization through values and core goals
• caution on cold exposure for certain individuals

Big takeaway: “Get your sleep, y’all.” And design your routine to what works best for YOU.

BONUS: Download our FREE morning routine reflection worksheet here. 

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Chapters

• 1:51 Setting Up The Morning Routine Debate
• 3:59 Culture’s Obsession With Optimizing Mornings
• 5:55 Redefining Purpose Of A Routine
• 8:21 Caffeine, Anxiety, And Genetics
• 11:24 Reflection Over Rigid Habit Stacking
• 13:19 Rituals, Flexibility, And Family Moments
• 16:46 Sleep First, Routine Second
• 19:15 Training Early Without Extra Pressure

Transcript

Coach Carlie: 1:26

Welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. I am your host, Coach Chris, and I am here again with Coach Carly because she's amazing. And we have so much fun talking all the things over our pretend coffee that we're drinking. I don't think. Are you a decaf girl too?

Coach Chris: 1:44

I am. Yes, I know.

Coach Carlie: 1:45

Isn't that?

Coach Chris: 1:47

I feel like such a fraud.

Coach Carlie: 1:52

I also do, because I'm like, I use caffeine so strategically.

Coach Chris: 1:58

Oh my gosh. I honestly I feel like this contributes to the whole entire topic of today with morning routines.

Coach Carlie: 2:04

Absolutely, which is all about morning routines. So I don't know if you guys get hammered uh with um, I don't know, social media, books, whatever. It's like, oh, it's all that you have to have like you are a bad human unless you have this magical morning routine. Or if you do the same exact thing every single I don't know, I don't know. But I just feel like all these self-development things expect that you're supposed to like. I think I think somebody added up all the things that Huberman was supposed to be doing in his morning routine. It was gonna seem like three hours or something like that. Whether that's fake news, I don't know. Doesn't matter. But Carly is here to just like maybe we should talk about morning routines. You're like, oh, I have so many things to say about that. I'm like, oh, bring it on. I cannot wait. So enlighten us, Carly.

Coach Chris: 2:57

What's your what's your take on this? The irony is not lost on me that I would say something like that when I am very much a woman of few words. You are not. For me to have a lot to say means I might talk for two minutes.

Coach Carlie: 3:11

But here we are. Well, it just goes to show that there are so many things that I feel like we have an expectation of like, oh, well, this if I do this thing, maybe it's gonna make me magically, I don't know, more perfect, but like better in whose mind? Uh you know, is this the magic missing link to what? To like what, like, what are you trying to achieve?

Coach Chris: 3:38

Particularly, I think, in the um in the wellness space right now, and generally like the self-improvement journey that uh our culture is on right now of like how can I be the best version of myself? How do I take care of myself? How do I optimize my day? And it's kind of evolved into like, how do I optimize every minute of every waking moment that I have? And we've just like, it's gone too far, y'all. Bring it in. Rain it in. Okay. That's it, close. End the podcast. That's what I have to say.

Coach Carlie: 4:19

Well, we were just on another uh we're we're batch recording, you guys. I'm getting ahead. I'm so proud of myself. Uh, I I need some validation from Carly here too, because like she also helps with this present. She's like, oh my gosh, Chris, you are so behind. We are not behind anymore. And we were just talking about hustle culture. And um had the irony. I'm talking about like, oh, but I have to get all these podcasts out to people.

Coach Chris: 4:47

Well, you do have a podcast, so yes, you do have to do the podcast. Yes. Does that mean you need some like very intricate morning routine to set yourself up? Y'all, we can have a good day without having this like very perfectionistic routine in the morning that you are now waking up at 4 a.m. to have time before your kids get up to journal and meditate and see the first sunlight. And I don't uh what uh what else are the kids doing these days? Oh god.

Coach Carlie: 5:25

Okay.

Coach Chris: 5:27

Anyways, um, my not so hot take is to think about what will actually set you up to have a lovely morning. Okay, what resets you to go into whenever your day starts, I'll say eight. Can you get to eight o'clock and be like, all right, cool, let's start the day. And maybe that does include cold plunges and a slew of other things. It doesn't for me, and it probably never will. And I'm not a morning person, I'm also not a night owl. Uh, your girl likes to sleep a lot. So I'm not gonna stress about waking up extra early so I can do all of these things before my workout, before I get my kid ready for school, before I go to work. It's not gonna happen. But most importantly, the purpose of whatever sort of routine you have in the morning, because I'm sure you do have some version, even if it's loosely a version of a routine for the morning, you have some sort of like something that you do every morning, right? Um run through it. Is it benefiting you? Is it something you want to improve? And is it something you want to improve because you actually feel like it would help you start your day better? And not because you heard it on a podcast. Uh the irony is not lost. Just gonna bite the hand that feeds me for a second here, but um but uh just because you know we have evidence that you know journaling is really great and it is a phenomenal tool, y'all. Meditation. The findings that we have on long-term, like long-term studies that have looked at people that have meditated for years and years, like amazing things that can happen. I am not saying that is all true, it's all great and wonderful and lovely stuff. I'm just saying we don't all have to do it every morning. And I don't mean that uh as like a pun for your coffee. I was gonna say, but can it? Yeah. Uh and I guess let me circle back and then we'll kind of get into what different versions can look like. But I figured out that starting my day with a caffeinated coffee makes me a little crazy when I'm so with you there. I was like, the anxiety.

Coach Carlie: 8:09

Why is my heart rate so high? First thing in the morning, I'm like, oh, it's caffeine. And you know, to no fault of like, I know my genetics, but I am constantly revisiting them. And while I clear caffeine theoretically quickly with some genes, there are other genes for me that like to hold on to the extra production of adrenaline, epinephrine, norepinephrine that are not serving me. And I found that reducing for me, reducing caffeine, I was like, I feel so much more peaceful. Yeah, relaxed. And it is worth it.

Coach Chris: 8:47

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, two big points really quickly. One, Chris and I did not uh know this about each other before coming on this call. This is not like a setup to switch everyone over to decaf coffee. No, no, not at all. That's not what we're hearing. This is purely coincidental. Two, even more coincidental is that it sounds like Chris and I have very similar genes when it comes to how our bodies use caffeine. And both of them sound like they somewhat go against what we are are experiencing in our day, which is which brings me back to the like, take a minute to reflect on, like pay attention to what you're experiencing throughout your day. We very much, when we are in like a I get up, I whatever, I have breakfast, I have my coffee, I shower, maybe you work out first, then you shower, then you go to work, you have your day, you come home. Like we put up blinders when we're in routines like this, when our every weekday looks the same and we're in this really regimented, we stop paying attention to how things are making our bodies feel, how we're mentally feeling. If we're having like dips and peaks with our energy throughout the day, we're just like laser beam, we're cows in a funnel, frankly. Take the minute to reflect on what's happening. What are you experiencing? Because things like this, like I have my genetic reports. I know that, you know, um, in terms of caffeine, like, cool, I use it up real quick and I'm good to go. Reality is it makes me real anxious. And I feel like a little bit of a crazy person for quite some time if I have a good chunk of caffeine first thing in the morning. So I changed to decaf and it's been lovely. I love the coziness of a warm cup of decaf coffee in the morning. I particularly love if neither my husband and I have meetings first thing in the morning and we get to sit next to each other and have our warm cups of the morning.

Coach Carlie: 10:47

So would you call that a morning routine or would you call that a ritual, or can it be both?

Coach Chris: 10:54

I would call it neither because it's circumstantial. Hmm, okay. I like this. But it's nice. And like when I take my daughter to school in the morning, and I'm like, hey, are you like, do you have meeting? Will you be in a meeting when I get back or can we have coffee together? And it's like a nice little way to start our day. We check in with each other. Any of y'all that have tinier humans know that like you don't really get to talk to each other when they're around because they ask a lot of questions and they make a lot of noises and they just generally interrupt every three statements that you make. So it's really nice and we just check in and see how we're doing, and it's really lovely. And I'm so glad that I take that time instead of like doing a cold plunge or being in the middle of some very regimented thing that I have set for that time of day. Now, if my husband has a meeting, or obviously if I have a meeting, I'm off to work. But if he's busy, I just pop on and I get started with my day. And it's it's no thing, right? Like it's it's very fluid. But I do always have my nice little warm cup of co-coffee because it makes me cozy and I like it. And that's really all you need. Not coffee, just something that you enjoy in the morning to start your day off on a nice, on a nice little note. Yeah.

Coach Carlie: 12:15

My little ritual is that I like to use certain mugs that make me super happy. There you go. Like, you know, fold it just right. Maybe it's got like pictures of my kids on it. You know, one of my mugs says joy on it. When my youngest was maybe four or five, he would take a piece of paper and write joy and then put it at the holidays, put it in everybody's mailbox, but the J was backwards. So, like that just makes me feel like, oh, this is like one of my core values is family and joy. And so that's what my hot beverage goes in. Sometimes it's tea, sometimes it's espresso, sometimes it's coffee, and it just makes me so happy. And uh, that's not to say that um I poo-poo on your cold plunge. I feel like there seems to be a pressure of doing something every single morning where I find that there's flow in uh certain mornings, like certain mornings. I'm coaching at six o'clock in the morning, like and I am not waking up at four o'clock in the morning because generally speaking, that's like the peak of melatonin release. So I ain't gonna skip that because I need that for me to be a nice human. And that's no shot on you if you get up at four o'clock in the morning. I hope that your sleep routine is meaningful and uh works well for you. But I also find that there's weekends for me are opportunities to journal deeper. And I feel like mornings on the weekdays, it's gonna be rushed. Not to say it's not meaningful, but I feel like it's not going to provide me the deepest value for the amount of time that I can like contribute to it.

Coach Chris: 13:55

So oh, and I think and I can't emphasize this enough. Likely, majority of what you're seeing that like creates these wonderful morning routines that you are learning about, hearing about, seeing, whatever, they're great components of a day or a week. Do they have to happen from 4 to 6 a.m. every morning? And if you miss it, things will be miserable. I think that's my main point here is no. If you need to meditate at lunch, go for it. Especially don't skip your sleep to wake up and and do things that can be done later in the day. Like that's just get your sleep, y'all. That's the one thing. Everybody skips their sleep thinking that they're waking up to like, you know, be efficient with their day when really your brain would really like you to sleep more, please. Thank you.

Coach Carlie: 14:53

Yes. The amount of benefits that come from quality sleep is just so vast. Like, let me begin the benefits of your metabolism, human growth hormone release, memory consolidation, etc., etc.

Coach Chris: 15:09

And I guess let me also add, because I'm sure a large portion of those of you listening are like, yeah, but I train in the morning. I'm I'm not at home, Carly. I have also gone through periods of life like that as well. And that doesn't negate the underlying message I'm trying to send here of it's great if you want to wake up and go work out, and that's the best time of day for you to do that. Excellent. I hope you're getting to bed at a reasonable time, like we said. I also hope you don't feel the pressure to try and like habit stack some other things into that morning routine. You're already off to a great start. You're moving your body, you're getting your endorphins go. Like all the good things are already happening just because you woke up and and got out the door. So don't feel pressured that you need to also add these other elements and these really intricate things into it. Like check it off a list. Great, you had a great morning, off to a great start. Now go start your day. Again, meditate in the afternoon, journal before bed. It doesn't all have to happen. A, it all doesn't have to happen, y'all. B, it doesn't all have to happen in the morning.

Coach Carlie: 16:22

But I need to be a perfect human and meet some random expectation of some Navy SEAL that I don't know.

Coach Chris: 16:33

I would be the worst Navy SEAL. Which is why I'm not one. So there's that. Same. Same. There's also, okay, if any of you are also like, but I really like Navy SEALs, because I'm sure maybe certain ones are coming into mind at the moment. Full respect to actual naval Navy SEALs, first of all. Oh, yeah. 100%, yeah. Second of all, what you're learning for them and why they teach what they teach and teach it so well, is because they had to have those skills to do their job. Yeah, to survive. Yeah.

Coach Carlie: 17:10

Yeah. And not just survive, but have an expectation for an entire country.

Coach Chris: 17:19

This is my counterpoint. Okay. You're not a Navy SEAL. So you probably don't need a lot of those things. Now, are those skills maybe applicable in other areas and at different levels and intensities that could be helpful? Yes. Do they need to be done to the levels and expectations of a Navy SEAL? No. Because you're not a Navy SEAL. Yeah. So that's likely not very fitting for your life and life balance. Mm-hmm. And lots of other things.

Coach Carlie: 17:54

Yeah. I digress. Yes, I know. And as you're saying that, I'm like, oh my gosh, I would love to see their genes because I have a sneaking suspicion that they're all uh like there's one particular gene, it's the compt gene. So if you have a certain genetic variant of that, you tend to be like thrill seekers.

Coach Chris: 18:13

Oh yeah.

Coach Carlie: 18:14

Like because you clear that epinephrine, norepinephrine for which I am the opposite, you clear that super quick, and then you're just like, next, next, next, bring on the dopamine, like bring on the thrill. You know, we're not all in that boat. And I don't know. I feel like we're meant to have all these different journeys and these different challenges. That's why we've been put on this planet. Yeah.

Coach Chris: 18:36

Well, and it always circles back to every time I say, like, stop comparing yourself to other people. This is a prime example why. They're either for a multitude of reasons, but when we look when we look at genetics of people and they're like when we think of how brains operate can so differently with things like what you were just talking about. Yeah. And then we think of things like recovery needs or, you know, genes that can be proponents for building strength or building endurance easier than other people. While we're all the same, your body doesn't necessarily work like that person. You could be doing the same things and have vastly different experiences doing them. And maybe that's why that person's always excited to go out and run a thousand miles a day. And you're like this doesn't feel great. And I feel terrible. Yeah. And that doesn't mean that either of you are right or either of you are wrong. You're just your own person. So create your routines around being you and not, again, a Navy SEAL that maybe has quite different genes than you and different objectives and why they're doing those things. Yes.

Coach Carlie: 19:44

Which makes me think about our longevity nutrition coaching group and how everyone who walks into that program, the very first module they have to do is all about their core values. It's like, well, what does that have to do with the, you know, chicken that I'm eating? Has a lot to do with that. And it has a lot to do with your morning routine. And eating for sure and exercise all relates to habits and behaviors. Yeah. And if you're not tying them back to your core values and then what is meaningful for you, then you're just gonna be drawn straws of like, well, maybe I need to do a cold plunge every morning. Which interestingly, that's not a great habit for someone who might have cardiac issues, having this like massive shock to the system. That's another conversation. We need to have some like research roundups. And we talk about that in in genetics. There are certain genetics that actually don't do great with cold plunges. Anyway, all that to say is that you are unique and wonderful and pick your morning routine to match you. Yeah. Yeah. Did that anything else to sum it up?

Coach Chris: 20:54

No, I think that's the perfect summary.

Coach Carlie: 20:56

Wait, we done did the thing. We did us. So good. So bad. Yes. Awesome. Uh and again, if you need a reminder, all of you wonderful people out there, that you are beautifully and wonderfully made. And I know I'm so grateful for you. And I'm also grateful for Carly. So thank you for being here and sharing your thoughts on the morning routine. And thanks for listening, y'all. Bye.