For most of my life I would roll out of bed, jump in the shower, scroll through emails, chug a coffee (or furiously sip, depending on how hot it was) and brush my teeth. Then I would scramble to work in a sweat and arrive 20 minutes early to sift through more ‘urgent’ emails. I’d grab a second coffee on the way to work, upping my jitteriness levels to the point where my voice was shaky. I was living a caffeine-hazed existence on top of a never-ending roller coaster. It was like I was headed in one direction and moving fast, but I wasn’t sure where, nor was I in control. Those were the days!
Today, this sort of routine would be unthinkable to me. It would be like driving out of the parking garage with four flat tires — sure, I could get to where I was going, but it would be a rough ride.
I’m not sure when it was, but one day I simply got tired of being tired, and decided to develop a morning routine to keep my tires properly inflated, so to speak. I went through two years of trial and error to nail down my current routine, and in the process tried everything from writing positive messages on my bathroom mirror to going to bed and waking up at precisely the same time for 2 months in a row. For a while, I stopped eating breakfast; I quit coffee…
