The single most powerful spiritual development tool I’ve ever used is my morning routine.

It’s changed my life more than anything else.

It’s not just me. Search Google for the routines of the most creative people through history, and you’ll turn up some pretty fantastic and interesting morning rituals that set them up for success.

For example, my brain memory tells me I read once that Ben Franklin went about his breakfast naked, and stayed that way for the first two hours of every day. Great one. No one would do something like that unless it worked.

With two seconds of searching I found an entire website, morning-routine.com devoted to this idea, listing the routines of several famous people. Unfortunately it does not confirm naked Uncle Franklin.

The incredibly prolific and wonderful blog, www.brainpickings.org, also has an excellent article on the daily rituals of writers and creatives.

In book form, Hal Elrod brought us The Miracle Morning, which I loved reading years ago. This book lays out the morning routine framework that he uses. Hal’s seemingly infinite energy and the story of his morning routine changing his life absolutely inspired me to take my routine to another level.

In my experience, Hal is right. Morning routines change lives.

Why does a Morning Routine Help so much?

Assuming we want a happier, more fulfilling life, the answer is actually quite logical.

1. Our life is a series of days. The quality of our life is exactly the quality of our days. One day at a time.
2. How each day plays out is largely a result of how we start the day when we wake up. No matter what happens in the day, what we lock in during our morning can stay with us the whole day. The morning sets our energetic tone for the day, sets our intention for the day, sets where we will place our attention for the day.
3. Our intention, our attention, and energy are the factors that most influence our responses, behaviors, and decisions. This is what builds our whole day and what builds our whole life. This is what we use to create our experience. This is what we use to build and grow.
4. Therefore, there is very little else in our lives that has a bigger effect on the quality of our experience than the morning of each day. How we run our mornings and how we feel in the morning literally translates into how we run our lives and how we feel in our lives.

We often don’t realize this until we try it. We just assume great moments and moments of success happen at random at different times of the day. We just assume our feelings and experiences are at the mercy of the unpredictable and uncontrollable external world, knocking us around all day long. And we just pray that most of those knocks feel nice.

We don’t realize, until we do a spiritual morning routine, that no matter how life knocks us around, we can stay in love. At least, I didn’t realize.

We do this by setting up the space where we intentionally invite our the spirit to come in. Once we are filled up with our spirit it can burst through and out of us all day long improving everything that happens. Helping us change our world from our most powerful position.

Before I started spiritual morning routines, I had no idea that this would add such a phenomenal amount of quality to my day and my life.

That’s because, for a long in time in my life, I fell pray to a big myth going around: “If I can just make it through all these sucky days, which are the majority, and just keep my head down and slog it out, eventually, when things finally change for me, I will find a way to have great days, and I will be happy.”

Nope. That never worked. I stayed borderline miserable, at best just neutral, the entire time I believed that myth.

Eventually I realized his myth made no sense. If I want to live a happy life, I need the majority of my days to be happy right now. Because my life is happening right now.

This idea of just making it through sucky days, doing the same things I always do thinking eventually this will create happy days, is a fools errand. Just going through the motions of what I “have to do” and “should do” thinking that is somehow all of a sudden going to bring something different to my life just stopped making any sense.

I realized that if I wanted my days to change, to be more enlivening and filled with my spirit, then I had to do something right now. I had to bring in my spirit right now.

The “happiness comes later” game is a victim mentality.

This game says that my happiness can’t happen until things from outside me magically line up and start to work in my favor. This is playing the victim of circumstances.

That’s so disempowering. This makes me under the control of that outside thing, whether it’s a new job, a new relationship, a change in location, or whatever I “think” is going to make us happy. If I don’t have it than I can’t be happy. I’m giving up all responsibility in my own life.

So what’s the opposite? How do we get empowered?

We set the intention to feel more happy in our lives right now. And we direct our attention and our energy to go about making that happen. Right now.

We don’t wait for some uncontrollable mental future to come save us. We start now. We do what we can with what we have from where we are, right now.

The first step is getting honest with how we feel and how we can bring in more spirit into our lives.

We are spiritual beings. Lining up with our Spirit literally feels good.

In fact, some spiritual teachers like Bashar and Abraham Hicks say that ALL good feelings come from us being in line with our spirit.

If we want our life to feel good, we need spiritual alignment. To get there, we have to examine where we are not aligned, and how we can move toward more alignment.

This means, today, we need to look at how we really feel and say very honestly to ourselves if we are truly happy. We need to ask ourselves today, how can I feel more alive? How can I bring in my spirit?

We can use our morning routine to do this. To look inward and see what is really going on with us before we venture into the world and get distracted.

We can use our morning routine to decide how to use our intention, attention, and energy to respond TODAY in a way that will move toward our happiness and full aliveness.

When I do my spiritual morning routine, each day feels better right now in the present, and adds more momentum to building an ever-happier life.

If we don’t give ourselves space to do this on purpose, then we’ll just get caught up in the daily milieu and years can go by. Then one day we turn around and say, how the hell did I get here?

I used to say things like, “OMG I can’t believe it’s the end of February already, time just goes so fast.”

I don’t experience that anymore. Each day I live feels big and rich.

Not because I am globe-trotting in my yacht, dating Selma Hayek, or any external circumstance.

Because I invite my spirit in every morning and this makes me feel more fully alive, no matter what. I get huge energy from my morning routine.

My routine is like an anchor keeping me in a sea of loving and helpful responses no matter what happens in my daily experience.

It’s really invaluable. It’s the cornerstone of my resilience. It’s the key to my best and biggest feelings.

I never thought this was possible. But my routine has taught me that happiness really is as simple as finding our own unique Spiritual alignment. We don’t need anything outside to do this.

We just sit down with our routine and we engage with our spirit. We intentionally invite our spirit into our day and hear what it has to say, we naturally move into more alignment, we naturally get new ideas, we naturally take different actions, and we start to feel so much better.

Better feelings are what we are all really striving for.

Better feelings are the real reason we want anything in our life, because we believe having what we want will make us feel better in some way.

Why not cut right to the chase and feel better right now? We can get some of what we are looking for right now.

My morning routine is my most direct route to better feelings in my life. I get in spiritual alignment. Every morning.

And guess what? Science says if you do this your give yourself the best chance that your life will change.

Research shows us that good feelings bring more success. They are not a result of what we want, they are the drivers!

Shawn Achor’s now famous book, The Happiness Advantage, discusses in depth how happiness comes before success. Happy people are more productive, creative, healthier, and more successful. The research proving this is widely available now in many sources.

We are taught that once we achieve our goals we will be happy. Nope! Happiness comes first! Happiness powers us toward our goals better than anything else.

So get your morning routine going. Invite in your spirit and feel the alignment growing every day.

Take it from a change-making master:

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

— Gandhi

Gandhi achieved more positive change for himself and others than most of us will ever create. He drew his energy from his alignment.

When you are all lined up, you are in flow. You are making shit happen. You are getting shit down. Not just any shit, your shit, the best shit of your life.

What if we decided we are truly willing to try out Gandhi’s advice?

What if we committed to just experimenting with this space of our human spirit every morning?

When I did it, I make my day in line with my spirit which brings better feelings right away. Now my life is more naturally in line with my spirit which brings more better feelings and more good momentum with every passing day. And now my life naturally feels friggin good and the majority of my days are good ones. Often times in a big long string in a row. That is the simple key for me feeling consistently and sustainably happy.

That’s why a morning routine helps so much.

And there’s a bonus reason this makes a difference.

Bonus Reason! When we make a point to bring in our spirit first thing in the day, we show ourselves and the universe that we are committed to our Human Spirit as our top priority. We prove each day that our Human Spirit, our happiness, is of utmost important to us. We show that we are committed to being our most conscious and enlivened self. We show the universe with our action that we believe it is possible to be happy in our lives.

The Universe will start to blow our minds by showing us how much It believes in us.

Why Most of Us Don’t Do Morning Routines

Our brains are afraid of this work.

Our brains often resist turing the spotlight of awareness inward and looking at how we really feel and how we can be more aligned, because we will have to get really honest with ourselves.

What if we don’t like what we see? What if it’s uncomfortable? What if we feel something really difficult and don’t know what to do about it? What if we see we’ve put ourselves somewhere in our lives we really don’t want to be? What if we feel stuck and depressed with our current situation? We will face all of that.

If your brain is like mine, it spent most of your life trying to help you avoid feeling anything major. Like most of us, I learned as a child that most emotions are too difficult to handle and they can get me in trouble or embarrass me.

So my brain very often distracted me when I felt big stuff. It would finding something to do or act out defensively whenever some big feelings where coming up. Or it would would me eat pizza which feels so damn good.

This is resistance to what we are really feeling.

This is why many people reading this article right now are feeling resistant to doing this kind of inner exploration as a morning routine. Your brain might be telling you that you don’t have time, or it won’t help you, or how can it possibly work. Getting in alignment? That sounds dumb. That is your brain rationalizing your mental resistance.

Your brain is trying to save you from perceived discomfort and the danger of the unknown. What will you do when you see how you really feel? What will happen if the emotions are hard? What if you don’t know what to do next?

Your brain’s survival area doesn’t even want to go near those questions. All those reasons to avoid something new is “survival speak.” That’s your brain translating fear into very plausible reasons you should listen to it. These reasons sound good and yet are almost always false.

This is the same exact resistance that stops us from taking action toward many positive changes in our lives. Our brains see this action as an unknown or possible failure, and therefore a dangerous risk, and therefore something to be avoided for our survival. It comes up with all these reasons why we shouldn’t even try.

Don’t hate on your brain. It’s not our brains’ fault, our brain is just doing its job of trying to help us survive. Your brain translates fear into words to try to get you to act in the “safe” way.

If you let your brain run this programming unchecked it will keep you in such a tight little conservative box that your spirit will feel dead. Maybe you feel that way right now.

But this program doesn’t have to stop us. Just being aware of it is a huge help. And who is the one that is aware of your brain’s thinking?

You are not your brain. With a little mindfulness, we all can use our brains in service of our spirit.

I do this by using my brain to help me focus me intention, attention, and energy, to explore how I am really feeling, and how I can bring more of my Spirit into my life, every morning.

Doing this regularly has shown me that I do not have to listen to all the survival speak my brain is saying because most of it is patently untrue. It has freed me to experience more greatness in my life and do more of what I really want.

The morning is best time to do this intention, attention, and energy work.

In the morning, I make a point to feel what I am really feeling in the present moment, before all my daily worries and to-do lists suck up my attention and energy. I get to think about my how I really want to feel, what I am loving about my life right now, and how I can move toward more awesome and delicious better feelings to live my best life.

How to Get Started with Your Spiritual Morning Routine in 3 Steps

I’m not going to share my exact routine with you here because copying me won’t help you, but I’ll give you all you need to get started.

My routine has gone through many iterations and I’ve had one for a very long time. You need to start from where you are with what works for you.

If choose your own routine, and you are much more likely to have energy and commitment to do it.

You don’t need to plan some epic routine on paper. You just need to start doing it. You will learn what works for you and how to change it just from doing it. From day one you will learn what you need.

So I’m just going to guide you to thinking about what’s important for you, so you can set yourself up and get started as simply as possible. I like simple.

Step #1. Give yourself 10 minutes.

When starting out, just do 10 minutes.

If you’re like me, and you get excited about this morning routine idea, you might make some huge routine for yourself, set your alarm two hours earlier tomorrow, wake up like a kid on Christmas morning, do your routine. Tell everyone how awesome it is. And then a week later you’re back to no routine. I did that once.

I bit off more change than I could chew. Pacing ourselves works best.

Remember your brain’s resistance. Take tiny bites of change. Make little baby steps. Over time your brain will change with you and you’ll have moved so far.

Just get up 15 minutes earlier in the beginning so you have time for your 10 minute routine in the morning.

The extra 5 minutes is padding for you to re-orient yourself to a new habit. If you’re like me, I need at least 5 minutes to remember where I am.

Or just cut out 10 minutes worth of useless morning phone-checking. Most of us can get a lot of time back with that one simple change.

What does it say when you wake up and check your phone first thing? It says that your friend’s latest posts about Trump are more important that your Human Spirit. It says that your work email or your twitter stream is more important than who you are as a person, what you are feeling inside, and what you believe is possible in your life. Is that the message you want to live?

Checking your phone right when you wake up is a choice to start your day in a completely reactionary way. It’s choosing to run your life in reaction to your notifications. It’s deciding that you are at the mercy of the “out there” that is bombarding you with communication and deciding you need to listen to it right way. It’s like saying the ones and zeros beamed into a piece of metal and plastic are more important than you consciously growing, expanding, and feeling fully alive.

I’m being a little harsh to make a point. This is the victim mentality of putting the uncontrollable outside as our master. This activity comes from the same victim energy that keeps us unhappy.

Your phone is just a tool. You can let it rule you, or you can use it to empower you by putting it in service of the Human Spirit. Our Spiritual Intelligence co-author Chris Hardy has a great article on life versus phone.

On the other hand, putting your spirit first shows a very different set of priorities. It shows you are not willing to be a victim of circumstances, but that you are here to create great feelings and experiences for yourself. And you commit to doing that.

All you need to get started is 10 minutes and one spirit-driven practice. Let’s talk about the practice.

2. The main goal of the spiritual morning routine is to bring our inner spirit more fully into our lives.

I’ve been using the word Spirit a lot. What do you call it? Inner Spirit, or Inner Being, or Higher Self, or Human Spirit, or Deeper Self, or Awareness, or Love, or Consciousness. Call it whatever works for you.

And ask these questions:

How do I relate and connect to this wise, loving, powerful energy inside myself?

How can I welcome this energy into my day, today?

Slow down for a second. Take a few seconds to think about that. Take a minute to answer that. Because that’s all you need to decide. That’s your starter routine.

Your answer to those questions is how you can kick off your morning routine adventure. Pick one thing. Your answer. And just start with that.

Here’s the question in a different way: How can I connect with my spirit in 10 minutes or less? What can I do for my spirit in the morning for 10 minutes that would excite me?

Maybe you want to write or journal. Maybe meditate. Maybe garden. Maybe play with the dog because it gives you so much joy. Maybe take 10 extra minutes to make an elaborate breakfast. Maybe you want to do deep breathing. Maybe you want to draw. Maybe you want to dance.

The right answer is whatever enlivens you. Do something for yourself for 10 minutes that makes you feel fully alive. Whatever makes it feel like your spirit is coming in.

If you’re having trouble with finding and activity try this: Sit down and make a list of 10 or 20 that make you feel enlivened or creative. Just write down anything and everything that comes to mind that feels great, even if it’s crazy or stupid. Then pick the one that excites you the most to do for 10 minutes tomorrow morning.

You will notice that certain answers on your list give you more energy than others.

Find the answer or activity that gives you the most energy, that actually makes you feel really excited to try it.

That’s where you start. We need energy to make new habits. Find the activity that is lined up with energy flowing in for you.

See, you are already getting more in line with your spirit even in this exercise. Doing the activity you choose in the morning will feel good.

Doing your spiritually enlivening morning routine is a decision to do something important for yourself first thing in the day, before you handle anything for anyone else, or any of your circumstances.

You are putting your heart first. You will thank yourself so hard.

3. Experiment and Refine

Those first 2 steps are seriously all you need to know to get started and feel serious change start to happen.

No need to make it complicated. No need to figure out the best routine for the rest of your life. Or make some year-long commitment. Or make sure you do something for your mind, body, spirit, family, finances, goals, blah, blah.

That’s all too much starting out, that’s all too heavy.

Keep it simple. Just start with 10 minutes. Promise yourself to try it for a week or month. See how it goes.

There is no right or wrong. Just focus on the most important part for feeling better: bringing more of your Human Spirit into your life.

10 minutes, one spiritual exercise. Try it. Experiment. Learn from it and continue.

The experiment will show you what to do next.

By trying your exercise you will learn what you like, and what you don’t.

The experiment will help you get new ideas for more or different activities you will want to do. 10 minutes might quickly grow as you find more practices that really speak to you.

There is no shortage of advice on morning routine activities. If you want more activities than you could ever do in one morning, just search online. With caution. Remember to just pick just one that excites you when you are starting.

If you’re really interested in seeing what I do right now in my morning, drop a note in the replies section, and I’ll write a follow up article. Know this:

You have all the answers you need inside of you. Your own answers are going to be far more powerful for you than someone else’s answers.

Start there first.

The hardest part is just getting started and forming a new habit. Take a tiny bite. And keep chewing as long as you want. If you like it, you will eventually want a bigger bite. Your growth will start to take care of itself because it will feel so good. The rewards will be evident.

So keep it light and easy in the beginning, for as long as you need to. The change will happen.

My first morning routine was a simple breathing meditation, that was it. I did this for months, maybe even a year. Then I started to notice how much it helped me, and I wanted to do more.

Little by little I added to it. Sometimes I added too much and decided to subtract. Over time, my routine became a core solid host of practices that lead me to one amazing discovery after another.

That is why I am adamantly saying just start with 10 minutes and one exercise that you are excited to try. That’s all you need in the beginning and will build incredible momentum for you. And it’s a small enough commitment that it gives you room to experiment and refine based on how it feels.

That experiment will tell you everything else you need to know .

If you’re like me, you’ll start noticing differences right away.

And tell me how you get on in the responses, because if it can change my life I know it can change yours.

David Papa works with heart-driven people to unlock co-creative human energy. He does this through teaching and coaching in Emotional Intelligence, Professional Resilience, and the Energy of Organizations. You can find him at Love and Profit and Get Your Own Answers.