The Morning Routine

Is the morning routine all there is to have an incredible work day?

I’ve been reading articles on Medium about morning routines, things like “2 things you can do in the morning to change your day” and a different variety of the same title. Most influential speakers and life coaches also stress on having a kick-ass morning routine that sets you on a collision course with success. And I totally agree, I wouldn’t have anything different to suggest. To begin your day properly gives you a push. I have tried it and it works miracles. The problem is, What do you do when the day doesn’t start off well?

What I want to give you through this article is a fail safe. Sometimes things don’t really don’t start off as you expect them to. Unless you are a seasoned player at the game of “kick-ass morning routine”,

Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night, after having a nightmare. After that it was all downhill mentally. I couldn’t sleep and then have a bad lazy old day, ending up doing nothing.

This happens to a lot of people I suppose, where you either get into a fight with your wife, or have had a bad moment with your neighbour. Something or the other ruins your morning. What do you do? Do you let the bad morning ruin your entire day? You probably feel that there is nothing you can do, and the bad morning affects your mood all day.Some superstitious people might think that a ruined morning will inevitably result in a bad day, no matter what you do. But that’s bizarre.

What you can do in this situation, is “turn the day around”. This might sound like a television commercial tag-line. But it also holds true in real life. If you want to get things done, you need to learn how to turn a bad day into a good one or else you will always be a victim of circumstances.

Here are the steps to slowly master the art of “Turning the day around”:

Learn to accept everything your morning has to offer.

If you expect to wake up in the morning and have everything to go your way, you are dead wrong. Unless you are a billionaire living in a large mansion with a few butlers catering to your every need, you will face a hiccup or two in your otherwise perfect morning routine. Someone might interrupt your morning meditation. Maybe next door Sally might stop by for a cup of sugar and chat up for a whole hour. Something might and will in most cases always go wrong. Accept it. Crying about an imperfect morning not only wastes time, but makes you ungrateful about the things that you can therein follow up on and perfect. Someone might spill coffee on you on the way to work. Now yelling at the guy and creating a ruckus and thinking about what your boss might think of you might be a great show, but it accomplishes nothing. The coffee stain will still be on your shirt and your boss and your co-workers are going to judge you anyway. Instead you could laugh off the poor man’s clumsy behavior and make it a good day for everyone.

Treat your life like a sitcom. Sometimes things might fall apart, but laughing it off gives you a certain confidence to face bigger problems.

Fix the problem

This step can avoid the thing that ruins your day entirely, and ergo make your morning perfect as it was meant to be. What you need to do here is remain mindful of what you think, what you do and what you say. If you mindfully choose to ignore a problem,you will steer clear of it inevitably. If your neighbour comes to your door intending to quarrel, sit him down for a cup of coffee and solve the issue out like civilians. Lashing out is easy, but if you could relate to the person in front of you, and still manage to solve his problem, you are a winner. Actually, this step could be also taken before the first one. If you do the right thing, you can avoid the problem altogether. Turning a potential quarrel into a friendly chat. Turning a potential argument with your kids or wife into a loving family moment. But if the inevitable has to happen, you can take the hard way to solve problems, just remember to be mentally ready to fix the problem later and bounce back.

Start Over

If you have a bad moment, you can always take a pause, stop , think and start over. You can consider the problem or the thing that takes you off your momentum as a minor hiccup and get back into gear. You can always pick yourself up. There’s no rule in any book that says a day once ruined cannot be fixed. If you need a boost, then do something small that you like. Have a piece of your favourite chocolate, or have your favourite beverage. Or perhaps you could listen to a podcast or a song that gets you all pumped for the day ahead. Make yourself understand that you are still alive to conduct your morning routine the next day. Gratitude can go a long way in face of disappointment and hopelessness.

Morning routines are not only helpful, but they set you on a path that makes you indestructible. But you also need to learn how to bounce back from a bad moment, or else the whole purpose of the morning routine, the meditation, the mental conditioning is useless. You must learn how to trivialise the non-essential stuff and focus on the main goal.That is ultimately the way to get things done.