I wrote this My Miracle Morning post back in 2016, it described the routine I’d designed and have kept to non-stop, I’ve been doing this for over seven years now.
That post detailed a somewhat stern routine, I still wake up early but I’m much more chilled and productive.
Most of the time I wake up at 5 am, I listen to a book and drink a big glass of water.
Dan Pink recommended this in one of his books, water wakes you up naturally and works than tea or coffee as your first drink.
Meditation
Then I sit down and meditate, I use Headspace and practice a thing called EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique which I’ve been doing for around four years.
When I first mentioned I was meditating years ago I’d get funny looks from some people, and they’d call me a weirdo.
Sitting in my kitchen muttering to myself every morning all these years has been a gamechanger for me.
Doing both these things smashed my anxiety, self-doubt, anger and all those other nasty bits of my being that show up uninvited when they see me getting low.
Confidence
I’m a positive person with a rock-solid group of friends and community, but this does not automatically make me confident.
And while depression is firmly in my rearview mirror it’s not something that you just switch off.
Also, there are triggers that certainly won’t end up being depression but incite a feeling or a memory. So I’m always practising being still in the morning, this establishes that I am all good to go and settles me before doing anything, this part is my wake up routine.
More than once I wake up with a huge feeling of dread that would have disabled me for a week and after 30 minutes of meditation, I’m back to reality.
After meditation I dive into my 750 Words, I’ve been at this since 2013 at the time of posting I’m about to pass the 1.5 million words mark.
750 Words Every Day
Every so often someone asks me what is the point of doing that writing.
“Yeah! Why would you write all of that for no reason?”
I’m a little saddened at this question. I love this writing, the connection I’ve built with myself, the joy and pain I’ve written about and the ideas I’ve mapped out.
Also when I was at University I would crap myself about handing in a 500 position paper and now I churn out 750 words in around 20 minutes.
I’m now more focused on writing stuff that will end up on my blog. What you are reading now was a 750 words post.
And as part of the CMA 90 Challenge I’m posting every week, these are not perfect posts and it kills me. But the exercise is to work on my voice and message.
Fruit ‘til Noon Brother
After reading Living with SEAL and the David Goggins book this year I took to eating fruit until noon and running most days.
These two additions have been the icing on the cake.
In fact, what prompted this blog is that I’ve been away with the GT project team and have fallen off the wagon with the morning routine.
We were in Spain and the weather was roasting!
I woke up later, we went to bed later as we ate dinner at 10 pm – hey I love this groove but the fruit and running did not get much of a look in.
As a result, I don’t feel like crap, but I have left craving a run.
Why early?
Ok so you might not like getting up but you have to weigh up the agony of waking up and the agony of rushing through your day and it being shit.
So do you want to happen to your day or do you want your day to happen to you?
AND as I write this please know that this is something I had a bad time with for 100’s of years.
Most of the time I did not want to get up.
Not because I was tired, if I was tired I would be asleep and if I am tired I go to bed early.
So if you go out to three am partying – stay in bed and rest.
Don’t beat yourself up for shifting how you use your time.
However, if you think you won’t be able to get up on a school night go to bed early, don’t watch TV or fuck around on your phone.
And when the alarm goes make yourself get up and then go and get in the shower before you can do anything.
It will hurt and then before you know it you’ll be fine.
Pro tip
Get everything ready the night before.
Every night I set up my laptop in the kitchen and have some post-it notes by it.
When I am feeling a little weak I leave my coffee machine by it and anything else I think I might need.
This means that when I wake up I have everything I need and can’t chicken out by making choices.
I have already made the choice and then I know all I have to do it meditate and write.
Meditating and writing for an hour in the morning have totally changed my life over the last five years.
These little daily actions over time stopped me wanting to kill myself and turn my head to work out what I want to do with my life.
Lying in bed is ace and I LOVE relaxing and sleeping, I make time to do this so that when everything else is going on I am there.
