#141: 5 key things I do in the AM to motivate me to stick with my intentions for the day ahead!
Do I believe in morning routines? Not strict ones to be honest, I'll explain why in this episode.
But, I do try to do these things (or at least most of them) nearly every single work morning.
To reach our goals, we know that we need to stick to our intentions that we set for the day - and the happier and more motivated we feel, the EASIER it is to do what we KNOW we need to do. Setting your morning up correctly can seriously help here.
If I miss one of these things, I often feel it trickle into my day and it leads me to feel anxious and unfocussed.
I hope you enjoy this episode and consider bringing these things into your morning too, they are honestly achievable in some small way for EVERYONE!
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Read This Episode:
In this episode, I'm going to be talking all about why I actually don't believe in strict morning routines and what I believe in instead, because there's absolutely truth to them and also this is just my advice. Of course, everyone has different opinions. This is just what works for me and my life and I want to share my reasonings behind why morning routines can work and why they can't and how I set myself up and what I truly believe in and what I've learned through experts as well to set me up for a successful day.
So this means that what you're going to get after this podcast is tools to help you set up the day in the best possible way for yourself that you can, because like I always say in these episodes and throughout my social media and in my programs is that, the steps that you need to take each day in order to reach your goals, sometimes can feel hard and challenging and we don't feel motivated every single day. We just don't but the way that you set yourself up can really help you be in a positive, motivated and grounded attitude for the day ahead, so that it does actually make it easier for you to do those things that might feel a bit challenging and it always comes down to our energy and our mindset in terms of how we show up for the day and how we do stick to what we want to say for the day.
So if you're feeling really down and unmotivated, not creative and not inspired, it can really make it a lot harder to do those things that you know that you need to do in order to reach your goals, whether that's eating a certain way, getting to the gym, reaching fitness goals, growing your career, whatever it is, most of the time it's not that easy and you have to be consistent every single day.
I want to start by saying, the reason I don't believe in strict morning routines, ones that you see on social media - wake up at 4am, go for a half an hour run, get in the ice bath, do an hour of journaling etc. Sometimes people have these elaborate morning routines and don't get me wrong, they do absolutely work. There is so much merit to them and they can work for a lot of people. When they are this rigid and strict though, what if one morning you wake up, you didn't get a good sleep and you wake up at five or six instead of four?
When you're too rigid with your morning routine, it can actually throw you out and make you feel really anxious for the day because you haven't stuck to what you said you wanted to do, so that's my reasoning behind why sometimes these really elaborate strict morning routines can backfire because if you set the bar too high and you're trying to do something that's quite extreme first thing in the morning, that takes up at least an hour or two of your time, there's so many mums listening to this podcast - what if your kids come into your room at three o'clock in the morning, wake you up and then you can't wake until six and you've thrown your morning routine out the window or something else happens and it puts you back? It can make you feel really anxious and crap about yourself because you haven't stuck to what you said you're going to do and then it can just throw your whole day out of whack.
This relates to so many other areas of life too. Sometimes when you set the bar too high and you're too strict and rigid on yourself, when something pops up in your life that changes that it can make your day feel like a failure and then you don't do anything positive and that's what can sometimes happen from people setting these morning routines that are a little bit too elaborate.
If you're doing it and it works for you, that's incredible. That's great. I just want to share what I do and some really key elements to my morning that have been proven by science too, that I've learnt from experts that I personally do every morning, but sometimes these things happen at 5am, 6am or 7am, but I try to do these five key things at some point throughout the morning in some way, big or small and I swear by them to set me up for a productive day because I've really learnt with my business and my life, I've learnt this throughout the last seven years, that if I'm not feeling good within myself and grounded and motivated, then it's really hard for me to be motivated to inspire other women and do the work that I need to do every single day to sustain this business and grow this business because it takes a lot of dedication and a lot of creativity as well.
So the happier I feel, the better work I do and this relates to any other area in your life. Always go back to this when you're reaching your health goals as well. If you are feeling uninspired and flat, it's so much harder to make those healthy eating choices, to keep going to the gym, to keep doing the things that you want to do, so these are the key things that I do in the morning that I want to share with you that you can steal and bring into your life as well to set you up with the right mindset for the day, so that you can feel grounded and do those things that you need to do through the day far more easier, which means you stay more consistent, which means you will end up reaching those goals that you're trying to reach.
So the first thing that I do actually starts the night before - the night before I always think about the next day because I truly believe how you set yourself up for a positive day the next day, is how you act and what you do the night before. So what I always do the night before, on a work day for instance, is I'll always go through my to-do list and what I wanted to get done that day. I'll see what I didn't get done and then I'll reassess my priorities for the next day and just write down a few key things. That really helps me.
The other thing I do is always try my best to be conscious of what I'm doing that night before for instance, am I staying out late? Am I prioritising my sleep? Am I drinking more than one drink of alcohol? I think sometimes it's really important to actually think about the day before rather than the day after. Of course, some nights will be a bit off, but that can really help you actually make better choices the night before anyway because if you are about to have that second or third drink of alcohol, but you think - how is this going to affect my sleep? How's this going to make me feel in the morning? That can help you make better choices the night before. That's something that I do and I also really like just reassessing my to do- list and organising my day for the next day. It doesn't have to be too structured or rigid, just a few key things that I want to get done the next morning so that I wake up and I'm not feeling overwhelmed by a giant to-do list because when you feel overwhelmed in that way, it can cause inaction and stress and you never do as good work or perform as better as a person if you feel overwhelmed.
Now, if you're someone that's trying to improve your health and follow a certain way of eating and you're newly getting into it, and you are someone that's following a meal plan, for instance, let's say you're on my programs, a great thing to do the night before is to look at your plan for the day ahead and do whatever you can to prep. Let's say, you've got a breakfast - can you make it easier for yourself the next morning? To organise that breakfast and make it ahead of time or if you're having a salad for lunch, can you chop those veggies up and have them ready in the fridge? So whatever you can do the night before to make your day tomorrow easier is great, and also just once again like I do with my to-do list, look at your plan for the next day … make sure you've got a plan of eating for the next day so that you don't just wake up and wing it, because when you wing it, especially when you're learning and you're getting into a new way of eating, that can be a recipe for failure.
I can wing it myself now, but that's only because I've been finding my balance and learning about nutrition for about 10 years now, and I've been teaching the way that I eat for 7 years. Every day I wake up and I can wing it with what I eat, but that's only because I've been learning it for 10 years. If that's you, the night before, look at your day ahead for the next day and make sure that you've got a plan of action in place and can you make it easier on yourself by preparing some things that night for your next day?
Now I'm going to the actual morning, the second thing is - connection first thing in the morning. This can be big or small, but connecting with a human in some way can make you feel really motivated and grounded because human connection is one of the most powerful things that we have that makes us feel happy.
Now this can be something like FaceTiming or calling a friend or it can simply being deciding to get out of your house and quickly pop down to the coffee shop and saying hi to the person that serves you coffee or someone in the line, or it can be going to the dog park and talking to someone in the park - some form of human connection, especially for the people that work from home. This can make you feel really happy and grounded for the day ahead and that's absolutely been proven by science too.
So I try to do that in some way. Quite often I will meet my mum to walk Winston. So my dog's name is Winston, if you don't already know. She has a dog called Indy and before I go to the gym in the morning we will meet and sometimes that's my form of connection. If I don't do that, I'll go to the gym or I'll go for a walk and I'll make sure I call a friend quickly, so I get connection in that way. Any form of human connection can really help and like I said, it can be as small as just saying hi to someone in a coffee shop.
My third tip here is to - spend some time in nature. Let's say you're doing morning movement in the morning, you could time that to be in nature instead of going to the gym. If it's a beautiful day outside, why not go for a run or a walk outside rather than going to the gym? Even if it's just 10 minutes, like what I do. I love going for a 10 to 15 minute walk with Winston before I go to the gym so that I get that time in nature. It's always by the river or the ocean or in a park, but simply getting time in nature, especially if there's the sunshine out, that makes you feel really good as well and there's been so many scientific benefits that have been proven about nature and how that impacts your happiness as well.
So connection, time in nature, you can absolutely pair them together. You can also pair them with your exercise time, which gets me to my fourth tip which is - morning movement. Now I know that not everyone gets time to move in the morning. I truly believe that a lot of us do have the time. It's just about setting the right priorities. For instance, I know so many mums that will do at home workouts while their child is having a nap in the morning or they'll get up an hour earlier so that they can go and exercise before everyone wakes up. One of my staff members actually wakes up at four o'clock, so that she can get this done before her baby wakes up. Moving your body in the morning and exercising really reduces your stress. It grounds you. It boosts your endorphins.
There are so many positive benefits that you get from moving your body and I try to do this every single morning as well. Sometimes it happens at 7am, sometimes it happens at 8am, sometimes it happens at 10am. I know that I'm different from a lot of people because I work from home but I try to move my body in some way, at some point throughout the morning and it will be when my body feels like a break from screen time. I know a lot of people say to not jump straight onto your screen when you wake up. It just works for me. I like to wake up and have my Before You Speak coffee, which I'm addicted to.
Side Note - if you don't know this yet, I've been drinking it for about five years or longer and if you haven't tried it yet, I have a code ‘healthwithbec’, where you can get 10% off and I have that every single morning whilst I do something like an hour of emails and then when I feel like my body has woken up a bit, as a break, I will do the things that I've said - go for a quick walk with Winston and then I'll go to the gym or I'll go to Pilates and I call it my hour or two of “me time” and then it sets me up for such a happier, more productive day.
If I miss that, which happens very occasionally, if I have a day that's far too busy or if I'm feeling unwell, of course there's some days that I miss that, but I always notice my stress levels when I do miss my morning movement time in the day and so I do try my best to do that even if I'm feeling tired and even if I'm not feeling like it, I'll still go to the gym and do something even if it's just like a 15 minute walk on the treadmill and two arm weight machines. That's actually all I did this morning as an example, but morning movement can really set you up for a positive, happy day as well and I know that some people prefer doing it in the afternoon and that's totally fine. I'm just saying what works for me.
Now for my fifth tip that I do every single morning, no matter what and all of you can definitely do this too is - upbeat music. So I have my coffee in the morning, I do a little bit of work and then when I'm getting dressed for the day, like when I'm getting dressed to go and do my morning movement, I always play really happy, upbeat music. When I'm in the car on the way to do my morning movement, I'll play upbeat music. When I'm at the gym, I will play upbeat music. So I really try my best in the morning to start my day by listening to upbeat music.
Even if you're preparing your kids breakfast or getting dressed or doing the laundry in the morning, music is such a great way to really change your state and it really does help. This morning, I actually woke up feeling a bit flat and some days are just like that but it's amazing how much playing the right songs can really help you, so I needed to just sit in the car for a little bit longer listening to happy music before I felt motivated to go into the gym and then the whole time on the treadmill I was listening to upbeat music and then I actually spoke to a friend, which is one of the tips that I have spoken about in this podcast too, so that was even more connection. Music is key and sometimes we just forget that, music has been proven to change your state. So if you wake up feeling a bit flat, just try to always put upbeat music on because that really helps to set you up for a happy day as well.
Now I have a bonus tip as well, because this one is key, not just for the morning, but this really helps throughout your whole day. Everything I have said actually in this, you can do at any time throughout the day, but I prioritise moments throughout the day to go out in the sunshine, to get a bit more nature time and sunlight time. For instance, on my lunch break, if it's a nice day outside, I'll try and spend five minutes outside eating my lunch and throughout the day, if I get breaks as well and I do a bit of laundry or I'll play upbeat music. You can do all of these things throughout the day, but I'm just specifically talking about in the morning because I prioritise them the most in the morning.
My bonus tip here is to - practice kindness to someone else. This makes you feel so incredibly good about yourself and I had a huge realisation about this too. Obviously, I know this because I have a career where I help people and helping people makes me feel so happy and it has been proven over and over again with science that when you help someone else, it really boosts your own happiness.
Of course, you've got to take care of yourself too, which is everything that I've been talking about in this podcast anyway, but when you help others, it makes you feel really happy. So doing one small thing in the morning to help someone else and show some kindness can really boost your mood for the day ahead as well …
It wasn’t last week, It was the week before, there was a man out the front of the petrol station that couldn't buy breakfast for himself because he didn't have enough money and so I went in, bought my petrol, and then I came out and I realised that I had a $10 note in my car and I thought why not give that to him? It seems like such a small thing to do, to just give someone else $10 but handing him that $10 and seeing the smile on his face about how grateful he was and how much that would have made his morning because he could actually eat breakfast and buy what he wanted, it literally made me get back into the car and I was bursting with so much energy and happiness.
It was a reminder to me that practicing kindness makes you feel so insanely good and I had the best morning that morning. I remember thinking that I have to record this podcast and I really reflected on all of the key things that I did that morning to make me feel like I was jumping off the walls with happiness … I did all of these things. I did spend time in nature. I had connection. I practiced kindness by buying that man breakfast. I was listening to upbeat music. I did my morning movement and I did everything that I've talked about in this podcast and I do try my best to do these things.
So what I want you to ask you now is - are you doing these things in the morning in some way? Even if you could just try to do three of them. It will really help you and I'm sure there are so many other things that can help in the morning. Some people love doing saunas. Some people love going for a swim in the ocean but I guess that goes back to nature and movement.
So I've tried to give you my most broad tips and you can take them in whatever way you want. Some people love doing ice baths. They're incredible for you too, but not everyone has access to an ice bath. I would love to get into them. They are so good for you, but I'm such a pussy and I'm very scared to do them, but I do know some people that have them and they swear by them. I think it's so impressive when they start the morning like that because it makes you feel incredible after.
So they are what I try to do every single morning and they really did help me this morning. Sometimes you need to be a bit more conscious of it. If you wake up feeling a bit flat, sometimes you really just need to force yourself to do those things and then it will set you up for a successful and happy day ahead. Of course, sometimes it doesn't make you feel like superwoman, sometimes you do these things and it doesn't help much at all, but it definitely does help a little bit and then I want you to start reflecting as well - if you do have a day where you feel a bit out of whack and you didn't feel as productive as you wanted or you didn't stick to your healthy goals with your eating, you can always go back and ask yourself - what was missing from my morning?
This quite often happens to me, well it doesn't happen often because I do these things most mornings, but if I have a day that feels overwhelming or stressful or I don't feel grounded or I don't feel inspired, usually those days I can look back to my morning and see what I've missed or I can look to the day before and see what I've done wrong the day before. Maybe I had two glasses of wine and a bad sleep because I know two glasses, instead of one glass affects the quality of my sleep and so I'm like - okay that's a lesson!
There was one day in Melbourne last week or the week before where I actually missed my morning movement and I got straight into work. I was looking at buildings in the city, so I didn't get any time in nature either and I'm really someone that connects with nature and a view and that's just who I am. That's how I've grown this business. I've really needed to see some sort of greenery or water and that's why I've ended up in the new house that I'm in which is just on the river because what my view is what leads and inspires me. So that morning made me realise that I felt really funny all day. I just felt really anxious and I couldn't focus all day, even though I was working all day. I thought - I'm not being productive, what have I done wrong?
Actually, that was the only work day morning in Melbourne that I missed my morning movement and seeing any kind of nature. I did connect with a friend in the morning but I didn't do my morning movement and I didn't see nature and it's a really good reminder sometimes when you have days like that, where you feel a bit out of whack to think - what didn't I do in the morning and what can I improve?
If you're not doing any of these things, I'm really excited for you to try and build them into your morning and you can see how it's not a structured, set out 4am routine. I just try to do these things in really small ways whenever I can throughout the morning and like I said as well, we are all different. We all have different lifestyles but I know that all of you can build these into your life in some way because they can be very simple and quick to do in some way or form.
I hope you are excited to bring these into your life. If you do bring one or two or three or four or five or six, remember my bonus tip there with practicing kindness please let me know, DM me on Instagram and let me know if it's helped you. Another few examples of practicing kindness is if you think about someone and you think that you're proud of them, send them a text and say, “I'm proud of you” or send them a text or give them a phone call and say, “I love you”.
Little things like that can go such a long way because sometimes we forget to give people compliments and that makes you feel amazing or you could do what I did and buy someone breakfast or just little tiny tokens of appreciation or showing kindness in some way. It can literally be as simple as smiling to a stranger in the dog park or on the street and saying good morning because that could actually make someone's day if they're going through a hard time, which a lot of people are.
So they were my tips -
Number #1 - Set yourself up the night before
Number #2 - Spend a little bit of time in nature
Number #3 - Do some morning movement
Number #4 - Some sort of connection
Number #5 - Upbeat music
Bonus Tip - Practicing some small act of kindness
So I hope you enjoyed this. If you did, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts for me, because it would mean the world. It's really how other women find me.
Also, if you're not following me yet, I'm at @health_with_bec on Instagram. You can find all the links to my programs. Step 1 is the 3 Week Body Reset , Step 2 is the Health with Bec Tribe. I really teach women how to lose weight and keep it off whilst also helping their bloating concerns and reducing inflammation in their body with no feelings of missing out. I really help women quit the yo-yo dieting and podcasts like this are so important because, of course, it's hard to make changes with your eating, but I love doing podcasts like this that aren't related to eating because unless you set yourself up right at the beginning of the day, it can be hard to make those changes that you're trying to make.