{"id":4344,"date":"2020-10-08T12:31:03","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloomsoup.com\/?p=4344"},"modified":"2021-09-19T15:33:51","modified_gmt":"2021-09-19T15:33:51","slug":"the-importance-of-morning-rituals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloomsoup.com\/the-importance-of-morning-rituals\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Morning Rituals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
One of my most striking revelations in recent years has been the importance of morning rituals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you’re tired of chaotic days and abandoned goals, this is how to regain control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let’s dive in. But first, a familiar scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You wake up without an alarm and laze in bed, idly scrolling through the socials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Switching to the news, you get blasted in the face with negativity for half an hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Slowly, you drag yourself out of bed and search forlornly for your running gear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hungry, you decide to eat breakfast instead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now you wonder whether you should go for coffee or start that side project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unsure what you’re in the mood for, you get sucked into a YouTube spiral, watching hilarious cat videos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By this time, it’s late morning and your most productive hours are behind you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sequence of events constitutes a morning ritual, just an unproductive and largely unrewarding one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s also one I’ve repeated often. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sure, self-indulgence is great at the time, but afterwards you feel like a wastrel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This type of morning ritual is structureless, resulting in confusion and inaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We waste inordinate time thinking about what to do next instead of acting with intention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, the afternoon rolls around and we have little to show for our day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our most important aims remain undone, with compounding frustration and self-castigation soon after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death\u2019s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it\u2026 Life is long if you know how to use it.” Seneca<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was only when I became more intentional about my morning rituals that I experienced significant life shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The quality of our mornings affects the quality of our days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In his book, The Miracle Morning<\/a>, Hal Elrod expounds the benefits of high-performance habits after recovering from a near-fatal car crash and crippling debt and depression,<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days\u2014which inevitably create a successful life\u2014in the same way that unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre days, and ultimately a mediocre quality of life. By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Humans operate like a flywheel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It takes energy to engage in rewarding activities, but once we’re in motion, our momentum is easily maintained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This flywheel is easier to crank first thing after waking when we have the energy to push our most important tasks forwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once progress is underway, it becomes like a snowball effect, our productivity flywheel obliterating our other daily to do’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By creating our morning ritual with intention, we flow from one activity to the next like a zen monk, completely focused and present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Time becomes our ally as we glide seamlessly from one task to the next, devoid of indecision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s a glorious feeling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Reaching late morning, rather than being infused with regret of missed opportunity, we feel we’ve pushed our most important projects along and seized the day, a sensation analogous to the runner’s high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It all starts the night before, setting your intentions for the next day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Deciding in advance your exact actions the next morning avoids analysis paralysis and relapse into old habits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A good wind-down routine in addition to going to sleep earlier will help you wake up feeling refreshed<\/a> and ready to go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, it’s great to have set a daily start time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Morning rituals are not wholly dependent on alarms, but getting up at the same time each day has a huge psychological impact, making life much easier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to create a nourishing morning routine, but don’t have the time before work, you know the deal. Wake up earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe importance of morning rituals<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Creating a morning routine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n