Creating a personal morning routine has been something I’ve tried here and there, but nothing has really stuck. I think trying out some different things and thinking out the successes and failures in writing will help me, and possibly you, find a good routine and stick to it.

Over the past week, I’ve started my mornings with three things a physical stimulus, mental stimulus, and a first win of the day. I’ve tried a couple of different approaches to each but will continue trying new ones over the next few weeks.

To start things out, I usually try to wake my body up. The goal here isn’t to exhaust myself, but to simply shake out from laying in a bed for hours. This past weekend, I was lucky enough to A) have warm weather to go outside in shorts and a t-shirt and B) be in a convenient spot to go outside easily, my grandpa’s house. Because of this, I was able to try out a recommendation from a YouTube video that helped get the ball rolling for this, jump roping in the sun for a few minutes. Afterward, spending a few minutes with some dynamic stretches, which involve moving the body around instead of stretch-and-hold type stretches. So far this has been my favorite, though I think largely due to the rarity of the weather previously stated in the Midwest during early March. Other than the jump rope + stretch, I’ve done a combination of jumping jacks, push-ups, and sit-ups with some brief stretching. Both accomplished the base goal, to get the body moving and awake.

Once my blood was flowing and my body was ready to start the day, I then would shift my focus to my mind. Thus far, I’ve tried both reading and meditation as methods of mental priming for the day. I’ve tried meditation before, and it was often the final part of my yoga practices, but for some reason, I can never stick to it. I will admit, doing it right off the bat in the morning has made it more enjoyable. Getting my mind on a certain wavelength early in the day has helped me get a hold of my mind when it starts to stray from that wavelength, usually down a path to a dark or at best unproductive place. Morning meditation has helped me to build a foundation for the day, usually giving myself some positive mantra I can tell myself when my mind wanders to bring me back to where I need to be.

A specific example of this involves when I went to see some friends this past weekend while spending some time in my hometown. For whatever reason my mind was throwing negative thoughts my way and I was feeling kind of bummed out, but then I just repeated some of the phrases in that meditation, which to be honest I can’t even think of right now, and I was right back where I wanted to be, having fun and sharing stories.

The final piece of my routine puzzle is to set my day up with a win. This can be easier or harder depending on planning the prior night. Most mornings so far, I’ve come up with what I want to tackle before going to bed and put it on my to-do list. This makes jumping into that task fast and easy, and most things I can wrap up in a matter of minutes. The nights that I didn’t come up with a first win, I spend more time coming up with what to do than the actual task takes. The beauty of the first win is that it doesn’t need to be overly complicated. A few simple examples from just this past week are tidying up my car and setting up my mail list template.

The key element of your first win is to accomplish something in the day. Have you ever had a day where you look back and can’t think of anything you “accomplished” and think “today was a waste?” Getting yourself a win right away gives you momentum to push thru the rest of the day. The win can be small maintenance tasks, most of mine from this week have been, but can also be progress on personal projects, side-hustles, creative work, etc. The win can be big or small, it’s up to you to define it.

I’ll come right out and say it, I did not accomplish my routine every morning. On the very day I’m typing this, I woke up nearly an hour later than expected and had to rush over to work to get in at a reasonable time, not necessarily “on-time.”

Tim Ferriss has a great quote that he uses when discussing following a diet plan, “The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit.” This quote came to me as I made my way into work. I missed a day so I have two options, tell myself I have to quit completely because I missed one day, or just move on and try to set up better systems to avoid this in the future. Something about option two feels a bit better, I can’t quite put my finger on it.

All in all, it’s important to forgive yourself for mistakes. They will happen.

The major lesson I’ve learned in week one has been that the success of your morning routine relies on the prior evening. If I didn’t set myself up for a successful morning, it’s not likely one will just happen by chance. Getting to bed at a decent time and deciding on a win to start the day are two simple steps that can be taken to set up your morning for success.

A second lesson I took away was the concept of moving past one bad day. It may sound obvious, but when you’re in the shoes of the person who messed up a plan you feel thrown off. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of “why do this tomorrow if you didn’t today?” Luckily, I shortly answered something along the lines of “because it’s good for me.” Messing up is tough, but it’s going to happen. Forgive yourself and keep moving forward.