[00:01] Welcome to The Focus B Show, where Katie Stoddart, high performance coach, interviews experts around the world in performance and mindfulness. Now here's your host. Katie.
[00:34] Welcome to a brand new episode of the Focus B show. How can you craft your perfect, glorious morning routine? This is one of the top topics in terms of productivity, how you can start your day with enthusiasm, with joy, and set the tone for the rest of the day. I remember when I first got into personal development, spent a lot of time looking up ideal morning routines, how to stick at it, how to build these habits to be productive. And finally, I'm happy to say that I'm very happy with my morning routine and that it does help me start each and every day in a productive and serene way. There are different elements that are essential when you look into building your ideal morning routine. First of all, you need to think, do you really want this? And do you really want to dedicate an extra hour or hour and a half to implementing exercise or meditation to your day? Maybe you're the sort of person that likes to have a rushed morning and go straight into work and maybe have a longer break around lunchtime or in the evening so you don't have to have a morning routine. Even though I think there are a lot of benefits to it, the several components that always come up when you look up your ideal morning routine, how you can start the day are spiritually, maybe mindfully, also physically and mentally. So let's look at all these different elements. I like to begin by journaling. So this is a way to activate my brain, to sort of turn the light on in some ways and go from that sleep to a new day. And it's also a very powerful exercise that Julia Cameron promotes in the artist's way. The concept is to write down three pages in full flow without thinking about it, and this releases your creativity. If you have creative projects during the day, or if you want to be more creative in your approach, using a method such as the morning pages can have a huge impact on your creativity, on how your energy flows during the day. What it does is it helps you to release a lot of things that are subconsciously held. This can either be things that are preoccupying you, or projects that you'd like to start, or new ideas, and it really stimulates this innovation. Concepts, ideas, creativity, creation all of this comes through when we get into the habit of practicing morning pages every single day. That's the first step. Second step is meditation. Meditation. It's so incredibly powerful that I could do entire episodes, if not an entire series on the importance of meditation, but in a nutshell, without going through all the benefits. It really helps you to canalize your attention, because every time you meditate, you breathe, you focus on your breath and when a thought arrives you come back to your breath. This is the essence of meditation. Whether it's guided or in silence doesn't matter. And so the idea isn't to not have any thoughts but to notice when you have a thought and come back to breathing. And this helps you during the day to manage your attention because every time you're going to be distracted or do something else you have that split second awareness where you can come back to your main task and activity. So it helps a lot with focus, with the tension, but also with managing emotions and not being too reactive. Because while we meditate, we train the part of the brain that also deals with emotions and stress and this makes it a lot easier to deal with your day's challenges in a more serene way. So meditation I never skip. I use the app inside timer and this helps me to log and see all of my day's progress and it's also a way for me to be held accountable. So on the OD, maybe Saturday or Sunday morning where I want to start the day directly with breakfast, think no, if I skip meditation there'll be a gap on inside timer and it's a way to keep me accountable on the days I'm not motivated. The third part is physical activity. Now, some of you might go to the gym later on or maybe you enjoy going to the gym in the evening. I know that from everything I've read and also from what I've tried, doing it in the morning is great. And if you prefer having a longer workout later on in the evening on top, you can also just do a quick ten minute stretch in the morning because what it does is it really wakes up your body. There's no other way to say this, it wakes up your body, it stimulates you, it activates. And what I've noticed is then it's a lot easier for me to focus at work if I've had a workout. Now, as I particularly enjoy working out in the morning, I try making my main workout of the day unless I have other practices planned and in my case I just do 30 minutes. So it doesn't have to be a two hour workout every morning, just doing half an hour and then I have a morning walk to work to a bit of a commute and then walking a bit during the day and walk back or cycle in the evening. All of this with your half an hour in the morning and maybe a hike or so, the weekend is plenty to be fit to be healthy, energized. It really doesn't have to be 1 hour or 2 hours. That's great. If you enjoy it and you can fit it in, that's fantastic. But I think the most important part is consistency. So having that consistency and doing it every day really pays off in terms of workouts, obviously you can choose whatever you enjoy. I have learned and read that it's great to sweat at least. So to do something a bit intense, I tend to alternate between Pilates, yoga workout, exercise, workout, dancing exercises, pretty much whatever feels right for me in the moment, depending also where I am in my hormonal cycles. Because for women this also does impact our energy. And there are certain times where it's great for us to have an intense workout and other times where it's better for it to be a bit more relaxed and chilled. That was the third element. So after journaling, meditation and physical activity, then I have a cold shower. So for those of you who don't know Wim Hof's work on cold exposure and breathing, I highly recommend it. I'll put a link to his website in the show Notes. Wim HOF is amazing and he talks about the benefits of cold showers and ice baths a lot more than I will be able to in just a few minutes or an episode. This is really his entire domain. In a nutshell, it helps to wake up the body. Let me know how alert you feel after a cold shower to deal with stress. It decreases cortisol and it strengthens your immune system. And I mean, there's just so many benefits. One of the things I've noticed is if you are able to confront this reluctance in the morning, either to exercising and or to taking a cold shower, it makes everything else during the day feel a lot easier, right? Because you've already done something tough, something hard, you've taken that cold shower. So then the rest of the day is really a piece of cake in comparison. The harder it is for you to take a cold shower, the more it will increase your resilience, your perseverance and your determination. So it's really fantastic. I can't promote it enough, just try. There's a way to go about it. You can start with the tepid shower and then go gradually colder. There are many ways to go about this. It's fantastic. So this is a four step and then I have breakfast. I know a lot of you who might be listening do intermeaton fasting. I personally would prefer to skip later in the evening because then it helps me have a really deep sleep. But I never skip breakfast after my workout, my cold shower, I'm hungry and I eat and then I go to work. So this is an overview of my morning routine, but I've based it on the key elements that I've seen everywhere that come up time and time again, which are journaling, meditation, exercise, cold shower and for those of you who want, there's also the option of reading and learning something. I tend to listen to podcasts while I exercise, so that's two things in one go. But also I like to read more in the evenings. This is an overview of how you can craft your morning routine. A really essential tip from Michael Hyatt in his book Free to Focus is also looking at how you start your day at work. So this is how you start your day in the morning, but there's also at work how do you begin your day? And this is by putting down your three main tasks for the day looking at your schedule, looking at your main goals and priorities, and starting with your most important task. This is important because if you start with your task, your most important task, eating that frog. As Brian Tracy says, this will help you to start the day productively. So if you combine this amazing morning routine with all of the different elements and starting your day with your most important task and scheduling your goals for the day, really, you can't go wrong. You're really setting yourself up for success every day. Let me know in the comments if this is useful for you, what you are implementing, how this is helping you. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please subscribe leave a Comment leave a Review thank you for being here today.
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