Building a habit can be hard and challenge you on different levels. Tell me about it!

This blog will give you insight into the secrets of securing your new habit and make it easier for you to persist in your new way of living.

These are 5 actionable steps you can take to implement your habit better and be indestructible in keeping yourself to it.

Building a habit is always hard at first since you have to break down your old habit and construct your new one.
Be aware that in the beginning, from my own experience especially the first 2 weeks, your mind is going to rebel against your new habit like a crazy person.
I bet you’ll come up with excuses that you never thought you could have about waking earlier. Know that this is your brain and actually fear that’s making up excuses for you, why you shouldn’t do it. Your brain is trying to protect you and wants to stay with the familiar because, who knows, maybe it will not work out, what are the consequences when waking up early or what if you might hurt yourself in some way.

Please don’t be alarmed and just examine the thoughts and feelings you get from this and be really rational about it. Is this thought actually relevant, true or is it benefiting me?

As long as you take good care of yourself and make sure you get enough sleep, you’ll be just fine.
You can kiss almost any excuse goodbye. If you really want to change your morning ritual, make sure you’re giving yourself at least 2 months to try it out.

There are 3 phases in these approximately 2 months;
destruction of old habit, installation of the new habit, and last but not least the implementation of the habit and making it your new standard.

So what are the “5 Insider Secrets” that helped me to secure my habit?

o   Five Second Rule

o   Set small goals that push you (out of your bed)

o   Build a Routine

o   Benefit of Intention

o   Affirmations

1. Five Second Rule

This rule is different from the one you might know from dropping food on the floor and picking it up within 5 seconds. This 5-second rule was made popular by Mel Robins in her book “The 5 Second Rule”.
To give you a quick idea of what this is about, it’s actually very simple.

Whenever you try to rise early and some thought or excuse is coming up, to stop it from rattling on and getting you down the rabbit hole and letting you squeeze out from your commitment, you count down from 5 to 0 and just put your feet on the floor next to your bed.

When doing this you push yourself to do that one thing that actually takes you over the bridge and make it easy peasy to do everything else after that. Believe me, actually getting out of bed is the hardest part for me.

After doing this for a while you actually train yourself in doing this without there being a negative thought or excuse that might keep you from rising early.

2. Set Small Goals that Push You

When you wake up and you actually feel tired or you’re just overwhelmed by all the things you want to do in your morning routine, just break your responsibilities down into small or even really small goals. This will feed your motivation to just do it and rise earlier.

One of mine is to brush my teeth (the first thing I do in the morning) at a certain time each morning.
I made it my goal that I just can’t miss. When I’m brushing my teeth at exactly 5 AM in the morning, I tricked my mind a bit by focusing on my small accomplishment and not actually scaring myself with the list of things that I want to do in the Morning Routine. I can check off my first goal for today and most importantly I’m UP!

3. Build a Routine

Have a step-by-step routine and keep yourself to it as much as possible.

We are talking about routine in a morning routine. Could it get any more strict?

Wait ……..I’ll elaborate on this.
When you have an order in the things you want to do in your routine, eventually, you will just go through it like a breeze. It will be your new way of doing things. Do this instead of doing what feels good to do next because this will not stick with you and it will be harder to perform the routine because it’s focused on how you’re feeling or what is most convenient for you at that moment in time.

Here is an example of a routine:

• Brush teeth

• Exercise for 15 to 20 min.

• Journal for 15 min.

• Read or listen to helpful or educational material

• Shower

• Get ready for work

Let’s say this is what you came up with as your routine. If you keep yourself to it, you’ll have hardly any problems with it and just breeze through it with ease.

4. Benefit of Intention

Intentions are strong!!!
If your intention is to become one of those people who are high performers in life and need a morning routine to get a head start in their day, this can be a very strong motivation to keep going.

What is it that you actually want to achieve or accomplish with this new habit of yours?

Do you want to belong to a certain group of people? Do you want to be fit and healthy and invest in daily exercise? Do you want to give yourself a chance to learn, early in the morning and become better in your craft? Your intention has a great influence on what effort you are putting in, use this as an extra drive to push you.  

5. Affirmations

You might have heard that affirmations are powerful. They really are!

The most important voice you can listen to, to motivate and propel you, is your own voice.
You can speak your affirmations out loud or record them and listen to them just before you go to bed to implement what you are saying to yourself and you want yourself to hear:

o   Tell yourself you are an early bird

o   Waking up early is easy

o   List your benefits of waking up early

o   Promote how you would feel after doing your morning routine, etc.

In any way you can, speak some motivation and inspiration to yourself. Whatever it takes to make you feel pumped and excited to make the best of your morning.

Conclusion

These are the 5 things I did to implement my Morning Routine. Try it out and see what works for you.

You don’t have to do it all but I think it will have a significant difference in how you view your mornings when you implement these “secrets”. When you combine them all together one action will probably have it’s influence on another and will have a positive chain reaction.

To conclude this blog, like I said before, be aware that you will have some urge of drawback and your brain is going to tell you to quit and just don’t do it. I want to encourage you to follow through and get past the phase of destruction and get implementing.
However, do consider your own health, you are responsible for that! I can’t advise you anything since I’m not a doctor of any sort. Do what feels good and seems reasonable for you and your health (mentally and physically).

I wish you all the best and hopefully the tips are helpful for you to implement your new habit.

Good luck!  

Do you want to read other posts on Morning Routines? Click here.