Win the morning - Win the day
/
“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
I have never been an early riser. Unless I am catching an early morning flight, getting up before the sun is over the horizon is as uncommon for me as it is ungodly. Why on Earth would anyone want to get up before the birds have begun to sing. Yet over the last three years, I have gotten up around 5:30 AM on weekdays and 6:30 AM on weekends. It started as just an experiment but soon I became addicted to the early mornings. Getting up before anyone else does gives me the time and the space to do the things necessary to get my mind and body into the best state possible to face the day. After three years of getting up early as consistently as possible, I can confirm that the extra hour or so I get, gives me an advantage throughout the day.
Below, I’m going to share with you the things I do in the morning that help get me ready for the day. Also, there is a clip from Jim Kwik, founder of KwikBrain that explains what his key steps in the morning are that help get him into the best state possible.
ACTION 1: EXERCISE
A little light exercise first thing in the morning is not only good for you physically, but it’s great for you mentally too. Now, you don’t need to go nuts and hit the gym with massive workouts. We’re not looking to build muscle or reduce fat (although you can use this time to both those things if you want). What we’re wanting to do is to get the hear rate up above its average and oxygenate the body. This means elevating the hear rate and getting a little bit of sweat going.
For me, I alternate between going for a walk for 30 minutes (also helps to hit the 1000 step daily goal) and going two rounds using the 7 minute work out routine. There are a variety of apps available for free that give you a full body workout.
What this little exercise does is to wake up your mind and your body. Pumping your body with oxygen and increase blood flow. Your brain become more alert, which also improves your memory, and resilience. Do this on a regular basis, and you will find that your tolerance for unexpected things happening increases.
ACTION 2: COLD SHOWER
After exercising, I take a shower because who wants to work with someone who smells like sweat right. But this is a shower with a twist. After all the mundane shower activities are done, I reach over to the tap and turn it all the way to the right for completely cold shower. It is an exhilarating experience and one that takes a lot of mental effort to accomplish, especially in Winter. I stay in the cold shower for at least 30 seconds although I’ve now increased this to a full minute.
There are many benefits to cold showers that have been proven scientifically. You can research them yourself but for me, cold showers have done the following:
Further waking up the body and the mind. If you’re not awake after a cold shower in the morning and feel ready to tackle the day, then perhaps you need a caffeine injection.
Raises the level of alertness in the mind while helping you be more mindful. Trust me, nothing forces you to drop everything in the mind and focus on what you’re feeling than ice cold water on your head.
Raises your level of tolerance in general. Think about it, if you have the mental strength to turn the tap to a full on cold shower in the morning (especially in Winter), imagine what else you can accomplish if you applied this mental strength to everything in the day.
The trick to sustaining this is to start off easy. 30 seconds. No more. Then, as you grow more accustomed to it, raise it in 10 second increments.
ACTION 3: MEDITATE OR JUST BREATHE
This is something I’ve adopted for the last six months and while I can’t specifically articulate the exact benefits, I do feel that it is contributing to the day. My approach is to spend five minutes just sitting quietly and focusing on my breathing, followed by five minutes of Wim Hof’s breathing. Again, science has proven that there are many benefits to deep breathing in the morning for both you mental and physical health.
You can follow the Hof himself in his breathing instruction video. I highly recommend you giving it a go. To feel your entire body tingling from just breathing is an amazing experiences.
ACTION 4: READ A BOOK
Science has proven that your mind is sharpest early in the morning, hence you should always tackle the most difficult tasks first. Therefore, before heading into the office, I spend about 20 minutes reading self improvement books. While the house and the world is still quiet, and the mind is sharp from the exercise, cold shower, and breathing, there is no better time to understand and retain what you have read.
I’m currently reading The Courage to be Disliked. By reading in the morning, I retain more of what I’ve read and remember it throughout the day than if I tried to read it at night, go to bed, and completely forget everything.
Photo by Abhiram Prakash from Pexels
Commanding genuine respect, one that doesn’t rely on your position power is one of the hardest things to do for an introvert. There are five simple actions we can adopt straight away that can help us to establish our presence in the room and command the attention and focus on what we have to say.