Happy New Year! Hands up if you have already broken your new year’s resolution? I know I have because I did not make any at the end of last year. I chose to work on building a morning routine in 2020.
Morning-routine stories are all the hype right now in the genre of self-help and self-improvement. The internet is full of stories about how the rich and the famous reveal how they are almost superhuman and energetic based on how they start their day. In those stories, they meditate, run several kilometres, brew the perfect cup of coffee, do some yoga—all before 8 am. The key lesson I inferred from all these articles: a carefully choreographed morning routine is the key to a productive day. These people have it together, the stories seem to imply, and so can you, if you just wake up at 5:30 a.m.
Is this really the case though? The demands of life are different for all of us; kids, traffic, you hate waking up early, and living 20km from the nearest gym sometimes hamper our efforts to model the routines of successful CEOs and Hollywood actors. So how do I become as successful and create a routine that sets me up for success?
I have been working on using my time in the morning to accomplish activities that are personally meaningful or require discipline but are not necessarily related to my work. For me, that has been prayer and meditation. For others, it is exercise or spending time with family or writing for a blog. Things that are personally meaningful tend to be healthy habits that set you up to have a good day.
Creating healthy habits
“Routines are very much linked to habits,” said Martin Hagger, a professor in the School of Psychology and Speech Pathology at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. Hagger studies self-regulation – in other words, how people control their behaviour. His research has shown that creating a routine can be an effective way to create healthy habits because it decreases the effort that comes with decision-making. Hagger has applied his research in his own daily life. He gets up most days by 6 am to exercise and eat a healthy breakfast before arriving at work at 8 am. He said that if he leaves exercising until after his workday ends, he knows he will be too tired or be tempted by other distractions to fit it in. So, before he goes to bed, he lays out his workout gear and sets his alarm for the morning.
But, there are no hard and fast rules. Experts say there is no one ideal time to start your day – every person has different goals, schedules and life situations – they key is to set aside time for a morning routine that works for you. And, if you’re struggling to get up, set your alarm slightly earlier each day until you’re in the habit of waking up early enough.
How to go about building a healthy habit
Building a habit is easier than you think. And if previously you struggled to build one, as one author puts it, when building a habit “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
A habit loop was first mentioned in 1938 by B.F. Skinner in his book ‘The Behavior of Organisms’ as ‘stimulus, response, reward’. Charles Duhigg popularized the concept of the habit loop in his widely popular book ‘The Power of Habit’. In the book, he presents a habit loop formula, that helps you understand and build any habit and basically consists of;
CUE + ROUTINE + REWARD.
What is a cue?
A cue could be anything from a place, time of day, location to smell, sound or emotion. Basically, anything that triggers a certain action or thought and puts your mind and body into the mode of performing a certain routine.
For example, getting into the darkroom, which automatically triggers your habit of looking for a light switch. Or taking the toothbrush and applying toothpaste the way you always do.
What is a routine?
A Routine is an actual behavior, ritual, action you perform that will turn into the habit once performed frequently enough. Thus, turning on the light, applying toothpaste, going into the kitchen. The actions that follow the trigger.
What is a reward?
A Reward is a feeling of satisfaction you get whenever you successfully finish the routine. It sends a positive signal to your brain saying ‘Doing this feels good, you should do more of it!’.
To follow the examples already given, it’s the feeling of being able to see things clearly in the room and feeling of freshness in the mouth when brushing the teeth.
How To Use Habit Loop To Build A Morning Routine?
Firstly, I’ve tried the habit loop formula myself and it works. My own morning routine looks roughly like this:
- Wake up 6.00am
- Pray and meditate for 10min
- Make the bed
- Take a shower
Would you like to have more structured mornings too? Then, follow these 5 steps.
- Write down things that you do every morning already
Waking up, grabbing a phone, stepping out of the bed, taking a shower, heading to the fridge and so on. Be as detailed as possible. This is NOT a place to judge yourself or write a routine you WANT to have. Just write things out as they are. - Choose a habit you want to add into your morning routine
The key to building a routine is started by adding habits one by one. Choose a habit your really you want to have as part of your mornings and then go to step 3. - Stack new habit right on top of one of your current habits
For example, if you take a shower every morning, you could say: “after I take a shower, I will meditate for 10mins”.This concept is called habit stacking and has a simple formula: After/Before I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]. - Make it easy, set small targets first
So small that you could do it even if you’re late to work, sick or have no energy. For example, meditating for at least 3 minutes every morning no matter what. This way you will not feel overwhelmed by the whole mission of building your personal morning ritual and will be more likely to stick with it long enough for it to become a habit. Don’t make a mistake most of us do – starting big with a mentality of ‘all or nothing’, just because we have this sudden boost of motivation and willpower. It’s a short-sighted strategy that fails 9/10 times because life gets in the way. - Track it
Download one of the habit tracking apps or print this habit chain sheet we’ve prepared for you. By tracking your habit, you will shoot many birds with one stone – you’ll make it satisfying by seeing your progress, you’ll be motivated to keep going and you’ll get an additional trigger to perform your routine.
After a couple of weeks, this will become more and more automatic for you. And a couple of months later you won’t even remember life without your new habit!
Written by: Moses Wachira, Growth & Expansion Manager at Nova Pioneer.
