How to Master Your Habits and Routines in 5 Steps

Morning routines and habits are a powerful way to start your day on the right foot. And by creating regular habits, routines, and rituals, you can use your unconscious mind to put the habits on auto-pilot, creating positive momentum rather than going into reactive mode.

Depending on where you’re at in life, mastering your morning routines and habits may look different than the person sitting beside you. Are you an early riser or a night owl? A parent or a frequent traveler? Do you prefer to exercise in the morning or slowly start the day? What about your work? Are you an entrepreneur, a creative, or work the 9-5?

If you’re new to morning routines, remember you can start simply. The five healthy habits we will share here can be easily adopted at your own pace. Just remember that small incremental changes can have big results. Too often, we convince ourselves that massive results need massive actions. But it is the small compound changes that make a difference over time,

And understand that progress doesn’t happen overnight. It can feel frustrating when you’re working on introducing new habits and it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Have patience. The results will come.

So before we get to the five habits to master your morning, remember to focus on the process of having a fantastic morning. If you do this, you’ll find more happiness in the little things and have a magical day.

Map Out the Plan

I’ve found that having a well thought out plan or schedule helps my productivity and effectiveness both at work as well as home. For my morning routine, I work backwards from when I need to start work to figure out how the routines and habits fit with the amount of sleep I need, other commitments and generally how I’m feeling.

I use the Oura ring to guide my planning. If my readiness score was low, I might need to go to bed earlier or get more sleep. If I need to wash and dry my hair, it will take more time. Looking at my Heart Rate Variability (HRV), I might need to focus more on emotional or spiritual well-being.

I am an early riser and really do enjoy the 5 am wake up. It helps me fit my morning routine into the time before the kids wake up. But in order not to wake the entire household up at 5 am, I layout my clothes the night before and even prepare my breakfast and lunch the previous day, so I’m not clanging around in the kitchen when the family is sleeping.

So, my plan might look something like this:

5 am – wake up and meditate.
5.30 am – grab a tall glass of water, take my supplements and grab my journal.
5.40 am – write my daily pages in my journal.
6 am – depending on how I’m feeling, stretch or do tabata exercises.
6.15 am – have a cold shower, get ready for work, make the bed.
7 am – wake the kids up, and either have breakfast with them or go into work if I have early meetings.

Meditate

When I wake up at 5 am, I lie there for a few moments and recall my dreams. Dreams often provide clues or guidance to make new discoveries, increase self understanding, put forth solutions to problems, and expand creativity. I find that when I’ve had solid REM sleep, it’s easier to recall the dreams.

Try recalling your dreams when you wake in the morning. You might be surprised with the messages they are sending you.

I started meditating a few years ago. I can honestly say that I was a skeptic. A total non believer. Actually, the first time I tried to meditate, I sat on the floor and lasted two minutes. Now, I prefer longer sessions of at least 20 minutes. I’ve tried some apps like Calm but mostly use HeadSpace . I often have many of the HeadSpace “packs” on the go, and will decide what my body needs at a point in time. For instance, if I have a challenging meeting scheduled, I might focus more on kindness and patience. At other times, I enjoy prioritization and productivity packs.

There are also a lot of guided meditation or meditation music available on YouTube. I really enjoy meditations on topics like confidence and abundance to get my day started. Some of these are so powerful that I find myself back in REM sleep. Most recently, I’ve been exploring chakra meditation and find places like MindValley to have brilliant courses in this topic. If you’d prefer in-person coaching or classes, I find SpaFinder to be a great place to find services to get pampered, fit and well, including meditation. And right now, you can click here to buy a gift card of $50 or more, and get 10% off using the promo code SPALOVING .

Morning Pages

Next, I grab a tall glass of water and take my supplements. At the moment, I take liposomal glutathione (for cellular health). Glutathione is a molecule found naturally in the body and plays a key role in antioxidant defense, the breakdown of nutrients, and regulation of many biological processes, including the immune response. I also take probiotics for gut health, as well as liposomal vitamin C.

And although I’m not a licensed healthcare professional, I’ve found these supplements to help with my energy and inflammation levels.

Next, is the favorite part of my morning routine. Journaling. I’ve written an article about how to start journaling . I start my journaling with free flow writing and finish with four topics related to: my life goals, things I’m grateful for, identifying who I will serve, and who I will forgive. You can download a free worksheet of my journal template here.

By writing my daily affirmations and thinking positively, I’m aiming to increase my vibrations and energy levels. I find that I need my behaviors and beliefs to not contradict one another, so the more a behavior is repeated, the more it is reinforced.

Move

The fourth habit to master your morning is to move. There seems to be different thoughts about what the movement should be. Personally, some days I head to Orange Theory Fitness for a HIIT workout. Other mornings, I will complete a Tabata workout that lasts only four minutes per exercise. The workout has me working hard for 20 seconds and then resting for 10 seconds, completing this 8 times. I find it easy to do squats, push-ups, burpees or any other exercise that works large muscle groups. So the workout might include:

Push-ups (4 minutes).
Bodyweight Squats (4 minutes).
Burpees (4 minutes).

Depending on how I’m feeling, I might stretch or complete yoga poses. My favorites in the morning are sun salutations, chair pose, downward facing dog, low lunge, triangle pose, warrior 3, dancer pose and wide leg forward fold. When it’s not too cold outside, I love doing yoga outdoors in bare feet.

Earthing is a great practice to have the bare feet or skin come in contact with the earth, with free electrons being taken into the body. These help neutalize free radicals that cause inflammation in the body. Some of the positive impacts of earthing are reported to be:

Diffusing the cause of inflammation.
Improving sleep and especially deep sleep.
Reducing or eliminating chronic pain.
Increasing energy and vitality.
Relieving muscle tension and headaches.
Reducing or eliminating jet lag.
Accelerating recovery from intense athletic activity.

This is one of the reasons I make an effort to feel the earth with my bare skin after flying, and especially when experiencing jet lag.

Method (Wim Hof)

The fifth habit is an interesting one. And let me start by saying I’m not using the full Wim Hof method but rather, I take cold showers. And yes, it’s as uncomfortable as it sounds.

Cold therapy reportedly helps with: boosting the immune system, improving mental health, improving sports performance, relieving stress, getting better sleep, increasing willpower, boosting concentration and improving creativity, to name a few benefits.

When I first started, all I could bear was a few seconds under the cold water. Now, I stand under the cold water for 3 minutes, before warming up again. I do this routine 3 times. This next part will probably sound crazy, but I also do squats, knee raises and dumbbell punches (without the dumbbells – I am in the shower after all) during those 3 minutes.

This helps take some of the attention away from the discomfort and the rhythmic movements seem to make the time go faster.

Key Takeaways

Mastering your morning is one of the best ways to have a brilliant day. These 5 habits: map out the plan, meditate, morning pages, move, and method will help guide you towards a productive and joyful day.

One more thing. Remember to write out your goals for the day. I prefer writing 3 work goals and 3 personal goals each day. They might not all be big things. It might be booking dentist appointments for the kids. Or finish writing a paper for work.

And finally, your best morning routine is the routine that suits you. Success happens when you take steps to make a change or hit a goal. Every action makes a difference. Celebrate the changes and build on them, to master your day.

What habits or actions do you take to master your day?