A morning routine to be successful

You might be a night owl, or you also might be a morning person. You might live in San Francisco or you might live in Melbourne. You might be working from home, or you might have to commute to work. While everybodys lives are different, there is something we all have in common. At some point, all of us start a new day. That shows us that we are actually alive.

Everybody starts their days in a different way, but not all of us are happy with it. We read and try a lot to be as successful as our idols and therefore we copy their morning habits. We try to be more efficient in the morning, we try to make sure that our morning routine gives us more productive time during the day.

We read a lot from self-called coaches that say to have found the perfect morning routine after analyzing the successful people. They just list what the others do and as a result you should do the things that are most common in the lives of the successful people. What they never count in is the fact, that everybody has a different life and everybody lives under different circumstances. That makes their "10 rules to follow in the morning to be successful" things quite useless.

What I can offer

During my ten years as a freelancer and even after it, I tried a lot of these presets for routines and some of them even worked for me in the beginning, but most of them just made me unhappy in a long term.

It took me a while to realize that all those rules will never help me and I went on to find my own truth. And now I want to give you one single advice that you need to follow to find your own truth on how your morning routine should look like.

The perfect morning routine

So what is the perfect morning routine to be successful? The answer is quite simple: The only ingredient you need is happiness. Make sure that you kick off your day happily and with a positive mood and the whole day will be a lot better and you will be way more productive.

Now spend some time and think back: What are the things that make you happy in the morning and what are the things that do exactly the opposite?

Increase positivity, decrease negativity

Find the positive things and start the day with exactly those. Do you like to do sports in the morning? Do it! You like to spend some more time in bed instead? Do it! You like to take a long shower? You like to read? Or spend some time with your kids and making them ready for school makes you happy? Then do it!

At the same time avoid things you do not like. Don't read the news if you don't like it. Don't do a morning run just because someone told you it's good for your body shape. Don't wake up early in the morning if you are not a morning person.

Not really a routine

And as every morning routine is different for everyone, there is no real routine either. You won't feel the same every single day when you wake up. So start your single day the way you feel like and not using a schedule on how to do it.

I'm for example a really organized person. I plan almost everything in my life, no matter if they are of business nature or totally private stuff. But in the morning hours there is absolutely no schedule anymore. I wake up and start the way I like.

Sometimes I feel ready for a morning run, then I would grab my clothes and shoes and just go for a run. After the run I would happily walk back to my apartment and watch the people who just started their days while I already finished a task.

On other days I would just stay in bed, grab the current fictional book that I'm reading and dive into another world. Then I would slowly start my day.

It all depends on your daily mood. But if you make sure to start your day with a smile, you will be able to do every task throughout the day, no matter how tough it might be.

Conclusion

So you see, there is not a master ruleset for a morning routine. There is only one rule that you should follow to find your own perfect morning routine. And that is to start your day happily.

If you now, knowing this piece of advice, look at your idols and their routines, it will make sense. They all do things in the morning that they really like. They enjoy the things that they do in the morning and prepare to start the day with a positive mood. So do it as they do and start your day happily.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash