Resilience Starts With A Powerful Morning Ritual
A well-thought-out morning ritual jumpstarts your day with a sense of purpose and direction that boosts productivity and enhances your overall well-being. I akin my morning ritual to a warmup before a run. It sets the tone for the day by warming up my mind, body and soul, so I’m better postured to tackle the inevitable [and sometimes, unforeseen] challenges, hence, it builds my resilience.
Creating healthy habits builds our threshold for tackling adversarial challenges more resiliently. Think of lifting weights. You don’t get stronger by going to the gym every now and then. You get stronger by going regularly, over time. You build a base. That’s what habits do, and that’s what your morning ritual is, a habit. Your habits are who you are and they are the foundation of our lives because they happen subconsciously.
Habit formation has three stages. Let’s make it simple; starting, struggling and performing. It’s relatively easy to get started…you’re excited about something new, you see the benefits, you see yourself at the finish line…it’s the honeymoon phase of a new relationship. As a couple weeks pass, you lose that edge and start lying to yourself. Life happens and you let it, instead of controlling it. Your child wakes up in the middle of the night and you lose two hours of sleep…you decide to sleep in because you need the rest for the day, subsequently skipping your routine. This struggling phase is the hardest. As Robin Sharma puts it in his book The 5AM Club, “it’s messy.” Try not to skip more than one day and even if your morning ritual happens later in the day, or it gets broken up, do it when you can and show up the next morning. But most importantly, be kind to yourself when you miss a day. If you make this a negative experience, you’re less likely to keep doing it. There’s no timeline for forming habits, only repetition. It’s different for everyone so just do what you set out to do, regardless of what happens and you’ll be in the performing stage before you know it. This is where the magic happens. You are addicted to the ritual and just like in the weight room, you are building a base.
I break my mornings into segments. When I started my ritual years ago, I sat down and asked myself what I need to do every single day to posture myself more resiliently. My five segments/blocks are body, mind, soul, personal and productivity. Every single morning I go through the same ritual to make sure I hit these segments. This is one of the ways I posture myself to be more resilient. I also feel accomplished and reap the benefits of each task.
Breaking down the ritual
Soul - Proven to reduce stress and anxiety, I have found this to be THE BEST tool for managing non-reactivity and the ability to adequately process information in a stressful event. Moreover, it allows me to slow down during the day and focus on one thing at a time. I have found the calm app to be the best for this practice.
Mind - Your mind is a muscle. If you stop learning new things, it gets harder to learn new things. Keep it agile. You also need to be well-rounded and well-learned to be a high performer. The blinkist app is great for this. By getting blips of books each morning, I get different topics to work on throughout the day, and it fires up my brain for what’s to come.
Personal - these are generally house chores…garbage, unloading dishes, prepping kids’ school bags, feeding the dog…etc etc
Productivity - Review what you have to do today. Review your calendar and see if there is anything you need to prepare for. But mostly, look at your goals…EVERY SINGLE DAY. Are you on track? Do you need to update them? Are you showing up how you should to reach them? When I was second-in-command on my third deployment in Iraq, I created what I call a “Daily Roll-up” to manage all the different departments that reported to me. I used to print it off every day and keep it in the breast pocket of my uniform, but now I have them laminated and use alcohol pens, one for each day of the week. The beauty of having it folded up and on you is that you never miss a beat…someone stops you and asks you for something, boom…things never get missed. I have a small calendar at top, right and timeline for the day top-left. The rest of the page is segmented into the blocks that I have to manage. This is where tasks and notes go. Notes get an asterisk and tasks get a box…then, I prioritize everything with a red pen, usually just 1 to 3, sometimes to 5. On the back side of this are my goals. Review them every single day so you know what you are working toward.
Body - I do this last because I want my body to be a little looser than it was when I wake up. I also do this last because I think of the day during my runs/workouts…running is a great time for creative thinking. Being a runner, I always have a plan or a race I’m training for. By following this rigid schedule, my mind adapts to following schedules I have set for myself. I stay disciplined in the things I have to show up for. Because I want to keep running, I make sure I get adequate sleep and nutrition to recover. It’s time-consuming so I’m more intentional with what I do during the day. And mostly, it trains you to stay the course. You train yourself to set a goal, make a plan and stay disciplined to maintain the schedule, which is how we should execute all facets of our lives to be high performers.
The morning ritual is going to take 1-2 hours each day. Robin Sharma has techniques for his morning ritual that take one hour. Mine takes a little longer, but is complete no later than 0615 AM. So, when many people are waking up to start grinding, I’m already in it…I have already primed everything I need to dominate the day. So, in closing, do some soul-searching and find out who you want to be in the world and what you should be doing…EVERY SINGLE DAY…to build that base, that threshold that keeps rising, so you fall higher, and are more resilient. Creating this habit/ritual will take time and it will be hard, but remember, nothing worth doing is easy. This is how you find happiness. I wish you all the success on your journey.
My Morning Ritual
0400 - Wakeup / let dog out / feed dog / use restroom / drink 10 oz athletic greens / start coffee
0410 - Meditate (Calm app)
0425 - Blinkist app while doing house chores
0445 - Daily roll-up - tasks and agenda for the day / review goals
0500 - Physical activity
0615 - Breakfast / personal hygiene (cold shower)
0630 - Ready to dominate
