Setting up a morning routine will help you be more successful, so let’s make your mornings rock! One thing I did a lot in the past year, more than I did in any other year, is to read more than I ever have. I was reading most of the books about entrepreneurship, business, mindset, and personal development.

I noticed a common theme, that a lot of guys were talking about their morning routines, and how these helped them be more successful. I looked at mine, and my morning routine was sh*t, honestly. I would do whatever, spend way too much time on Facebook, and not get through the things I needed to get done.

I started looking at doing a morning routine, but what’s the best way to do it?

Who does this, who does that? Jocko…if you follow him he gets up way too early, I can’t do that.

I was trying to find my happy medium and then I stumbled across a book, it was called How To Be Fucking Awesome by Dan Meredith. It’s a really good book about being successful overall. When you get to the productivity chapter, he goes in-depth about planning things like that, how the morning routine is so important, and the things he does. I started emulating some of the things he does and then changing things the way I’d do it. It tied things together for me I could go through and get my morning routine done.

I started doing that, and as the routine builds, I feel like I get way more stuff done. I’m way more productive and I usually have a better day. I’m going to share with you guys some of the things that I do, and some of the things I recommend that you do, to be more successful, get more done, and not feel like you’re having to do a million things.

One thing I picked up by having a morning routine is that my stress level has gone down a little bit because I’m knocking things out earlier, and I don’t have to sit there and worry about it until the end of the day.

One thing that has made the biggest impact on me is don’t grab my phone and get on Facebook first thing in the morning. I know probably almost everybody does that. It’s a very common thing. You want to grab your phone, go on Facebook, check your email, and you end up going down the rabbit hole. Then you’re like “oh my God, I have to get to work” or “I have to get to my office,” and you’ve got nothing done.

If you try to do a two-hour productivity block before you go to work, you’re going to quit after a couple of days. So just start off with something simple and something easy. Get up in the morning and stay off Facebook, at least for the first 30 minutes.

Okay, I’m going to give you a way you can get a whole bunch of stuff done in a little bit of time — having a morning routine:

1. Get up in the morning, but don’t get on your phone yet. A good trick is to wake up early. You don’t have to get up at 4:30 in the morning but find the time. Even if you only get up five minutes earlier, or 10 minutes earlier, or whatever it is. Start small, like a mini-habit, and then build up bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger, so you can get things done.
2. Walk over to the coffee pot, and fire up your coffee. If you don’t drink coffee, then drink tea, or whatever. Drink a couple of glasses of water before your coffee. Get lots of water in. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate…you’ll feel better and healthier, so make sure you hydrate.
3. Then while the coffee’s brewing, drop down and knock out five, 10, 100, or however many pushups you can do, and then do some squats. Get the blood pumping, and your mind fired up.
4. Then what I do is I go…I will grab my phone, still stay off Facebook, but go to my app, and check my bank account. Okay, what bills need to be paid today? All right got that done, that done, that done, boom, okay, good. Done, bills are paid. I know what I need to get done today financially.
5. Next for me is to get the kids to school. I have to get rid of them, no I’m just kidding, but get the kids off to school so then things settle down a little bit and I can process and think.
6. What I’ll do after that is grab a book, I recommend this over and over again. Audiobooks are great, but you don’t retain as much, I definitely don’t. So grab a book and start reading. You don’t have to read a whole chapter but just read 10 pages. Read the book, and get comfortable with it. It can be a different subject matter but get comfortable with reading 10 pages a day. It’s not going to take that long.
7. The next thing that was a really big shift for me is writing in a journal. Building these habits is going to help push you to that next level that you want to get to, which we talk about in the compound effect. When I write in my journal, I want to simplify it and not write down a hundred things that I need to do. I’ll ask myself ‘what’s the one thing that I have to get done today that will make this day successful?’.
8. Another thing that really helps is to write down what you’re grateful for. When you’re having a crap day, or you’re stressed out, things like that…just write down a couple of sentences about what you’re grateful for, what you’re happy for in your life. It really changes your attitude on things when you look at how you might not be where you want to be yet, but maybe you have a great spouse, or great kids, or you’re really proud of the weight you lost, things like that. Just be grateful. It puts you in a much better tone for the day.
9. Now what I’ll do is hop on my email. I’ll check my email, send some off, and reply to any important emails that I have. Then at this time, I will get on Facebook because everybody does. One thing that has helped a lot, I try to stay off the timeline and just check my notifications. I check my notifications and review those because that’s usually something that’s important that I need to get done.

One thing I’ve noticed, when I follow this routine I get way more sh*t done. I’m way less stressed out and I feel more successful. I feel more in control of what I need to get done.

So that’s basically my morning routine. You can tweak it, change it, think it’s stupid, whatever, however you want to do yours but just start off with a five-minute routine. I promise you that it will make you feel so much better.

Then once you get five minutes down go to ten, go to fifteen, go to twenty because when you don’t get all these little things done early in the day you just feel so rushed, so pressured. We’re dealing with pressure and stress all the time so work to do that.

That’s my challenge. Shoot me a message, let me know, just tell me, “Hey, I got my five-minute routine done or my 10-minute routine done”.

I want to see everybody be more successful. I want to be around more successful people so let’s all just keep pushing, keep working to get better and keep doing the best job that we can in the chosen area we’re working on at the time. It could be health, could be fitness, could be finance, could be your job, whatever it is.

Develop a morning routine and get after it.  Let’s keep making everybody a little bit better and kicking ass this year. 

If you want more of my content, follow me on my Instagram.