Today I am going to talk about my experience with days 9-11 of the Make Over Your Morning course by Crystal Paine. If you need to catch up, read this post about why I decided to complete this course, click here for my key takeaways from days 1-4 and here for takeaways from days 5-8.
In days 9-11 you actually start to nail down a morning routine that serves you and your family. The course also discusses resistance that you may face when making a change to your morning and how to persevere. Finally, day 11 talks about the importance of diet and exercise and how to incorporate those activities into your morning routine.
Developing a Morning Routine is Personal
“Don’t compare your morning routine with mine. No two families are alike and no two humans are wired in the same manner!”
I LOVE the quote above because it is a great reminder that we are all different and in different phases of life. If I try to do exactly what someone else did I will probably not be very successful in the long term. We each need to develop a routine that works for us in our specific phase of life.
A successful morning routine will not happen the first time you develop your routine. It will take trial and error and will likely need to be tweaked as you see what works and doesn’t work for you and your family. Do not get discouraged if the routine you start with doesn’t work, this is merely a place to start!
Resistance to Developing my Morning Routine
“Whatever resistance you are feeling right now (internally or externally) about making changes in your routine, I encourage you to press on. Don’t back away. Growth happens when things are stretched, broken, and refashioned. Where there is no resistance, there is no growth.”
The course encourages you to think about what lies you may be telling yourself that are holding you back from making a positive change to your morning routine. One lie I tell myself is that my husband will think I’m weird if I get up early and meditate. To overcome this fear I plan to use headphones to start so I don’t disturb anyone in the morning. I will also talk to my husband about my goals and why I want to meditate. It’s difficult for me to get outside my comfort zone but it’s so worth it when I do!
Incorporate Diet and Exercise
“Starting your day with exercise and a healthy breakfast is one of the best ways to kick start a great day”
We are all busy and feel like we don’t have time to fit in exercise. And we may not have time to train for a marathon or spend an hour at the gym every day. Luckily that is not what Crystal had in mind when she included this section in the course!
She encourages you to start with just 10-15 min of exercise per day. Here are a few ways to make the time for 10-15 minutes of physical activity per day:
- Get up before your kiddos and use your treadmill
- Put the baby in a pack n play while you do a video or machine
- Invite your kids to join you while you do a video
- Go for a walk with your kids in the stroller
- Take kids to the gym daycare while you work out
- Workout during lunch or after work before picking up your kids
I want to try to incorporate a quick yoga or HIIT routine to my morning routine. 10-15 minutes would feel amazing! And then if I can’t get in a full workout the rest of the day at least I did something!
Meal planning is crucial for me to have healthy meals during the week. I have tried different services and for right now we are keeping it very simple with lots of grilled meats, veggies and rice. Crystal links to quite a few helpful resources for meal planning in the course if you need a place to start.
My Initial Morning Routine
Thinking back to my takeaways from days 1-4 and days 5-8 and incorporating the above, this is what I came up with to start:
- Wake up at 5:30 am
- Drink a glass of water, make coffee ~ 5 min
- Meditate ~ 10 min
- Journal / gratitude ~ 5 min
- Exercise / yoga ~ 10-15 min
- Breakfast and read ~ 10 min
- Shower, dressed, dry hair ~ 25 min
- Kids up and ready for school ~ 30-60 min
Crystal talks about the importance of gratitude in the video for this lesson. I have tried implementing a gratitude routine into my days but have never been that consistent. For the past few weeks I have used the free app Grid Diary and I love it. I set it up like the 5 minute journal and one of the grids is gratitude. While I don’t always fill out all the sections, I usually do the gratitude section every day. I love starting my day on such a positive note!
One thing I eventually want to add to my routine is blogging or writing time but for now the other areas are more important to start with.
How did you do on days 9-11?
We are almost to the end of the course! What are you including in your morning routine? Share below!
Read the Other Posts in the Series
Introduction
Days 1-4
Days 5-8
Days 9-11
Days 12-14
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