7 Steps To Building A Strong Morning Routine

If you’ve been trying to build new habits in your life but are struggling to maintain them, you’re not alone.

With busy schedules and constant communication, it can feel impossible to just make it through, let alone take charge of the day and make personal goals a priority.

However, by making a few small adjustments to your daily schedule, you can reclaim your mornings and make every day a little more Grüvi — and a whole lot more productive.

The simplest way to do that is to create a morning routine.

That said, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to follow a morning routine you find on a website or YouTube.

Instead, you should create a morning routine that aligns with what you value in life.

A strong morning routine sets you up for a productive day, leading to more wins. More wins raise your motivation and allow you to accomplish your goals with greater ease.

So in this blog post, we’re providing you with 7 simple steps you can use to create a routine that works for you and with some consistency, will become a permanent part of your daily life.

​​A morning routine is essentially a set of actions you perform in the morning, usually before starting your day’s main activity like going to work or to school. The actions can be anything from drinking a glass of water or brushing your teeth to doing a two-hour workout or running around the block.

What you’re doing by repeating the same set of actions at the same time each day is creating new habits — an essential building block to achieving pretty much anything, health, wealth, and happiness included.

Habits, by nature, are “mechanical” behaviours you don’t have to give too much thought into; your brain takes care of performing it on auto-pilot. Do you have to think about how to brush your teeth? No, your habit takes care of it.

1. Identify any current roadblocks in your path.

What do your mornings look like right now? Are there some habits you want to keep doing? What are the things that you do that are holding you back from starting off the day on the right foot?

Get an idea of your dos and don’ts by reviewing your current behaviors and separating the good habits from the bad.

If you’re among the 57% of people who hit the snooze button each morning, you’re literally starting your day off by procrastinating.

Or, maybe your alarm goes off and you roll over, pick up your phone, and start checking your email. Or, you go straight for social media.

If you’re like me, you can easily get lost in your phone, spending half an hour scrolling aimlessly and wasting time, and then wonder later how you could get more time in your day.

Before you can change your bad habits, you have to figure out what they are. This is an opportunity to reflect inward and be honest with yourself.

Once you’ve identified these roadblocks, you can begin to reserve your mornings exclusively for positive habits such as exercising, reading things that you find interesting, doing daily journaling, meditating, and focusing on your important projects.

2. Pick habits that are meaningful and impactful to YOU.

While you shouldn’t follow the exact morning routine that some person recommends, you should pay close attention to the habits that many people recommend.

So what habits should you pick?

Well, researchers have found that one of the most common components of a successful morning routine is its ability to be simple and straightforward.

Specifically, a good morning routine should set you up for the rest of your day, align with your “why” and relate to your important goals.

The truth is there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to a morning routine.

Instead, you should pick and choose which elements of the routines that you come across that are valuable to you, depending on what you want from your life.

In other words, your morning routine should include activities that support your goals, values, and the things that make you happy.

3. Start with just a few new habits at a time.

Start your morning routine with just two or three habits.  This is important because you don’t want to create a routine where you’ll feel overwhelmed on those mornings when something unexpected comes up.

To be honest, the last thing you want is to feel rushed during your routine or struggle to get out of the door on time.

You want your routine to be relaxed enough that it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Once a habit starts to come naturally, add in another habit that makes sense.

Keep doing this until you find the right combination of habits with enough time to complete each one.

4. Put pen to paper and add your routine to your calendar.

It’s important to be intentional about your morning routine and schedule it at certain times throughout the week.

That’s why you should treat it like any other important activity on your calendar.

In other words, you should schedule it at a specific time each day and make sure you have enough time to complete it.

To get started, I recommend scheduling at least 30 minutes for this morning routine.

Now you might be saying to yourself: “I don’t have an extra 30 minutes each day.”

Well, there are two things you can do to find more time.

First, you can get to bed 30 minutes earlier in the evening.

You’ll discover it’s not hard to create an evening routine where you consistently get to bed early and wake up feeling refreshed.

A second strategy is to remove distractions from your daily routine.

If you find yourself constantly opening social media apps and wasting time scrolling the feeds, it’s probably a good idea to remove them from your phone or get an app that prevents you from looking at them during certain times of the day.

5. Have an evening routine.

The most important way to maintain your morning routine is by starting it off well-rested and prepared to tackle the day.

So in addition to having a morning routine, you should create a brief evening routine that helps calm your mind and prepare your body for sleep.

You can start by prepping each night for the next morning.

Plan what you’ll wear the next day, pack your workout clothes (if you exercise outside your house), pack your lunch and everything you need for work, and tidy up the house so you don’t get sidetracked with cleaning when you wake up in the morning.

6. Consistency is key.

The most important aspect of a morning routine is consistency

That’s why you should make the commitment to never miss a day of your morning routine…

…EVEN if that means you only complete one five-minute habit on some days.

A quick strategy to stay consistent is to apply the “don’t break the chain” principle that’s discussed on this page.

The idea here is to get a wall calendar, then put a red X over each day where you successfully complete a morning routine.

Soon enough, you will have a chain of red Xs that serve as a visual reminder of the consistency habit that you’re building.

Now, while consistency is important it’s okay to break the rules once in a while.

If you’ve followed a routine for the entire month, don’t stress out if you decide to take a weekend morning off to sleep in, splurge on a big breakfast, and do almost nothing productive at all.

An occasional interruption to your morning routine can be healthy.

And chances are, you’ll be eager to get back to your morning routine after taking a day or two off.

7. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments.

While it’s important to be consistent; it’s equally important to focus on habits that are personally relevant.

So if you find yourself “dreading” your morning routine, then it’s probably because you’re focusing on the wrong habits.

This is where you can use procrastination to your benefit.

There will be times when you might miss a day or two and feel a lack of motivation to get started.

When this happens, take 30 minutes to figure out why you feel like procrastinating on your routine.

Specifically, ask yourself a few questions like:

• What challenges am I facing in the morning that prevent me from getting started?
• Does each of these habits align with my goals?
• Am I spending too much time on a certain habit?
• Are there any other habits I want to focus on?
• Do I feel rushed in the morning because of my routine?

All these questions are important because they will help you make adjustments to identify the habits to eliminate and new ones you can try. So don’t be afraid to drop certain habits. Or try new ones. Or even start from scratch with a whole bunch of new habits.

Keep doing this until you’ve perfected the perfect morning routine and then celebrate your victory (and all the small ones along the way) with an ice-cold Grüvi.