Creating a Powered Up Morning Routine

The challenge with becoming a person determined to lead from a more spirit centered, compassionate, and caring space, is maintaining a positive, upbeat, and optimistic outlook even when situations, circumstances, and people get you down.

Like for me, right now, when I am defining my next new path. How do I remain hopeful, filled with faith, and smiling? How can I seek to teach and lead others (including my family, friends, and you) when I am feeling lost, worried, upset, and even angry for my current circumstances? Those negative feelings aren’t empowering and keep me from being my highest self.

I find myself feeling more negative feelings throughout the day when I don’t practice my daily morning routine. So many incredible people have their own morning rituals and routines.

Here’s a list of those who inspire me and their routines:

• Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post, starts her day with Yoga, Meditation and Sets her Intentions.
• Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook founder, is known to dress the same way each day to allow him one less decision to make.
• Jim Kwik of Kwik Brain meditates, journals, gets moving, goes through brain training, makes a list and more.
• Oprah Winfrey meditates, exercises on the treadmill, then finally goes for a walk, listens to music or prepares a nice meal.
• Tony Robbins, Motivational Speaker and all around self-help guru, takes 30 Kapalbhati Pranayama breaths, closes his eyes and slows his breath while expressing gratitude, and finally prays and asks for help guidance and strength for the day.

These are just a few famous people who have created morning rituals to get their day started off empowered. Here’s what I do to help me get centered and also what I do to get back on track when I find myself spirialing into negative emotions.

Meditate and Pray

I often have to run out of the house pretty quickly whether it’s going to work or dropping off my kids. So the first thing I do in the car is grab my rosary and pray. I don’t use the traditional 5 Mysteries of the rosary prayer. I do pray the “Our Father” and the “Hail Mary’s” as is traditional. But I don’t do this as a way to show I am Catholic. I do this as one way to meditate, slow my mind down, and connect to the spirit within me. Although I am Catholic by birth, my spiritual beliefs are more widespread and open than the doctrines. So I use the rosary as my way to calm my mind, my breath, and enter into awareness.

I also do traditional meditation and use apps like Headspace or Insight Timer to help me let go of thoughts and just feel my breath, my inner body and, ask Eckhart Tolle encourages, to enter into the “now.” Sometimes I meditate for only a few minutes and sometimes up to 15 or 20 minutes. It depends on how much time I have.

Exercise

This has been a hit and miss throughout the years. I know exercise helps me to feel more positive, energetic, and relaxed. If I do it in the mornings, it’s best for me. It can be hard when I’ve had jobs where the commute is long and I already have to get up at 5am. Trying to get up at 4am to get a workout in can be difficult. I started to do this right before I was laid off and I found that although I was exhausted by the end of the day, I was able to take the stress of work and traffic a lot better. So I have stuck with it for the past few weeks and I find myself much more content, enthusiastic, and calm. I recommend doing a combination of cardio and strength training. I find that it works best for me to do at least 20 minutes of cardio- elliptical, stationary bike or the treadmill, and another 20 to 30 minutes of weight training. I also realize that the older I get, the better it is for me as a woman. We all know that our bones get brittle as we age so we need to keep our strength up and help our bones do their work for much longer.

Gratitude

I don’t necessarily close my eyes and feel gratitude like Tony Robbins or keep a gratitude journal like Oprah. I do often thank God, the universal life force, or whatever you wish to call it, for the abundance in my life. I try to look around at all that is outside of me like my family, my friends, my dog, the trees, the sky, my home, the flowers and all that is and say “thank you.” I sometimes only say those words inside my mind and I sometimes say them directly to the person or thing. But I do try to say thank you over and over again to the blessings of things in my life. Even when those things frustrate me or upset me which sometimes your family, your employees, your customers, your pets, or even the weather can do; it’s important to show gratitude that you have them in your life. It opens you up for even more good things to come. So for me, this daily habit isn’t one I do just in the morning. I employ it throughout the day so when things to upset me, I am able to calm down and come back from those negative feelings back into the space of now.

Reversing the Negative

So how do I get back when I find myself spiraling into feelings of negativity?

I use alot of the same things I’ve shared above. I pray, take a walk, take deep breaths, focus on gratitude and do something else.

Sometimes, if I am in a disagreement with another or I am in a meeting where emotions are high, I ask if we can take a break and return to the conversation when we’ve both had time to consider each other’s side. Or if the other person is unwilling, I have to control my own ego and remind myself that we both or we all want what’s best for the organization. What we need to do is refocus on what we are trying to accomplish. If we restate the goal of what we are trying to do, then we can often begin to soften the hard and negative feelings.

This also works in family relationships or even when my own mind is warring with me. I remind myself what is important to me by reading my mission statement with the roles I have laid out and what I want to accomplish in each role. If you haven’t done so, i recommend you take the time to go through that exercise. Create a personal mission statement along with the roles that are important and the goals you wish to accomplish in each. It helps do bring you back to center when you find yourself veering off course.

I have found that by implementing my morning routine and using those and other tactics when life starts hammering at me, I am able to get more done in a positive, empowering, and uplifting way.

What morning routines do you use and have tried? Are there other successful people whom have routines you admire?

May your life be infused with your unique and beautiful spirit!