“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily…”

Introduction

The First step into living a successful life is the transformation of one’s way of life. It is said that people attract success by the kind of person they become. The journey of becoming successful in life no doubt begins with the transformation of oneself. There are many things one does to bring about this transformation. This article aims at discussing one of those things: Morning Routine. How one begins his/her day goes a long way to determine the content of the day, positive or negative.

For one to be truly successful in life one must have something he/she does daily and he/she is consistent with it. Until some years ago when I discovered this, I usually asked some questions that I could not really answer. In our society today, we have spirit-filled Christians, tongues spoken, fire brand for God, but still struggle with basic needs of life like food, shelter and clothes. On the other hand, we have people who following a consistent daily routine so developed themselves that they easily handle their basic needs and are recording monumental achievement and success. This brings out clearly that as we pray, there are also principles we necessarily need to adopt as children of God to be successful.

What is Morning Routine?

Morning routine refers to activity or activities we engaged ourselves in before we encounter the outside world or before we start our day.  For you to have a successful day, you must first dedicate the first 3-4 hours of the day to developing yourself and determining how your day would end. According to Hal Elrod in his book, Miracle Morning wrote that “creating your best possible life is not only possible but simple. It starts with how you wake up in the morning. You must first dedicate time to becoming the person you need to be, one who is qualified and capable and consistently attracting, creating and sustaining the levels of success you want. How you wake up each day dramatically affect the level of success of every single moment of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings produce focused, productive and successful days”.

 In his book, Highly Effective People, Napoleon Hill said, you must end your day before you start it.  In the course of leaning about my purpose, I started researching on successful and fulfilled people and what they do to succeed, to my greatest surprise, there are very simple things. A successful people have their morning routines. Tell me what you do in the first 2 hours of your day and I will predict how your day will end and how much you have in your bank account.

As a Christian, I find this morning routine powerfully expressed in the life of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. In the Gospel of Mark 1:35 the Scripture tells us that “In the Morning, long before dawn, he [Jesus] got up and left the house and went off to a lonely place and prayed. By withdrawing to a lonely place long before dawn Jesus plans his day out and determines how his day would be. In the book of Lamentation 3:22-23 says “Surely Yahweh’s mercies are not over, his deeds of faithful love not exhausted; every morning they are renewed; great is his faithfulness!”. By adopting a morning routine, among many other things you renew God’s mercies every morning. The psalmist would sing in Psalm 5:3 “In the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice, in the morning I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch”. Prayer here refers to the sum total of the things we do both active and contemplative seeking the presence of God in our lives and in our day. He is the master and there is nothing we can do without him.

One of the top 5 habits of successful people is that they get up early to do their morning Routine. For instance, Tony Robbins is the highest paid motivational speaker in the world, he claims that majority of his success is due to his morning Routine. Brain Tracy, writes books, speaks to thousands every year, travels round the world, runs three companies all over the world and people ask him how he does all this, He says his secret is in his Morning Routine. Benjamin Franklin was an American polymath and one of the founding Fathers of United States; He was an author, printer, Politian, postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist, civil activist, stateman and diplomat. He wakes up at 5:00am everyday to set the tone of his day. Tim Armstrong, AOL CEO, the former Goggle executive wakes up at 5:00am to work out, read and determine how he would want his day to end.

These people begin their day by investing in themselves before investing in others. Those who over the years were faithful to their Morning Routine, recommend that you invest in yourself at least one hour every day. You must invest in yourself before you can invest in anyone else and the responsibility you have the rest of the day. Morning routine is one of the habits that separate successful people from unsuccessful people. Successful people have successful habits. Habits lead you to your goals. As Terri Savelle would put it: Good habits are hard to form but easy to live with while bad habits are easy to form but hard to live with.

My Morning Routine

 I begin my day at 4:00am. The first thing I do after waking up is to pray and read the Holy Book of my religion, the Holy Bible. This is very important to me because God has also been my source and I go to him first before I can do any other thing in the day. I equip myself with the word of God because that is the only thing the devil fears. I do this for 40 to 45 minutes. 

This is followed by Meditation. It for me a time I go into myself and focus on the things I really want to see in my life. It also gives me that calmness I need to push me through the day. This lasts for 15mins.

 Immediately after Meditation which leaves me with clarity of what I want, then I do what I call Affirmation. I have a list of affirmations, things I declare every day, these are things I want to see in my and I declare them loudly…. you can never over emphasize the power of affirmations. The more I affirms these things the more they sink into my mind and I see them manifest in my life. It is said that repetition is the rule of learning.  Here is what my affirmation looks like:

• I live each day with passion and purpose
• I am creative, fun loving and passionate about what I do
• I respect my abilities and always fulfil my potentials
• I am totally confident and I use my wealth wisely
• I am a powerful and resourceful creator
• I am organized, discipline, talented, innovative and intelligent woman
• I am happiness and live in abundance and prosperity
• I consistently attract the right people to help me grow my business
• I am a master at what I do
• I permit myself to be powerful and wealthy
• I am a virtuous woman
• I am Strong, Confident and Bold
• I make $1000 daily.

The more I affirm all these loudly, the more I see them in my life. Try it, it works.  I do this for about 10 minutes every day.

Following declaration is my daily Scribing-. Every day I scribe, I start with the things I am grateful for. These are my accomplishments within the week or month, and then I write down my goals and my targets. The essence of this is to always remind me of my achievements and my immediate and long terms goals. With this, I set my mind on autosuggestion. Reading is also one of my morning routines.  It is said that, the day you stop reading that is the day you stop living. Reading should be part of your everyday live. Personal development is about bringing out the best in you by reading or watching videos in your area of specialty.  For everything we want to become, we must work towards achieving it. Readings takes us closer to what we want to become. It is like climbing the shoulders of great men and women in history so that we could see farther than we could see ordinarily. If you want to become a millionaire, you should be able to read as many as we can the auto- biographies of celebrated millionaires. You cannot desire to improve your life financially while your eyes are glued to television watching Telemundo or Zee world. It will not work!  Remember, Readers are leaders.

As part of my morning routine, I Exercise every day. I work out between 5.30am to 6am.  Each time I exercise, it makes me feel happier, it helps to lose weight, it helps to keep my muscles and bones fit, it increases my energy level, it reduces my chances of becoming frequently sick and reduces the risk of contacting chronic diseases, it helps keep my skin healthy, it relaxes me and gives me quality of sleep.

Benefits of morning Routine

 Alex Murphy (2018) and Megan (2015), outline the following benefit of morning routine:

• Self-Disciple- This is perhaps one of the most important benefits of morning routine. The discipline of getting up at the same time every morning is part of the foundation of having good day and this extends to all areas of one’s life.
• You will Gain Time- This is arguably one of the most valuable assets in the world. Having an extra 1-2 hours in your morning before your day starts, allows you to put more work into the things that are important to you and thing you should overlook.
• Mental Toughness- A lot of people in today’s society prefer to go the easy way. We have continually made things easier for ourselves and when faced with adversities, we crumble. Taking the easy way out may seem like the rewarding path at the time but choosing the hard path will always stand you in greater stead in the long run. Waking up early everyday is not fun but by forcing yourself into this path of disciple and mental fortitude you are actively and mentally preparing yourself for the stressors of life.
• It Reduces Stress- People complain so much about stress these days. It is easily avoidable with a good start to your day. Rushing your morning and sprinting out of the door without feeling fully prepped for the day leads to stress. Stress has a direct link to increase Cortisol levels and a plethora of research show us this is associated with increased weight gain, anxiety and a number of health risk. Just try it, it works. Wake up early tomorrow, take your time over the morning and stroll out that door ready to get after it.
• Gives momentum to your day and makes you more productive- When you start of your day right, you are automatically more productive. Staring of your day right, gives you a head start of your day and allow you to get ahead. If you wake up and are rushed you are playing catch up and just letting the day dictate what you going to do. But if you wake with a routine, you are getting ahead of your day and preparing for the day. You are acting instead of reacting and you are being proactive instead of reactive.
• Keeps you focused- With morning routine, you are focused on the things that matter most to you.
• You have clarity of purpose- Morning routine makes you have a clear vision and clear goals. You are not acting on impulse because you have already taking control of day. You are clear about what you want for the day and how to go about achieving them. Clarity of purpose is very important for us to successful.

Conclusion

Nothing good it said, comes easy. For one to achieve all that we have discussed, one needs courage and discipline Prayers will reveal and give your ideas but without courage and discipline you go nowhere. Dare to change your life style by taking you morning routine serious and you will begin to see the results you have been looking for in your life.

Recommended Books;

Miracle morning by Hal Elrod

The answer by John Assaraf and Murray Smith

The Power of Consistency byWeldon Long

 References

1. AlexMurphy (Jan 2018) -https://medium.com/swlh/the-importance-of-a-morning-routine-and-why-you-should-have-one-too-9c412715a655
2. Megan (Nov 2015)- http://thefreshexchange.com/5-reasons-to-establish-morning-rituals-our-own-rituals/
3. Terri Savelle Foy- Youtube, 5 things successful people do before 8am/ 3 keys to a morning Routine, Your morning routine is the secret of your future.
4. Hal Elrod(May 2013) Miracle morning
5. Napoleon Hill- Highly Effective People

 

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