I am not a morning person. However I can develop habits that would allow me to become a morning person. We as humans are ruled by our habits. There are habits that we have consciously created & others which are subconscious. I believe we must be mindful about habits, so they do not rule our lives subconsciously.
I saw ants scurrying about on the ground, at first just noticing one - then many. With each passing moment I noticed more ants, I had finally woken up. Physically I had already been awake for close to half an hour, yet noticing the ants had woken me up mentally. The noticing of the ants had broken me out of my subconscious morning routine. This morning routine 9/10 times is healthy as it allows me to wake up, shower, brush my teeth, eat breakfast, put on clothes, and walk to work all without conscious thought. After having lived in India for over 6 months I have created a number of habits which for better or worse run my life. Even though most of my habits are healthy, I do an inventory of my habits every few weeks.
I would encourage everyone reading to stop for a moment to think about the different habits that construct your morning routine. I imagine everyone has a morning routine even if people do not think about it in this way. Write the habits that you do every single day, you might even surprise yourself. I will list below my ideal rituals for the morning - these will come up later when I am talking about how I want to become a morning person a bit more.
My ideal morning routine:
I learned a lot of what I know about habits from a book called the power of habit by Charles Duhigg. In this book habits are broken down in a more psychological way than I will be doing. The power of habit explains that every habit can be broken down into elements known as the habit loop. The habit loop of every habit consists of a stimulus - routine - reward. If the goal is to change an undesirable habit it is best to focus on changing the routine or reward.
A way to tackle the routine or reward with habits would be if someone smoked cigarettes whenever they felt stressed chew gum instead. The stimulus of stress remains the same however it is the routine of how you respond to the stress with gum that changes. This is one of the best uses of habits - creating new ones in the place of our old undesirable habits.
Another part of habits that is commonplace is that it takes about 20-35 days for a new habit to form. This is doing a new habit every single day (ideally at the same time or for instance always before you go to bed) for maximum effectiveness. While this may seem like a long time after about 2 weeks the habit begins to solidify so the process does become easier. I find when trying to create a new habit using a calendar & checking off during the day when I complete the habit is helpful.
Morning of:
Beginning to open my eyes to my habits:
I saw ants scurrying about on the ground, at first just noticing one - then many. With each passing moment I noticed more ants, I had finally woken up. Physically I had already been awake for close to half an hour, yet noticing the ants had woken me up mentally. The noticing of the ants had broken me out of my subconscious morning routine. This morning routine 9/10 times is healthy as it allows me to wake up, shower, brush my teeth, eat breakfast, put on clothes, and walk to work all without conscious thought. After having lived in India for over 6 months I have created a number of habits which for better or worse run my life. Even though most of my habits are healthy, I do an inventory of my habits every few weeks.
I would encourage everyone reading to stop for a moment to think about the different habits that construct your morning routine. I imagine everyone has a morning routine even if people do not think about it in this way. Write the habits that you do every single day, you might even surprise yourself. I will list below my ideal rituals for the morning - these will come up later when I am talking about how I want to become a morning person a bit more.
My ideal morning routine:
- Wake up at a consistent time
- Drink lemon water
- Shower
- Brush my teeth
- Put clothes on
- Breakfast
- Listen to some music // meditate
- Walk to metro for work
Get into work:
- Make coffee
- Set up// plug in laptop
- Check social media posts
- Check Email
- Write in my journal
- Create a to-do list for the day
- Check in with other co-workers about what needs to be done
- Turn off social media // Phone until lunch to grind through some solo work
Every few weeks I write out the habits that are a part of my life. I find for me a lot of my habits exist in a certain environment (which is why traveling for some people is such a freeing experience, all of their environmental habits do not exist.). An example of this is when I went back to the US for a week I did somethings I had not done at all during my time in India. If you want to change yourself as a person you have to change your habits.
How we develop habits:
People differ radically in their personal habits, however the way in which we create them is largely the same. The dictionary defines a habit as: an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed to the point that it almost becomes involuntary. I would argue more of our daily habits are subconscious than conscious.I learned a lot of what I know about habits from a book called the power of habit by Charles Duhigg. In this book habits are broken down in a more psychological way than I will be doing. The power of habit explains that every habit can be broken down into elements known as the habit loop. The habit loop of every habit consists of a stimulus - routine - reward. If the goal is to change an undesirable habit it is best to focus on changing the routine or reward.
A way to tackle the routine or reward with habits would be if someone smoked cigarettes whenever they felt stressed chew gum instead. The stimulus of stress remains the same however it is the routine of how you respond to the stress with gum that changes. This is one of the best uses of habits - creating new ones in the place of our old undesirable habits.
Another part of habits that is commonplace is that it takes about 20-35 days for a new habit to form. This is doing a new habit every single day (ideally at the same time or for instance always before you go to bed) for maximum effectiveness. While this may seem like a long time after about 2 weeks the habit begins to solidify so the process does become easier. I find when trying to create a new habit using a calendar & checking off during the day when I complete the habit is helpful.
What are unhealthy habits?
While I cannot say what an unhealthy is for anyone else but myself, I believe that it is irresponsible to not be conscious of the habits we have. For me personally I have a bad habit of when I get home from work I will immediately lie down on my bed looking at social media. This isn't something that hurts anyone, but I am actively trying to do it less. I believe it is more important to be aware of our bad habits than our good ones. Just knowing how habits hurt & help is key. Do not attach emotion to the habit just list it as you would a schedule.
My Journey to becoming a morning person:
For as long as I can remember I have been a night owl. It is a part of my identity in the same way that my name is Tim or that I grew up in Reading, Massachusetts. I want to become a morning person I feel this will help me to get to where I want to in life of owning my own businesses & consulting. In truth there will be much other work to be done - but this is a good example of how someone can reset or use habit inventories to change their lives. The following is a list of current habits that I have, in the next few months I will be working to change them & create more consistency in my life.
Current night before // morning habits:
Night before:- No set bed time
- Often going to sleep with phone/laptop at my bed side
- Ineffective alarm clock that I often sleep through
- Drinking alcohol directly before bed
- Not brushing my teeth
- Some times going to bed in the clothes I wore during the day
Morning of:
- Inconsistent wake up time
- Not always brushing Teeth
- Sometimes starting my day by checking social media // sports scores
- Not always showering
- Getting into work at an inconsistent time.
I already mentioned my ideal morning routine earlier in the blog. I would add to that I am not yet reaching that goal with consistency - not yet fully formed all of those habits. It can seem like such a drastic change, but the truth is focus on only 1-2 different habits at once. Maybe for instance I just create the habit of brushing my teeth every night & morning. Once this habit is fully formed I am doing it without thought I can tackle some others that make up my ideal routine.
I hope this post was helpful for people. I have been a bit inconsistent with writing in this blog but am excited for the future of it. If you found this type of blog useful I am always looking for some feedback // comments to improve or even if you just want to talk about habits more!
-Timmo
I enjoyed your post. Are routine and habit one in the same would you say? Its an interesting topic and one I have done some light reading about, on the web. Morning routines are part of almost every successful persons life throughout history and its a great goal to work towards... it literally could end up being life changing from what I've read. Unhealthy habits are really important to self identify. For myself when I am trying to change a bad habit I look at it as a replacement process, the new healthy habit in place of the bad old habit; this way of thinking instead of focusing on elimination helps me for some reason. Wanted to share a couple fun link to pages I found interesting below for further thinking on the topic:
ReplyDeletehttps://wheniwork.com/blog/famous-people-schedules-infographic/
http://www.businessinsider.com/daily-routines-successful-people-in-history-2016-10
I would classify a routine as a combination of multiple habits. The routine itself becomes a habit - but if you were to break it down it would be a list of individual habits or a larger habit loop.
ReplyDeleteThink about it in the same way you would construct a work out - for instance every time you finished bench press you move onto leg.
In regards to peoples personal habits I think there is a lot of merit in it - I'm in the same place as you with trying to breakthrough with keeping them consistent.