The most successful people in the world have something in common. They have all learned to dominate their morning by implementing successful morning habits that help drive the rest of their day toward their goals. Habits are defined as routine behaviors repeated every day. Once a habit is formed it will often be done subconsciously, or automatically without conscious effort on your part. Forming habits can be compared to downloading a piece of software on a computer. Once it is installed and running, the ability to perform those new functions is built in. I want to discuss 3 morning habits to “install” in your subconscious mind that will bring success in life.
Rise Early
“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Benjamin Franklin
If you listen to any successful person who has accomplished anything, you’ll probably find that they have implemented this morning habit. Rising early is a key success principle that cannot be ignored. How early someone rises is often dependent upon their work schedule, but most people have to be to work at approximately 8 o’clock. In this case, rising early would be 3 hours prior to going to work at minimum. Of course, you’ll want to calculate your drive time as well.
Rising early can allow you to do so much more with your day before most people wake up. In my blog post, setting goals, I discussed the importance of having goals for your life that give you direction. The morning time is the time to make daily progress on achieving your goals. Many people’s best productive hours are first thing in the morning. You don’t want to waste that time on activities that don’t drive you toward your goals. Imagine the fulfillment you will have each day when you know you’ve already accomplished so much before the work day even starts.
Early to Bed
It is not easy to implement this habit and it takes great self-discipline to do so. The rewards are well worth it, however, and you’ll find yourself on the road to more success than ever before. The majority of people need somewhere between 7-9 hours of sleep according to many sources. Rest is a very important part of achieving success in each day. To become an early riser, it is essential to go to bed early enough to get well rested.
There are many activities and programs that distract you from wanting to turn in to bed early. Sports programs, TV shows, and the latest social media postings will certainly keep you from sleep. You need to ask yourself how badly you want to be successful. Are your goals more important than those activities? The most successful people in the world have answered this question clearly. You must choose today how badly you want to succeed and make the necessary sacrifices. It is better to sacrifice a few hours of sports, TV, social media, or anything keeping you distracted, than to sacrifice your goals in life.
Thinking Time
“Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”
Thomas A. Edison
According to a study published by the National Science Foundation, it was found that the average person has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. The same study determined that 80 percent of those thoughts were negative, while 95 percentage of them were exactly the same repetitive thoughts from the previous day. This could explain why there are seemingly so many negative people in the world. Better yet, however, it helps clearly understand why many people don’t change. In order for you to change, you must change your thinking. If 95 percentage of your thoughts are the same every day, you will remain the same. Thus, you should implement thinking time as a morning habit to be successful.
“You cannot rise above the plane of your mental conditioning.”
Myles Munroe
One of the best ways to upgrade your thinking is to set aside dedicated time to just think. You may automatically default to negative thoughts when doing this, but you can change that as well. It helps if you already have some written goals when doing this, which will give you something to think about. Whether it’s related to family, career, relationships, or anything else you want in life, your thinking time is for you to map out a way to get there.
Journaling
You can also keep a journal for this time. Journaling is a very easy way to get your thoughts out on paper. You may use some of this time to just reflect on your previous day, lessons learned, or anything else related to your personal life. You also want to use this time for creative ideas to flow. If you have your goals in front of you, take one of them and start to think of ways you can achieve it or make progress today. Think of a plan of activities that you can implement daily which will get you to the destination by a specific date. You will find that you are more than capable of coming up with creative ideas if you simply take time to think while writing in a journal.
Plan Your Day
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Benjamin Franklin
The last morning habit that we will discuss is planning your day. If you want your day to be successful you will want to implement this into your daily morning ritual immediately. Some people even decide to do it the evening before, which is completely acceptable. It definitely needs to be part of your morning habits as well, just to ensure you are staying on track with your daily goals.
In my blog post, 5 Time Management Tips to Achieve Success, I discussed the importance of keeping a calendar to manage your time more effectively. Planning is a big part of ensuring that you are controlling your day instead of it controlling you. You should look at your entire calendar for the day, both professionally and personally. How will you spend your time today? Think about the goals that you just went over and whether your calendar reflects those goals or not. I assure you that the day will get away from you if you don’t tell it what you want. Every hour should be blocked off with a plan for daily activities, and you will be amazed at how much more you’ll accomplish.
You should obviously plan for what you will do professionally. If you are keeping a to-do list, you should find a way to plug it into your calendar. When you see openings on your calendar, you may think you’re free to waste some time. When you insert your to-do list, you will stay on track and be more productive. As a reminder, you should definitely schedule your lunch and break times as well, just to ensure you stay refreshed throughout the day. Implement the habit of planning your day into your morning ritual to achieve success and dominate your day.
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