Make Your Morning Routine Work For You
#330
Morning is your time. That’s what having a morning routine is all about. It’s you saying, ‘I matter.’ Everything else can wait. All the responsibilities and to-dos—they’ll get done, just not before you take care of yourself.
A morning routine that works for you is not about getting up early—unless you want to. It’s about dedicating at least 10 minutes to doing something for yourself after you wake up - whatever time that is.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
The signs you may need a morning routine: Signs You Might Need a Routine: You feel rushed, frazzled, or unprepared, you start the day disconnected from your intentions, and you have resentment from not having enough time for yourself
My story two years into sobriety, when I started my morning routine inspired by Hal Elrod’s The Miracle Morning.
Practical ways to start your morning, all from midlife women who are working on living alcohol-free
The importance of being flexible with yourself and honoring your energy every morning to make your mornings work for you
Resources Mentioned:
Everyday Self-Care to Support Your Alcohol-Free Lifestyle
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Hey there. Welcome to To 50 and Beyond. I am Lori. I am your host. I am so happy that you're here. I'm the midlife sobriety coach and founder of Team Alcohol Free, a wonderful online community for women who are living alcohol free later in life. And I love a good morning routine. You love to wake up and have my morning time.
So today I wanna talk about something that's very important. It's making a morning routine work for you. This is a great way to support an alcohol-free lifestyle. It's a great way later in life to redefine things that you do in the morning for yourself that you enjoy. One of the best questions you can ask yourself is what would excite me?
First thing in the morning, what feels good? 'cause when I go to bed at night, I just, ooh, I cannot wait to get up, have some Frankie Blue, my puppy cuddling time, get up slowly and have my cup of coffee. That is how I start the day. I recently talked about this in an episode I recorded everyday self-care to support your alcohol-free lifestyle.
I'm gonna link it in the show notes. This is a companion to that, and the purpose of that was to identify self-care activities you do for yourself, maybe you're not even aware of, and calling it out morning is your time. That is what a morning routine is all about. It's you saying I matter, everything else can wait.
I will get to all of my responsibilities and things that I need to do and have to do. Not before I take care of myself and have fun with this, get creative like what would I do tomorrow morning that would make me get up and just go, whoa, I am so happy to start my day. What a morning routine is not.
'cause I have to start with this now that I said that. Getting up early. You do not have to be an early riser. One of the challenges that I do hear from women, I am not an early riser. That's great. It's whatever time that you get up and let's say you dedicate. 10 minutes minimum to doing something for yourself.
A morning routine is not about perfection and it's not following a checklist created by anybody else. It's meant to be open and for you to be able to explore and create this routine as you go. When I first heard the topic, morning routine, you can call it anything you want. You can call it my time for myself in the morning.
You don't have to call it a morning routine 'cause I feel like we use these words and like, oh, that's so trendy. Okay. Call it something else that works for you. 'cause then you're gonna do it. And I don't really say I have my morning routine in the morning. It's just like this is my time for myself. I honor it and I protect it.
And I didn't for a very long time. When I first started a morning routine, it was back in 2015. However, I stumbled upon the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. I don't say this often, but that book changed the game for me. That was right around the time I created a anonymous Instagram account, two 50 and beyond, where I was gonna start to talk about exercise and weight loss.
And none of my friends were gonna know about it. It anonymous, and I don't know which came first, but I stumbled into the world of social media. I found the book however I found it, and then I found his Facebook group, which had at the time, over 80,000 people in it. The Miracle Morning is based off of an acronym and what he calls savers.
That includes getting up in the morning and practicing silence, meditation or prayer affirmations. I am enough. I am badass. I can do all things, but not at once and not before I take care of myself. A visualization practice. So this could be something like even visualizing your day. How's this day gonna play out?
Let me check in with myself. Exercise reading. Could be a devotional, could be a couple of pages outta your favorite book. Whatever you want. Could be listening to an audio book. That's what I did this morning. A new book came out this morning from one of my favorite reality TV stars and I got a, and I saw the Spotify notification 'cause I pre-ordered the book and I got so excited to start listening to this book.
And it's only 10 o'clock. I've already listened to four chapters. Reading, scribing, a K, a, journaling. So savers, again, silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading and scribing. Going back to this Facebook community, there was a post when I joined that said, do you want an accountability partner? And people would comment underneath.
I'm like, yes, I would love an accountability partner. I wanna do this. I was super excited for it, and I know for me in midlife and two years into my sobriety when I was starting to feel like. Ooh, I need something else. That's why I created the two 50 and Beyond account. That's why I started to look at my nutrition and exercising.
I needed something else because we gotta keep the momentum going. And also I think at midlife gotta spice things up every now and then and try something different. So I wanted this accountability partner. I ended up connecting with this gal. We held each other accountable and she's like in New York, so I don't know if that's gonna work for you in California.
I said, no problem. No problem. I'm up early and she was more of a later riser and we did this thing together and then we became friends. I actually took a trip to New York in 2017 with my family. I, we all went to lunch together, her and her husband, and she's just such a sweet gal,
we clicked together. That was so helpful for me. So when I started out, I was doing the savers. That's not what I do today, but it was very helpful and it got me started. You can look at that list and maybe choose one thing if you wanna try it.
If you're somebody who wants a good exercise routine, we start redefining what exercise is 'cause that could be a five minute stretch.
Five minutes of deep breathing while stretching. That is stacking the silence and the meditation or prayer with exercise. The purpose of having a morning routine when you are living an alcohol-free lifestyle is number one. Like I said in the beginning, I matter. I am a priority. Everything else can wait.
That sets the tone for the day. It's a great time of day. To get centered on your reason why. If you haven't downloaded the daily sobriety toolkit, you can download that in the show notes where I walk you through. I like to call them the shifts, the morning shift, the midday shift, and the evening shift. It walks you through this time where you can check in with, Hey, why do I wanna be alcohol free today?
'cause. We wake up in the morning like, oh my goodness, I wanna be alcohol free. We've either drank the night before or we're really proud of ourselves for not drinking. And then X, Y, Z can happen throughout the day. We get to the end where we start fantasizing about alcohol being the solution. So having that morning routine as your anchor for the day, and it sets the tone and it will help you throughout the day reflect on this choice.
So you could say your choice out loud and. That could also be an affirmation. I choose myself today over alcohol because I am so tired of feeling poorly about myself and I wanna feel my best today, and also tomorrow morning when I wake up. And the topic of this episode is to make your morning routine work for you.
Be flexible with it. I'm gonna use Savers as an example. If you're somebody who says, okay, I wanna follow this savers list, I'm gonna grab the book, or I have the book, I'm gonna revisit it. Be flexible with yourself and your energy. Honor your energy, for example. If I don't sleep well in the morning, I am not going to be doing affirmations or visualizations first.
I am gonna be doing exercise first. If I do sleep well and I get up in the morning, I feel like my brain has been scrubbed, it's clear. I typically will go for work first. I eat that frog, I get something done that's on my list that I can get done, and then I just say. Moving on. 'cause if I'm in a low energy and I'm not sleeping, work takes me longer and it's just a whole big mess.
Nothing good comes from it. And I am tired on days where I don't sleep well. So I always honor that energy. So check in with yourself when you wake up in the morning and say, what do I need right now? Maybe it's to go back to bed. That is such a great way to honor your energy. Maybe it's, Hey, I'm feeling really great.
I wanna get up. I wanna make this call, or I wanna make this appointment. I wanna do that thing that's been on my list for a long, long time. That's when you can eat that Frog, which is another book that I talk about all the time. By Brian Tracy. I love it. It's doing the hardest things first, and I have done that for most of my life.
So be flexible with yourself. Get up in the morning and go, okay, what do I need to do for myself? What do I wanna do for myself? What's my energy like? What am I feeling right now? And follow it. And everything else can wait Signs. You may need a morning routine. You feel rushed.
You feel frazzled. You feel unprepared for the day. You are in that low mood or you're disconnected from your day's intentions. I was very much a willy nilly type of gal, and I would go with the flow, see what came up. I had a resentment and that was around me not having enough time for myself, and I always felt like there wasn't enough time.
And I recognized this at the same time, two years in. And what really led me to this book, I should have started with this, but I didn't, was one morning. During the first two years of my sobriety, what I was doing in the morning, laying in bed and watching Fox, KTLA News, if you know, you know, that was my favorite channel.
I was listening to a newscaster and he was telling a really sad story, and I'm laying in bed. This is before I had to get up and go to work. I had a house cleaning business at the time. My son was 14. Needed to get him up, make sure he was moving along. I had things that I needed to do. But at the time I enjoyed laying in bed, watching the news, and drinking my coffee.
That was part of my routine. I recognized that day. It didn't make me feel good, and I have morning anxiety. So the anxiety was heightened. I'll never forget driving to work that day. I was going to clean somebody's house and I was thinking, I don't have enough time for myself. I need something else. At this point.
I could use a little. Structure in my day. So that set me down the rabbit hole. I am sure. And that's probably how I stumbled on The Miracle Morning, and I changed it up after that because I recognized this isn't working for me anymore. So if you're living alcohol free and you're working on living alcohol free, it's always good to check in with what was helping me in the beginning, if it's not helping you anymore, and to change it up.
And I believe that. Comes in time, be patient with yourself. None of this stuff happens overnight. If we stop drinking, that's what we're changing. Can't change everything all at once. Be patient and be kind and be flexible and honor your energy. 'cause it just feels so much better when we're doing something that's in aligned with how we feel.
If you get some inspiration based off of what I'm gonna share, 'cause this is coming from women that I've worked with inside my community, things that they do in the morning. Go ahead and take that inspiration and try some different things out. If you don't have a morning routine at this point, I hope that you hear me saying that it's never too late to start.
And also, it's okay. It's okay. All right. Living alcohol free, that's enough, but this will support you. Go ahead and try it out. Prioritizing yourself really lays that strong foundation for my morning routine right now. I believe that it does start in the evening if you've heard that, you know, some of these things can sound really trendy.
I don't know if there's a lot of new information around morning routines, but it's true. The way I spend my evening is a precursor to how I will spend my morning looking at when I was drinking. I would spend my evening drinking and there was no morning routine happening. The next day I was not getting up and doing the things that I do today.
Last night at when I was getting ready for bed, I was being more mindful of it 'cause I knew I was going to be recording this episode. Today I pull out my clothes, like my mom used to do when I was a little kid. I put my clothes out on the bathroom counter after it's wiped down and everything from all the water, you know.
I fold them up and they're very nice and neat, and that's so helpful to me in the morning because I just get up, I do my teeth, I do my skincare, I get my clothes, and I don't have to go and search around for them. So I try to make things really easy to do for me in the morning, and I'm very thankful of that.
I put my coffee mug right by the coffee pot, and I have a banana there as well, so. This could be something that you can start tonight. Well, if you're not already doing it, I really don't assume that you don't have these routines, but I always love to hear people's routines and I get inspiration and different ideas.
So I wanna share with you some suggestions from some of the women that I've worked with and the women in my community and what excites them to get up in the morning. A good cup of coffee or tea, whatever that morning beverage is for you. If you could savor that and have time for yourself, and that's something that you look forward to.
Heck yeah. Make that your thing in the morning. Enjoying peace and quiet on the porch. Right now, we are in the warmer. Weather months. A lot of women will get outside, have their coffee during that time, have some time for reflection and listen to something on Spotify or Apple, a podcast, an audio book, if that helps.
Women that I know will get up and do Wordle or like a crossword puzzle on their phone, the New York Times stuff, 'cause that helps them just get centered on the day. They do that first thing, they get their brain activated. Also do Lingo is the name of the app where you can learn a language. Phone activities are your thing, and you have heard don't have your phone near you when you get up in the morning.
Well, you gotta make it work for you. Do it. Give yourself permission to just do it. Like I mentioned with the savers, journaling, having a gratitude list, either writing it down in their journal or saying it out loud. Also practicing meditation or prayer sitting in silence. That could also be done on the porch.
A lot of these things can be stacked. I have clients who have come to me and say, you know, I need to start an exercise routine. A lot of them will be working out at home to begin with, and I've had some that have had gym memberships for years, so they will tap back into that and go to the gym. A lot of women and myself included.
Take some sort of walk in the morning. If the weather permits, you can get outside and clear your head and just take a walk. It's so helpful for me. That's really where I can ease any anxiety and go through my day and just remind myself I'm human. Can't do everything. Focus on priorities and writing down one to three things that you will do.
During the day, this could be something that you do personally or professionally, but it's just getting clear on one to three things. 'cause I don't know about you, but the long to-do list, they just don't work for me anymore. I have a master long to-do list, but I pull from that every day. So that's also something that I will do typically before I go out and do my walk or I start my strength training workout, I'll sit down and get clear on what am I doing today.
Because you know, we overextend ourselves. We get to the end of the day and we just feel frazzled. We feel resentful. We feel like, ugh, the only solution is alcohol and it's just not a solution anymore. You are the solution. I am the solution. Another one that. I really enjoy doing, especially when I'm in low energy days, is getting ready.
Since I do work from home Tuesday through Thursday, I'm on calls. Mondays and Fridays are days off for me, so I get work done on those days. I make it an effort to do my skincare, put a little bit of makeup on. I'm really just embracing the, the spots and the wrinkles. Right now, I just don't like a lot of makeup on my face anymore.
Just do something to where I feel a little bit better today was hair washing day. I always feel better when I wash my hair. I've talked to women about this and they recognize, you know, I really wasn't taking a lot of time for myself while I was drinking. To get ready and to present myself better, that makes me feel good.
So if that's something that makes you feel good, I'm all for it. I love it. Another suggestion would be in the morning is to watch something that makes you feel good on tv. It could be an old show, could be like a Hallmark movie or a lifetime movie, something that you enjoy and having that time for yourself.
It really depends on your schedule. I know women who are listening to this podcast are retired. They may be have a little bit more time in the morning to have that flexibility with themselves. If you're somebody like me and you either have a business or you work outside of the home or from home. Any more of what you can do for yourself, even when you have a small amount of time.
And in recap, reminding yourself, I can be flexible. No one else's morning routine is like mine. I have to make it work for me, and that sets the intention and the tone for the day. I matter, so I don't get to the end of the day and feel resentment and feel like I don't have a lot of time for myself. When I was going through the first couple of years of sobriety and right around that time where I recognized I need something else for myself, boy, I was resentful.
All day long, like I don't have the time for myself. I'm constantly working. I'm constantly doing something for other people. And then it was like, well, you've got the time, Lori, Michelle, you've gotta make the time work for you. You've gotta start changing things up. I really focused on not drinking for a couple of years and that was what worked for me and I honored the changes that I would make.
Gradually over time, because I am somebody who thought, well, you gotta do all this at once. And that overwhelmed me. So I pulled back and just said, I'm gonna stick with the basics, the things that were helping me. And I had already created a few of those habits, especially around exercise and journaling, but I started adding in a little bit more.
And like you heard me say, I got excited for something different. So that excites you and the thought of doing something different tomorrow morning when you wake up. Go for it, and I would love to hear from you. I'd love to hear from you on your morning routines. If you're not already on my email community, please join.
The link is in the show notes and what you've learned from this episode. I always love to hear your feedback. You can reach out to me via email. I will have the breakdown of the savers, the links, everything in the blog post for this episode. It was a joy to be here with you today. If you're not following the podcast, please follow so you get the downloads.
On Wednesday mornings and I look forward to seeing you next week, my friend. If you're interested in coaching with me, check out private coaching. I do have availability in August and also team alcohol free, that wonderful community. We're doing so many fun things together in August. We're talking about feminine and masculine energy.
We're talking about routines and teaching each other our routines. It's a great time to join this community and get support and learn from other women, and that's what we're all about. Team, alcohol free. Take care of yourself this week. Peace.
Hey, there! I’m Lori, the host of the To 50 and Beyond podcast.
Where aging and living alcohol-free are celebrated.
To 50 and Beyond is about self-discovery, aging well on your terms, and designing an alcohol-free life that alcohol doesn’t stand a chance against.
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