My Morning and Evening Routines

Reid and I have been feeling like the number one thing holding us back from achieving our goals has been not waking up early enough and with enough structure to get our days started on the right foot and with the best productive mindset. We hit snooze to no avail, and reap no benefits from the extra poor sleep!

Therefore, we’ve been listening to podcasts and reading about how motivated and intentional people design their morning rituals to set them up for success. Here are some of the tidbits of wisdom we’ve gleaned:

• Start with some sort of journaling first thing – dream, gratitude, morning pages, bullet journaling, or combination of any/all the aforementioned to set intentions for the day and brain dump of thoughts and ideas. **In your own handwriting!
• Meditation – to quiet the anxious thoughts about your day, ground yourself in your own inner voice versus ruminating on others’, and build resilience to make it through the day with purpose
• Move your body – morning exercise to get the blood flowing, I’ve been wanting to do yoga
• Get-ready routine – I want to make time to do all my skincare regimen, makeup and at least a little effort on my hair, versus what I do now just brushing my teeth and anything else is up in the air depending on how many snoozes I did before rushing out the door.
• Eat breakfast – the hardest addition to make time for me personally, maybe will do some sort of overnight oats to have prepped the night before, or cereal if we’re being lazy (which let’s be honest, will probs be most of the time)

So, all that being said, I need to establish some sort of regular routine to start since right now it’s pretty much zip, zilch, nada. My problem with trying to set routines in the past has been perfectionism – I design the absolute ideal way I’d like things to go accomplishing absolutely everything I want to, and then if one day I fail and don’t do it ALL, then I say OH WELL I’M SCREWED and don’t even try to keep up the routine after messing up.

I have written out my ideal daily routines below just to get them out of my head, however, I won’t be jumping on the bandwagon and doing everything 100% right at the start. I’m going to pick 1-2 things to start doing every morning and night, and then once I’ve made a habit out of doing something simple, then I can start habit-stacking and adding on piece by piece.

My Ideal Morning Routine

1. Wake up with the sun
   
2. Go to the bathroom, take out & rinse retainers
3. Journal (5-10 mins) – dream, gratitude, and 2-3 goals for the day
4. Yoga (20-45 mins)
5. Meditate (5 mins)
6. Breakfast book club with Reid
7. Floss then brush teeth
8. Skincare routine:
   1. wash face
   2. toner  
   3. acne cream  
   4. hydration serum  
   5. eye cream  
   6. moisturizer with SPF
   7. Mederma on BC implant scar
9. Get ready for the day!
   1. make up  
   2. brush & style hair  
   3. dressed to shoes  
   4. deodorant & perfume
      

During the Day

• Get hydrated and healthier! Drink at least 64 oz of water, and eat mindfully
• Get outside for at least 30 minutes (shouldn’t be an issue living in the RV and walking Lincoln, and will maybe even do yoga outside depending on where we are!)
• Write for blog at some point, doesn’t have to be a post every day but at least work on ideas/outlines/pieces of posts each day (post 2-3x/week)
  
• 1 hour max of just sitting and watching TV streaming (if watching while doing other productive tasks like cooking/cleaning then doesn’t count)

Ideal Nighttime Routine

1. Prep breakfast/lunch, make sure all dishes done for a clean kitchen at end of the evening
2. Stop using/watching phone, computer, TV
   
3. Body shower then Mederma on scar and coconut oil as lotion (just a little bit)
4. Floss then brush teeth, put in retainers
5. Skincare routine
   1. Micellar water (makeup remover, washes, and tones)  
   2. Acne cream  
   3. serum  
   4. eye cream  
   5. richer moisturizer
      
6. Bedtime downtime
   1. Journal (5 mins) – bullets of what happened and how I did on goals
   2. Reading
   3. Sleep at same time w/ Reid
7. Get at least 6 or ideally 7.5 hours of sleep!

The Realistic Routine Pieces I’ll Start With

Mornings

• Wake up and get out of bed with 1st alarm
• Bathroom, take out retainer, and brush teeth
• Journal

During Day

• Drink two tumblers-full of water (it’s a 30 oz tumbler)

Evenings

• Body shower (wash hair every 3rd or 4th day)
• Floss, brush teeth, and put in retainer
• Read in bed with Reid

There we go, and who knows, if I’m making a point to do at least SOMETHING, then maybe some days I’ll actually end up doing a fair bit of the other stuff I want to do too just by riding the habit train!