How do you start most of your days? What do think when you wake up?  What’s the first thing you do in the morning? How do you feel? Our mornings set us up for the rest of the day, so in order to have a good day, we need a good morning.

When we’re stressed, or worried, or reacting to our lives, we often don’t sleep well.  In turn this means that when we wake, we’re not fully rested and fresh, ready for the day ahead.  We can often wake up thinking our life is what’s happening to us, with the first thoughts of the day are things like “this is going to be a toughie”, “I’m so overwhelmed”, “I’m never going to get anything done”. Straightaway, we feel overwhelmed, frustrated and hopeless.  This is the energy we start our day with.  The cycle continues throughout the day.

When we learn to manage our minds, we sleep better.  When we sleep better we wake up a little bit more refreshed, and it can all begin to change the trajectory of your day or your life. 

By making our mornings simple, elegant and intentional, we can really start to tweak them so that we feel better, more empowered and excited about our day. 

One simple thing may be to have a fantastic cup of coffee.  Many people find journaling in the morning about the person we intend to be for the day, anything that’s holding us back, giving ourselves a pep talk at the beginning of the day, can really set the intention and direction of how the day will pan out. Decide ahead of time what we want to create and how we’re going to make that happen, how we’re going to feel, think and do in order to create that. If we don’t know what we want, our brains have no direction or focus, so it will attempt to recreate what we did yesterday.

Whether we journal our thoughts for the day ahead, or simply take to the time to consider them, we can change to direction based on what it is we want to create, what are our goals, what is it that we’re wanting to experience, what do we want to do, who do we want to be. 

Another thing to do in the morning is to recognise things to celebrate and appreciate.  The more we appreciate and celebrate our lives, the more is celebrates us back.  Be mindful of our first thoughts of the day. Ask ourselves what amazing things are going to happen today.  Start with one thought that is a little bit better than the “here we go again” mindset.  Think of a new day as a fresh start where we get to practice something different, looking for things to be grateful for. Our energy flows where our attention goes, and what we focus on expands.  This is a great opportunity to change the direction of our focus and attention. 

Most people are waiting for their world to change first in order for them to feel better, but when we start to feel better, the world outside will start to change.  Then in our state of celebration and gratitude, we are creating those good feelings first thing in the morning. How we start the day is generally how our day is going to go, so we need to get our energy going in the right direction.

Then when we create space for inspiration, reading, watching or listening to something that is going to inspire us in some way, we can infuse our goals and dreams.  It may be playing some music that helps us get in the zone of being more energetic, focussed, fun or whatever.  It can be very fluid based on what our soul wants to be inspired by, a podcast, a book or article. 

Think about how we start our day.  We’re often rushed and before we’re clear on our commitments of the day, we’re already plugged in to the chaos of the world.  Our mornings are a chance to take back our power, to be creative, and decide ahead of time what we’re going to do today. 

My workday morning routine usually revolves around drinking a coffee, then spending five to ten minutes playing a matching game on my tablet.  It gives me time to focus on something else, to sharpen my brain and my responses.  I can usually tell whether I’m in a focussed state of mind for the day ahead based on my game score of the morning.

I don’t do journaling, I did try, but never really got into it, but I do think about my day ahead.  I think about the meetings I have, or the messages I need to respond to.  I think about the work I need to accomplish that day and try to imagine carving parts of my day out to support getting those activities done.  I imagine to myself that I’ll get xyz done by lunch time, then abc done by the end of the day.  Then I’ll think about the things I need to do each evening; more meetings, emails and pieces of work.  I am quite good at putting things in priority and can therefore put something on the side if I’m not in the right place to deal with it that day. 

That does mean however, that when I get thrown a curve ball, I’m not always receptive to having to deal with it in the moment.  If I’ve already got it in my mind that I’ll deal with that tomorrow, I really can’t get enthused about dealing with it today.  Sometimes C will ask me to look at a document later in the evening, when I’ve already switched my brain off for the day.  I can’t always respond in a positive manner. 

I did give myself a pep talk the other day.  After a couple of days in the doldrums, I woke up the next day thinking that I could either wallow in self-pity, or put it out of my mind and get on with things.  I chose the latter and my day was much more productive; I engaged with those around me much more positively and by the end of the day, the thing that had been annoying me the previous couple of days, was almost forgotten.

The power of our attitude toward the day, really can change our experience of the day ahead.