The Power of a Morning Routine
Live like a Mindful Eater
Before you read on, I want you to take a moment to reflect on how you start your day, especially the first 30 minutes to 1 hour of your morning.
Then ask yourself, how does the first hour of your day impact how the rest of your day pans out?
Your life is made up of years, months, weeks and days. More precisely, your life is simply a collection of days. Days lived with stress, overwhelm, anxiety, distraction and dissatisfaction becomes a life of stress, overwhelm, distraction and so on. Your days matter! How you live your days amount to the life you live.
A life of purpose, meaning and fulfilment unfolds within a day of clarity, intention and focus. The best way of accomplishing this is through a consistent and intentional morning routine.
This may mean, waking up an extra 20 mins than you usually do. Let’s explore this from two perspectives…
Top tips for living a life of distraction, overwhelm and re-activity
1) Start your day scrolling through social media!
This way you make sure you start the day focusing away from your own life’s dreams and hopes by distracting yourself with other people’s social media lives. As you scroll through, you are unconsciously comparing and contrasting your life with others, fuelling your inadequacies and dissatisfaction with your life.
The act of scrolling, so effortless, so addictive - leaves your mind feeling scattered, agitated and unfocused. All of this even before getting out of bed. A sure way to live your life through the lens of others. As you start the day like this, your energy for your life is sapped, you are feel discourage and distracted. Then you seek comfort in food, to sooth the feelings of dissatisfaction and hollowness.
2) Start the day by checking your emails and/or reacting to your family needs and demands.
This is the best way to start the day frazzled. In checking your inbox first thing, you are checking out of your own life. Taking care of other people’s needs as a strategy for starting your day instead of creating space and time to intentionally shape your own day is the perfect way to manifest a life of conformity, resentment and burn out.
This morning mindset will set you for the day as a reactor, someone who reacts to other people’s needs and agendas. This is especially true, if you are a compassionate and caring person with a lot of caring responsibilities.
Top Tips for living a life of purpose, joy and fulfillment
1) Start your day with intention.
The first 30mins or so of your day is a time for reflection, a special time for intentionally sculpting the life you want to live. Part of this will include becoming clear on what actions and mindset shifts you need to be focusing on during the day. This will give you the basis to move your life forward in the direction of health, happiness and fulfilment, as defined by you.
A few good questions to gain clarity before you launch into your day is:
- How I can bring intention and focus to my interactions, activities, my relationship with myself, my relationship with food and so on?
- What key activities do I need to be focusing on to manifest my overall vision for life? For instance, as a mindful eater - a key priority is for you to heal your relationship with yourself and food. How and when can I be creating space and time to mindfully eat?
- How can I be fully present and attentive in my relationship with my family, colleagues and friends? Decide ahead of time.
Mentally walk through your day, asking yourself the question - how can I can bring my best self into my interactions, work and family?
Chances are, if you spend a few minutes creating this intention in the morning, you become the architect of your day and consequently your life.
2) Movement, Meditation and Gratitude
Movement: from yoga to brisk walking, even done for 10mins a day shifts you energetically, opening your body up, ready for the day.
Meditation: cleanses your mind from the inside out. A powerful morning ritual to set you up for a day of happiness, peace and growth. For the benefits of meditation practice please see my blog post The Magic of Mindfulness.
Gratitude: a potent medicine that injects vibrancy and fulfilment into your life. Starting your day with a few minutes of gratitude; for being alive, for all the good conditions and people you have (and take for granted) in your life and for another day to make a difference in this world.
Gratitude heals your scarcity mindset which is at the heart of binge eating, a feeling of lack. Gratitude fills you up from the inside and you start your day from a place abundance. Days lived like this will lead to a life of abundance, peace and fulfilment. There is no space for binge eating in a life that is fulfilled.
How you start your day, it seems, has the power to end up shaping the destiny of your life.
