The morning is key to your day. Win the morning, win the day. Lose the morning and you’ll play catch-up the rest of the day and not do as much as you could have had you won the morning. In this video we’re going to break down the morning routine: what it is, why you should do it, and how to implement one. I am convinced the morning routine is a critical, no crucial, no vital element to your success.

Definition: Morning Routine

What is a Morning Routine? Cam Adair at GameQuitters.com tells us.

“A morning routine is quite simply what it says. It’s a set of habits or motions that you go through when you wake up. It helps to set your day up in the right way and can have some drastic effects on your focus and productivity. You could do anything from exercising and journaling to reading and meditating. Or, alternatively, you could hit snooze 5 times and scroll through Instagram for 30 minutes.”

Nothing complicated here. A morning routine is the set of things you do in the morning that helps to set up your day for success. Each person’s morning routine is different and we generally all have one. But as Adair suggests, many of us don’t think through our routine as well as others. Scrolling through social media or checking email the first thing in the morning doesn’t set up your day nearly as well as reading Scripture, praying, or journaling.  

You may think, that’s nice. But who else besides you and Adair thinks an effective morning routine is oh-so-important. Actually, quite a few people do.

• Tim Ferris, author of the 4-Hour Work Week and Tools of Titans wrote (and I quoted him earlier): “If you win the morning, you win the day.”
  
• Best-selling author and personal growth expert John C. Maxwell wrote about morning routines, “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily…I believe that the secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.” He doesn’t mention morning there, but he drives the nail into routine.
  
• Or what about the Prophet Jeremiah? In Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV), he writes about the newness of God’s mercy every morning: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Admiral McRaven, at a commencement speech for the University of Texas at Austin (my alma mater) spoke about the importance of morning routines. Specifically the routine of making your bed. It’s a simple act, but has profound significance. Admiral McRaven explained it better than me.

So if the U.S. Navy thinks a morning routine is important, if personal growth experts think the morning is important, and if the Bible reminds us about God’s renewed mercy in the morning, how much more so should we consider the importance of a solid morning routine? 

A morning routine is pretty important, but what exactly does it look like? I’ve been practicing some kind of structured morning routine for decades now. For me, it started out as what many people call a “Quiet Time” – a personal devotion time with Bible reading and prayer. My morning routine has morphed over the years, especially over the past few years to where it’s more focused these days. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the unexamined (and inconsistent) routine I practiced before. I say that at the start to remind you a morning routine is customized for you. It’s not about what I do, what Elon Musk does, or your favorite highly productive CEO. It’s about what’s best for you right now. 

Five Steps to Implement a Basic (Effective) Morning Routine

Now that you’re familiar with why a morning routine is important and some potential components of a helpful morning routine, you have the basics for putting together an effective morning routine for yourself. Here are 5 steps to set up a basic morning routine that will help you win the day better than you ever have. 

Step #1 Grab a Notebook & a Bible

An effective morning routine starts with preparation. But there’s really not much prep that’s needed. The day before you start your new morning routine, grab a clean notebook and a Bible. The reason you need a clean notebook is you will be writing down your current routine and plan your day. The reason you’ll need a Bible is because at Total Calling, we’re trying to do personal growth from a biblical perspective and a Bible helps with that.  

Step #2: Get a Good Night’s Sleep

Not sure what your current sleeping practice is, but it’s hard to have an effective morning routine if you don’t get a good night’s sleep. So the night before you’re ready to start your new routine, get at least 6-7 hours of sleep. Get more sleep if you need it.

Step #3: Get Up 30-60 Minutes Earlier than Usual

A morning routine happens in the morning. Make sure you get up before you would normally so you have enough time to complete a solid morning routine. You can still do most everything else you normally do – scroll through social media and any personal business – but aim to get your morning routine done before you do much else.  

Step #4: Read, Pray, Walk, and Plan

This is a basic overview of an effective morning routine. If you do these four things, you will take care of most of what makes a morning routine productive. You can always expand on this basic plan later – but this is a good start.

• Read. Read a short passage from the Bible. Don’t know where to start? Open to the Psalms and read a few verses. Think about what those verses might mean and how they apply to what’s happening in your life right now.
• Pray. Pray about the upcoming day. If you’re not used to praying, a good model prayer is found in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13 – the “Our Father” prayer). You can repeat that or use it as a model for how to structure your prayer. 
• Walk. Get some fresh air. Get the blood flowing and think about what’s happening that day. You can actually pray and walk together to save some time.
• Plan. Write out a short task list for things that need to happen that day so that it will feel effective. That will help order your day better than if you just do whatever comes to mind next.

Step #5 Repeat a Morning Routine for 30 Days

That’s right, do this every day for 30-days straight. That will give you a solid month of personal morning routine data to see how things begin to improve in your life. You can mix things up over that month, but do some kind of morning routine for 30 days straight.  

It takes 66 days of consistent execution for a new habit to stick, according to Philippa Lally, senior researcher at University College London. So I’m under no delusion that doing this morning routine for 30 days is going to establish it forever. But it’s a great start for installing a new habit that has the potential to revolutionize your clarity, focus, consistency, and motivation for whatever you do in life.  

Before we finish up this video, I’d love it if you could smash that “like” button — you can also click it. That tells the YouTube overlords that this video is pretty cool and will help spread it to more people so they can have good morning routines as well. So “like” this video – and let’s finish it up. 

Excuses for NOT Doing a Morning Routine

There are many reasons for not doing a morning routine. I can think of a few. 

“BUT, I’m not a morning person.” 

I understand. I didn’t start this way either. Coffee helps me. You can try tea or another caffeinated beverage – green tea is pretty mild or a triple shot of espresso can do the trick. Regardless, put whatever you need to in place to get up and start the process. You may not be a “morning person” now, but you might become one before it’s all said and done. I find that I enjoy mornings more than I ever have – that’s not always been the case. We can change.   

“BUT, I’ve never done a morning routine before.” 

Neither did anyone else who has a killer morning routine. We all started at 0 effective mornings. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so said Chinese philosopher, Lao-Tzu. Start. It will revolutionize your life.  

“BUT, my schedule is whacked out!”

This may be the more difficult objection to overcome. If you work a non-traditional shift, work at night, or some other time that makes morning routines difficult with your schedule, then make adjustments. If you work at night, then your morning starts when you wake up – even if that’s at 4 pm. If your schedule always changes, then do the same thing. Start your morning routine when you wake up. Now, you may need to adjust your work situation. That could be part of your overall plan to reorganize your life. I wouldn’t find another job just because you’re looking for a better schedule, but I would consider it in light of everything else you’re aiming to shift around.  

Application: 30 Day Trial for Your Morning Routine

With that out of the way, I’d love to hear how it goes. I’m serious, try this simple five steps to establish an effective morning routine in your life. 

Step #1 Grab a Notebook & a Bible

Step #2: Get a Good Night’s Sleep

Step #3: Get Up 30-60 Minutes Earlier than Usual

Step #4: Read, Pray, Walk, and Plan

Step #5 Repeat a Morning Routine for 30 Days

If you’re already doing something, then step it up and make some changes to refresh it. Routines grow stale if you’ve been doing the same thing for months or years. Whatever it is, try it out for 30 days and let me know how it goes. Leave a comment down below. Looking forward to hearing about how this one simple shift can change your life.

And part of your morning routine can be to watch inspirational and practical content like Total Calling. So if you’re not subscribed already, make sure you click that subscribe button. That will tell YouTube you are interested in this kind of content which helps you stay more focused to become the person God wants you to be. So if you’re interested in making positive changes in your life, subscribe right now.   

All the best.