The Most Productive Morning Routine:

It’s 2018. You just started college. For the first time in your life you have gained a little more independence. You don’t have to be at school at the same time every morning, your parents aren’t breathing down your neck and it feels good. 

On this particular morning you take a look in the mirror and notice your skin that has started to become a little more greasy, your face and stomach that has started to become a little more puffy, and you look around your bathroom to notice not a single one of your roomates has bothered to clean the bathroom since the first week of the semester. It’s a collective problem, but today the half drunk cup of coke and vodka next to your toothbrush is starting to bother you a little. 

You have this little thought in the back of your head, ‘maybe I should learn how to get my life together’. 

You do what any Gen Z’er would and you go to the internet for answers. You find a YouTube video titled “My 5am morning routine” and you watch it. The girl on your screen has their life together. They wake up in a perfectly white bedroom, do a full skincare routine, drink a green juice, do a workout, plan their day, meditate, journal, and go to school all before 9am. The video is perfectly aesthetic and has millions of views. Then you click on the next video, and you see another beautiful, skinny girl around the same age as you doing a similar routine to the first video. 

If only you could get your life together like these girls, then you would be beautiful, skinny, and successful. 

So the next day you set your alarm, you get up at 5am and you do the morning routine. You do everything as perfectly as the YouTuber, and then by the time you get to your first class of the day you are exhausted. You keep trying the morning routines of various beautiful YouTubers, and you can never do one for longer than 2 weeks. 

Time goes on, and even more girls are sharing their routines on the internet. You’ve tried every single one. Then TikTok comes around. Even more perfect morning routines that leave you feeling exhausted by the middle of the day. 

It’s covid lockdown, and you are just spending your time scrolling through the endless amount of perfect morning routines. You try, but you struggle to do all the things that these girls do online. 

Okay, you get the picture. It’s near impossible to do these aesthetic morning routines that we all glorify online. I mean seriously, who accomplishes all of that before 9am? Sure, it probably can be done but I know for a fact that it does not set me up for a day full of energy. 

I refuse to do a long morning routine, these 10 step routines set me up for a day of exhaustion. 

I’m done trying to live my life like an influencer, and you should too! I do believe that most influencers have great intentions. However it’s important to remember that  most of them have a lot of free time on their hands, and make money off of the products that they highlight in their morning routines. 

So, now you’re thinking… should I just get up, roll out of bed, and start my day?

Well… no. There is some value in a morning routine. 

So here’s my proposal to you:

Create your own morning routine.

Set your priorities: take out a piece of paper or your journal and write down these five things.

1. Think about how much time you realistically have in the morning. This includes getting enough sleep.

2. Take some time and really think about the most important thing you want to accomplish in your life right now. This could be as simple as getting to work on time, or as complicated as trying to create an income for yourself outside of your 9-5 job. 

3. What’s your current spiritual or emotional goal? 

4. What is your current health goal? 

5. What is something you can do for you?

Okay, so now that you have established your priorities, it’s time to start implementing.

1. Establish the amount of time you are going to spend on this routine. Do not overextend yourself. A long routine is a routine that you will not follow. 

2. Write down the one  action you need to take for each of these priorities to start making progress towards your goal in each category (2-5). 

3. Tomorrow, start implementing the first action for the first priority. Spend a week developing this habit. Then repeat for the next 3 categories. 

4. Do not start the routine all at once. Give each action a week to develop. Try it on, and see how you like it. If something is not working for you, get rid of it.

NOW, you are probably wondering… ‘why will this routine work over the other routines I have tried?’

‘How do I know that this is a routine that I am going to be able to continue long-term?’

Well, let me tell you why. 

I did a lot of research on successful people’s morning routines. 

Turns out, the running theme amongst all successful people’s morning routines is that they just do the things that are going to move them closer to their goals. They take small actions every day that will consistently move them closer to the person that they want to be.

My story

I tried many people’s morning routines. My favorite was following fitness influencers' routines in the golden Gymshark era. I had a fitness page at one point, and I thought that if I followed some of the most famous fitness influencers' morning routines, I could grow a following as large as theirs and get sponsored by Gymshark. 

Well, I spent years following people’s routines down to the tiniest minute detail, and I did not grow a large following or get sponsored by Gymshark. 

I got extremely overwhelmed by the number of steps in most people’s morning routines and then quit. I put so much pressure on these morning routines that if I didn’t do the routine, then I wouldn’t do the work that I actually needed to do to become a famous fitness influencer. 

The key here is this; the morning routine was not something I could sustainably integrate into my life over the long term, and it was getting in the way of the key work I need to do to get closer to my goals. 

Then, I started working the night shift as a nurse. There were few nurse influencers at the time, so I didn’t have an influencer routine to follow. I had to create my own. For the first time, I tried different things and saw if they worked for me. Slowly, I started to form my own individualized morning routine through trial and error. Guess what? That’s the only one I have ever stuck to. 

Since then, I have never blindly tried to copy anyone’s morning routine. I have absolutely used people’s morning routines as inspiration but never as an exact copy. 

I realized that self-exploration and experimentation were way more valuable than listening to anyone else.

Successful artists center their morning routine around doing, or preparing to do their art. Being a writer is contingent on writing. Successful athletes prepare their body to be physically active. 

They do not do the latest and greatest wellness trends, they don’t use products for the sake of trying to sell them to an audience, and most of them do not film their morning routines in an aesthetically pleasing way. 

The real successful entrepreneurs, CEO’s and leaders of our time just take intentional actions and are consistent with those actions every day. 

Another thing that many successful people do is they experiment. They are willing to try things to make sure that they fit into their life. They do not try to make things fit into their life because it is the newest trend and everyone else is doing it. 

So this is why you must experiment with your morning routine and take it one week at a time. You could even go slower and take each new action one month at a time. If the action doesn’t work, or doesn’t fit into your life, replace it with another one. 

Once you find the actions that slowly move you closer to your goals, be consistent. 

That’s it. Keep it simple.

So why  are you still following an influencer’s routine? Is it just because their life looks beautiful on the surface? 

Do a morning routine that is specifically developed by you, for you. 

DO the sh*t that you need to do to get closer to your goals. 

That’s the perfect morning routine.

P.S. Do you wake up every day with existential dread? I used to. I read quotes daily that help me set the tone for the day!  If you want to receive little snippets of wisdom and inspiration, click the link below to sign up for Her Twenties Daily Inspiration!