Five Minute Friday: Three Questions to Add to Your Morning Routine

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Okay, let's talk about something really important and that's how do you start your day? Are you starting your day on offense or are you starting your day playing defense? So I don't know about you, but if I leave my phone right next to my bed, it's so easy. The first thing I do in the morning to just pick that little sucker up and start scrolling, scrolling and seeing. What does everyone else think about the day and what has everyone else been up to and who's posted what and what emails have come in and what fires do I need to put out? And without even thinking about it, pretty soon I've completely started my day on defense, worrying about what everyone else is up to. Maybe the lack that I have between where I am and where I want to be. Or I have started to compare myself to other people on the Internet, strangers or not, or I've become to get worried and have anxiety about the things that I know might pop out through pop up. What accent was that? The things that might pop up during my day. So that phone time, that few minutes or seconds that I spend scrolling first thing in the morning automatically can put me in a bad mood or in a dark place without me really thinking about it. And when I think about, you know, this process that sometimes happens to me or when I find myself in those moments, I know that I can go all the way back to being in high school. And even without a phone, I didn't have a phone yet in high school. Sometimes even having this same negative reaction in the morning of waking up and starting to worry about my day and all the things that could go wrong, putting myself in defense before I actually started to play offense.

So what I learned back in high.

School still definitely impacts me today because I hated it then, I hate it now. And what I've learned is I have to be super intentional with how I choose to start my day on offense. So way back in high school for me, this was simply asking myself one question. And that is what am I most excited about today? That's it. I can remember like going through that process in my mind. Maybe it was all the Chicken Soup for the Soul books my older sister Rhonda kept sending me that might have sent me on this path. Regardless, somehow I found the path and it was what am I excited about today? It could be a sporting event, a volleyball game. I had a basketball game. I had an opportunity to get out of school early. Or maybe it was just the sun was shining. But every day I forced myself to answer that question, what am I excited about today? And it completely changed my perspective in my entire morning routine way back in high school. So fast forward to today. What does that look like? Well, today there's actually three questions and I still have that same old question I've always asked. But I credit Brenda Burchard. I heard this from him at a conference many years ago. And it's these three questions that we should start our day with versus playing defense by looking at our phones. So the three questions are this. Number one, what am I most excited about today? Number two, what might trip me up today that I should be prepared for? Meaning I'm trying to eat healthy, but I know that I'm going to be eating out for lunch. How can I be prepared to make a good choice before I even get there? And just giving a little bit of forethought and planning to some of the things that might jump up and keep you from reaching your goals to today. So what might trip me up today? How can I be prepared for it? And then finally, number three, and I love this question, but who could I surprise today? So we all know that gratitude multiplies, right? And the more gratitude we can share with other people, often the more comes back to us. So when we are intentional about how we can make someone else's day great, often that will in turn happen to us. So it might be somebody that you're just going to smile, smile or try to treat special today. It might be an email or a phone call or a text message or just a check in on a friend that you're going to have today. But really planning out how can you make someone else feel really good is going to make you feel even better in return. So my challenge for you is this. Tomorrow morning when you wake up, stop playing defense and worrying about what Susie Q is doing on social media or what the bloggers are doing or they look so pretty on Instagram, how they get their hair like that? Quit it. Knock that crap off. Start by playing offense and being intentional. What are you excited about today? What might trip you up today? And then who can you surprise today. That's it. I hope you have an awesome morning every morning. Thanks for listening to 5 Minute Friday and for listening to the podcast. As always, you guys, let's catch up. Let me know what you're doing when you're listening, either on Instagram at the Boutique Hub or Instagram @aj Alderson. I can't wait to hear from you. See you next week.

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