Three Worst Morning Routines

Hey, my friends.

It's Brendon Burchard.

And welcome to another episode of the Brendon show.

The three worst morning routines ever. And I know you hear about this all the time. It's like you need a morning routine so that you can set your mind right, so that you can do the day right, so you can stay motivated. And lots of people have opinions about morning routines. Maybe you already have a great one. But let me share the three you should not have and you should not do because they take away your ability to be in a good mood, to be productive, and to make your dreams come true. Here's how most people, though, unfortunately, start their day. They wake up from bed and they reach over, they grab their phone and they pull their phone to their face and then they go and they start scrolling through. And some people, you can literally hear them growing. You know what I mean? It's like they just immediately start the day. Their real morning routine is starting their day in social media. Now let's talk about why that is bad scientifically. So not my opinion. Not like I'm the guy telling you stop doing Instagram. I'm sharing with you some results from the world's largest study that's ever been done on high performers. High performers are basically the top 15% of the most successful group in whatever their category is, meaning it's the most successful 15% of business owners or the most successful yoga instructors or the most successful videographers or the most successful whatever. We've studied over 2 million data points from 190 countries around the world to understand what do high performers do? What are their habits? What do they do? What do they focus on? What's their mind like? Not just like, how do they show up, but rather what are they doing willfully and on purpose. And one thing they are not doing is starting their day in social media. Almost none of them. But think about what that will is. It's like you wake up, you grab the phone, you start scrolling through psychologically, what is that doing for you? First, social media is triggering in your mind the comparison frame. You immediately start comparing, oh, look at her abs. Oh, look at his thing. Oh, he's got this. Look at their followers. I don't have that impact. I wish I could be like this. I want to be like that. You're immediately comparing your life to other people. What else are you doing? You're scrolling. And as you're scrolling, neurologically, we know that as doing. The reason you like to scroll so much is and swipe so much and move so much through that phone is because every time you do, it fires off in your brain something called novelty. And when we have novelty, something new to look at, our brain likes it. And our brain says, well, let's give them a little dopamine, a little vasopressin. Let's make them feel good. And so, oh, the more I do this, the more your brain goes distraction. Yay. Look. New things. Shiny, shiny, shiny. And you're swiping through this. And as you are swiping through all of this, you are forgetting your life and your day. I mean, imagine, would you ever tell, like a middle school kid, hey, what I want you to do, kid, is wake up every morning and immediately start thinking about how the other kids in school are and start comparing yourself to everybody. No one of us, as adults would teach small children to start their day comparing themselves to other people. And yet, that's what you're doing when you pick up that phone. What you're doing is you are neurologically training your brain to be rewarded by comparison and distraction. Because right, think about the anchor here. Wake up, grab, look, scroll. And what is that doing? It is training your brain first thing in the morning, check out of your life, and check into other people's lives every morning. You are training your brain to check into other people's lives. Not carefully and strategically and intentionally think about yours. So what that means is if you're a person who is checking your phone first thing in the morning, going through social media, you, by definition, by checking into other people's lives, comparison yourself to other people's lives. You are ultimately training your brain neurologically to live other people's lives, to see life from the perspective of other people's, versus your own vision, your own dream, your own thoughts, your own strategy, your own intention. You are training your brain to live other people's lives. So that's the worst thing you can do. Please be thoughtful about this. And I know, I know many of you like, but it's hard, Brendan. I just love to pick up the phone. I know, I know. Because that's an addiction. Every time you do something, if you have to do it every day and it's something that you do every day, that is leading to a negative result. That's an addiction. And you must teach yourself to break that. You must not do that. I had to. Personally, I literally do not have my phone by my bedside. Like, when I had this, I noticed. I was like, gosh, I check in. I've seen the results. I've seen the Studies. Why am I doing this? So I turned my phone off, I put it in the kitchen counter charging and I'm in the bedroom sleeping, which is really important, right? To keep you safe. So I think it's just a change. The worst morning routine we can have is to immediately be in the day in comparison and distraction. Second terrible routine that people love to do is they gotta check in again, check in email. I gotta check my email, I gotta check my email, I gotta check my text, I gotta check this. But listen, your texts and your email are nothing but convenient organizing systems of other people's agendas. Think about that for a minute. What shows up in your inbox or in your texts? What shows up in your messages? Other people's will for you, Other people telling you what to do, what to think, what they need from you, what the deadline is. Stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. And most people are literally beginning their day checking their text, their voice message and their inbox, which is all other people's agendas and needs from you. So again, you are starting your day in other people's lives and needs and think about that and how powerful that is, especially for people like me and maybe you. Like, I consider myself a people pleaser. Like, I want to do good for other people. I love to lead and caretake of other people. I love to be that person who supports other people. And some people, they give their whole life to other people without ever having shaped their own life. All they do is do what the husband says, do what the wife says, do what the family says, do what the parent says. All they do is do what that inbox says, do what those text requests are all day. What are they doing? They're reacting to other people's needs, drives, ambitions. So your whole life you're marching under somebody else's flag, you're following without even knowing. You're building in the capacity to be a follower. And I'm just here to say, listen, I'm not saying you should never check email. I'm not saying don't check your text or voice message. Notice what I'm saying? Don't do it first thing in the morning when you check into your inbox, you are checking out of your life. When you immediately react to other people, you are taking yourself out of strategy and thinking about the day for one second. Think about this again. Go back to that middle school kid, hey kid, wake up in the morning. And immediately, I'd love for you to start using your mind to compare yourself to other people, to be distracted and only think about doing what everyone else tells you what to do. Will that child ever grow up with freedom, autonomy, joy? The significance of building a life that is theirs versus reacting to everybody. But again, if you're waking up and that's the first thing you're doing, that is an addiction that's leading to a negative result. And for those of you who are like, yeah, yeah, Brendan is just yapping at me. The world's largest study of high performers show. If you check your email in the first 60 minutes of the day, you decrease your weekly productivity by 30%. Take that one home. If you check your email within the first 60 minutes of waking, you are decreasing your productivity by 30% in the week. People say, brendan, I would love to get more productivity. Everyone says, well, I don't have enough time. No, you're just using your time really bad in the morning to create these frames where you're comparison. So you're getting discouraged to create distraction. So you're training yourself to be distracted throughout the day instead of focused throughout the day. You're checking into everybody else's needs. So you think about doing everything for everybody else and not thinking about your dreams, your wants, your desires, your ambitions, your goals, your contributions. And I'm here to tell you, you have to be very careful. Getting 30% of your productivity back though, that's so hopeful. That's so hopeful. And of course people go, well, Brendan, that sounds like pseudo science. Well, here, let me share with you results. Why is it you're able to get more done each week is because instead of doing those things, you're going to begin your day intentionally. Instead of checking in the inbox before you even open the inbox, sit back and say, okay, what are the primary activities I need to do today to move the needle towards my dreams? What are the primary actions, activities, projects, tasks that I must do today to move it forward for me, for my dreams, for what I want to create in the world? Who do I need to reach out to to ask for help or to delegate to or to ask this for? Like, instead of you using the inbox as a tool to consume and do what everyone else does, use it as a tool to communicate. Say, okay, I'm gonna open that inbox. The first thing I'm doing is reach out to people, hey, I'm waiting on this. I need this from you. Could you send that to me? Okay, great. Like, do that before you respond. Anything, if anything, that will get more productive also, please think about this. Please think about this. What if, as you thought about the Major things you have to do that you just blocked some time during the day to ensure those things happened. So for me, as an example, I never do email before. The major creative things I need to do during the day, like I'm filming this video right now. I've done zero email today, None. Because it's like, this is the major thing that makes a contribution. This matters more than email. You've got to reprioritize your life to doing the things that matter. If you read my book High Performance Habits, you've learned about this concept called pqo. It stands for prolific quality output. The difference between the most successful people in the world and average performers is that they focus most of their time during the week. On average, it was 60% for them on doing the things that mattered the most to create the outputs that advance their life. So, for example, an output that advanced my life is video. An output that advanced my life is online courses. Is the business work, right? That advances what I'm doing here. And I have to look, what are the big boulders that move your life forward versus focusing on picking up all the scraps and the pebbles, which is. Where do all the scraps and pebbles live? In your social media or inbox? I'm here to tell you, but also warn you and lovingly cajole you. Use your morning to think about your day. The third worst morning routine is to begin the day with no intention and just go through the motions all day. Well, I guess I got this meeting. Show up. Oh, I guess I gotta do this thing. Show up. Showing up and just going through the motion. Listen, there's this myth that just showing up is like secret to success. But listen, anyone can show up, but very few people will show up consciously present, engaged, prepared, intentional. So let me give an example of what you should do instead of just showing up and going through the motions. What if as part of your morning, you thought about the major things that had to happen that day and you just kind of closed your eyes and meditated or got thoughtful about, okay, I've got this meeting. How do I deliver with excellence during that meeting? How do I make sure that meeting's great? What would I have to think about? Prepare. Who's in that meeting? What could I ask them? In other words, you kind of walk yourself mentally through the day and ask yourself, how could you do it with excellence? How could you enjoy it? How could you contribute a unique level of value? Because the ultimate killer of high performance is you just showing up and going through the motions. Because anyone can do that and listen, you don't want to know. You lived your entire life and you're like, well, I just went through the motions. You want to know. You challenged yourself to deliver with excellence, to be great at what you do and to be great at what you do. You can't keep bumbling into meeting, bumbling into your performance, bumbling into your work. You need to think through your work more, especially in the mornings. And what does that do? By thinking through your day or your week or your month strategically and asking how you can do it with excellence, you get more motivated. Think about the opposite. When you check into social media, checking the inbox, checking to other people's needs, what do you get? You get distraction, you get conformity, and you get discouraged. So how are you starting your day? Distracted, conforming and discouraged? Or are you starting your day motivated? Because when you think about what you want, what you need to do, when you step it through in your mind, you visualize it, you think about it, you prepare for it. Now you know you can win the day and what happens after. You win one day, you want to win the next day, you win the next day. You win the week, you win the week, you win the month, you win the month, you win the year, you win the year, you win the decade, you win your life. So we have to make a decision. How are you going to run your morning? Now, I know I get asked all the time from you guys, what's your morning routine? And mine's very, very simplistic. I wake up in the morning and the first 20 minutes of my morning, for me personally, I move. So for me, that means I stretch, I do yoga, I do vinyasa, I might do calisthenics, I might take a long, fast, 20 minute walk. But for 20 minutes, I move, I breathe, I open up my body, I open up the instrument so I can serve that day. Then. Then the next 20 minutes, what do I do? The next 20 minutes, I sit down, I read, and I take in good things from good books. I think about good things. I literally spend just 20 minutes. I set the timer for 20 minutes. I'm going to read this book. And sometimes it's a spiritual text, sometimes it's a poetry book I love, sometimes it's a book from a friend. But it's all positive and it's getting my mind going on good things. Then the next 20 minute segment, I literally spend 20 minutes thinking through the day. Even though the day has been planned, sometimes the schedule has been set. I spend 20 minutes just looking at what's on that schedule? How can I deliver with excellence? How can I do a good job here? How can I enjoy this day? I use that 20 minutes to set my mindset by asking myself, what can I be excited about for today? Who could I appreciate or adore or show some love to or give a gift to? Today I ask myself, what might trip me up today? Like, you know, might stress me out and how would my highest self deal with that? In other words, I literally spend 20 minutes thinking about how to make the day awesome. It motivates me, it prepares me, it makes me intentional. And if you are motivated, prepared and intentional, isn't it true you'll do a better job during the day? Now, I know lots of people always say, well, Brendan, I can't take an hour. I've got the kids, or I've got work, or I've got these responsibilities. I'm like, okay, I. But you could take 5 minutes or 10 minutes to prepare yourself for the day. You could take 15 or 20 minutes. If you don't have 15 minutes to prepare your day, you don't have a life. You need to find the time to more strategically prepare and win your days. Listen, your dreams require that preparation. Your heart requires that intention. And that consciousness, your work and your difference requires, requires you to be intentional. You can't keep being distracted and you can't keep going through the motions. So please stop losing the morning. Get rid of those addictions. Think strategically in the morning. You deserve to have an extraordinary quality of life. And I'm here to tell you, my friend, it will begin for you in the morning. So create your ideal routine and stick to it. Don't pick up the phone. Don't check the inbox, don't check the voice messages. Don't do what everyone else says. Instead, craft your day and craft your life and start with that before responding to everybody else. And all of a sudden you say, oh my gosh, I've got my life back again.

If you're ready to take your life to a whole new level, make sure you grab my book, High Performance Habits. How Extraordinary People Become that way. It's available on Amazon right now. And when you order your copy, you're really supporting my channel and the message. And you're also getting a book that will reveal to you 20 years of my research into what is it that helps people go to a new level of success in their life?

What does it really take?

What habits are proven to help you reach long term success in your career, your health, your personal life, your relationships. It's called High Performance Habits. How Extraordinary People Become that way. It's available on Amazon right now.

Sat.