Start Your Day Well

Hey y'all, listen, I cannot wait to dive into this week's episode. I'm going to be talking about what it looks like to start your day and end your day well, and the rhythms that I use in order to do that for myself. But before I get into that, I want to make sure you don't miss something that would be super great if you could participate in it with me and with a bunch of other girls. I'm about to start a book club. Well, it's not about starting a book club. It's about having a book club inside of my membership. We're going to be working our way through this book, y'all. It's called Anonymous. The subtitle is Jesus' Hidden Years and Yours. It is by a woman that you may or may not know. Her name is Dr. Alicia Britt Sholey. She's been on the podcast recently. You may have watched or listened to her episode. First of all, after interviewing her, I was just really marked. And so I had the opportunity not long after that to meet her in person, and I was marked in a deeper way. So I picked up her book and started it. And it's amazing. If you've ever felt like you're not seen, like nobody cares, or like God himself doesn't even know where you are, that is what it feels like to be in the hidden years. But here's what the important thing is to know: you are not hidden from God. He has not forgotten about you. He probably is simply preparing you. And how you handle those hidden years, whether you handle them well or not, it will determine your usefulness and your preparedness for later. So I'd love for you to jump into the Inner Circle to go through this book with We start September 2nd, so you're not too late. And I'd love for you to jump in so you can join us on time. Go to thesistercircle.com/innercircle for more information about how to join. And if you're in there, once you become a member, if you're not already in there, then we'll send you the information about everything you need in order to join the book club. It's going to be great. And I hope to see you on the inside. All right, y'all, without further ado, here we go. It is that time of year where we're thinking about starting off all the routines. Do you have routines for the morning and evening that work for you, that set the tone for your day and help you to wind up every day feeling great about the day you lived? Well, if not, let's talk a little bit about that today. Hi, my name is Chrystal Evans Hurst, and if you're new here, there's always somebody new here. It's always somebody's first time. Welcome. I'm glad you're here. If you're still trying to figure out whether or not you want to like or subscribe, that's all right. But if you already know and you hadn't done it, Do it right now. I'm here every week sharing videos with you that I pray help you to live a life where you are cognizant, thoughtful, attentive to how you're living. Because truly, if you are doing those things, then some of the twists and turns that you need to be prepared for or you need to be activated to take well, you will do. But you got to be looking. Listen, and that's what I'm here to help you do, help you look. Today I want to talk a little bit about what my morning and evening routines look like. Now, I want to be honest, This information is information I'm sharing. I always share my best stuff in the Inner Circle. I go live every Monday morning inside of my membership, and then we share that content with you every week, all buttoned up. I've already been here now, gosh, for an hour. Lots of fun and foolery, but I'll save that for the day when I don't mind you seeing me all crazy, because I can be fun and crazy. But today, news reporter for the win. Let's talk about routines. Now, I want to be honest and tell you, I crowdsourced this a little bit from a group of women who are watching me live while I was preparing to share this content with you. So it's mixed in with some from me, some from them. And I want you to know that the routine also, in full transparency, that I'm going to share with you is not one that I am religiously doing every day or that I do perfectly. But I do know that this is my North Star. If I'm doing these things or things like this, then my day goes well and my day ends well. Now, why does a routine even matter? Well, we are rhythmic creatures. If you didn't already know this, there's this thing called circadian rhythms, and you have them. It tells you when it's time to sleep. It tells you when it's time to wake up. It tells your body when your nervous system is supposed to slow down, when it's supposed to talk to you more, when you're supposed to be on high alert, when you're supposed to be relaxed, when you are supposed to shelter in, when you're supposed to be outside more. There are so many things in your body that are wired for rhythm. We live in a rhythmic world. The sun rises every day and sets every evening, and It does so, so rhythmically that people throughout the ages have been able to set their clocks by it, to know during what seasons we have less daylight and when we have more, to know during what times of year are we going to have cooler air or warmer air. We know these things because the world works on a rhythm. God is a God of order. He is not a God of chaos. And when he created the world, he made us and the world we live in, in his image. We are rhythmic creatures. So when you decide to figure out not how to be a Type A person, not how to be rigid, but how to have rhythms and routines that help you to live well in the rhythms of the life that you have, you are deciding to agree with how God made the world and how he made you. Now, I want to tell you that I am not naturally a morning person. For the first, gosh, 40 years of my life, 35, 40 years of my life, I overslept. I had to quit a job because I didn't want them to fire me because I kept waking up late and showing up late. Being late is a part of my heritage. It's just a part of who I am. So waking up early is not something that is natural for me. I taught myself to wake up early when back a few years ago I ran a marathon. In the marathon training, I had to meet people to run 5 miles 3 times a week at 5:00 AM. It took me 30 minutes to get to our meetup point. So that meant I was awake at 4:00 to leave my house at 4:30 to start running at 5:00. Once that marathon finished, the marathon training finished, I still was waking up early, and I have been waking up early ever since. So yes, I am an early bird. I do set an alarm when I really need to make sure that I wake up, but most times I wake up without the alarm and I wake up naturally between 5 and 6 AM. If I wake up before 5, I turn over and go back to bed. But here's the morning routine that works well for me and really sets the tone for my day, and I want to tell you what that is and why that is. Okay, let me back up a little bit. One of the jobs that I had, I had to be at work at 7 AM. This was in my 20s, and I would leave early around 5:45 so I could take my daughter to my parents' house, because during those years I was single, single parenting. I would drop her off because she didn't have to be at school that early. She would get in the bed with my mom and my dad, and they would take her to school. Then I would hit the road and try to get to work on time. I failed a lot. But on the way to work, there was this show by Tom Dooley, and he's now passed away. But on the way to work, he would play this beautiful music and read scripture. I didn't realize it then, but my soul settled in. It was the scripture and it was the music, and I just listened to it all the way into work. Fast forward a few years. I was married. My husband and I are adding more children to our family, and I was nursing. And in the middle of the night, there was this show that came on that was beautiful scenery, beautiful music, and scripture. So without me planning to be a morning person, without me planning to start my day that way, I learned early on that those two things soothed my soul. So fast forward to today. Now that I've learned to be an early person This is what helps me start my day. Number 1, I get up in the morning, I click the teapot, I heat up some water, and I will have tea. If I don't have tea, I drink water and I put some lemon in it. There's something about starting with your physical system, something that jumpstarts your system. Okay, so before I ever eat anything, hours before I ever think about breakfast. I just cleanse my system. While I do that, while the tea is heating up, I'm gonna go and I'm going to turn on some music. I've got some great YouTube channels that I follow that are great background music. I'll turn that on and I will sit down with a devotional. Now sometimes I'll sit down with the Bible and I'll open up to Psalms or Proverbs, but often it's a devotional. I don't want to personally do my study, my deep study in the morning. I just want to have coffee with Jesus. I want to have tea with Jesus. I want to have my morning drink with Jesus. And I just want to listen mostly. I don't do my heavy prayer warrior praying. I don't, you know, pray out loud. I'm not even on my knees. I just sit in my chair or at the kitchen table. And y'all, This isn't like— I'm not there for an hour, you know. We're talking like 10 or 15 minutes where I just am sitting. I keep a notepad by me. If I don't have my planner with me, I'm gonna have a notepad with me. And I have the notepad with me because my brain is active in the morning. And while I'm trying to listen and talk to Jesus, my brain is doing all kinds of gymnastics about all the things that my brain doesn't want me to forget and all the things that I'm supposed to remember to do this day or this week. So I keep a pen in my hand and all those random things, I just write them down. I don't think about them. I don't start trying to plan them. I'm not sending emails. I just write them down. After sitting there for a second, then I go back into my room, put on my t-shirt, always a t-shirt, my yoga pants, my bike shorts, whatever. And then I'll go work out. Now, this is not every day, y'all. This is ideal. Going to work out could look like a morning walk. It could be going to the gym. I have a spin bike, not a Peloton. I love Pelotons, but I like my Schwinn better, and I can ride my bike in my living room. Why do I do this in the morning? Because exercise feeds your brain in the morning. The dopamine, all the serotonin levels, all the chemical reactions that are taking place in your brain. You want to know what I also have when I'm riding the bike or while I'm walking? My phone, open Apple Notes, because my brain is still telling me what's important for me to do for the day before I've even sat down to think about my day. I am letting my brain do what my brain was designed to do, and that's to support me. But I give my brain a place and say, I'm not doing what you tell me to do just yet. I'm just collecting the thoughts while I'm walking or working out. If I'm not doing a class on a spin bike, I am either listening to a podcast, listening to a book on tape. I may take a morning phone call, talk to a friend, but I'm still inhaling. Now notice I haven't been on Instagram yet. Notice I haven't been on social media of any kind. Notice I'm not doing all those things because what I'm doing is inhaling. And that is the key for me, for my morning routine. It is inhaling that before I start my day I'm filling up. Listen, I'm in the search for a car right now. I don't want to buy a car. I don't want to have a car note. I don't want to buy anything that I don't love. And all the stuff that I love is a million dollars. It's like a mortgage car. But I have been looking, and one of the things that I'm very aware of are how many cars these days are electric. You have to plug them in, or they're hybrid. I am so afraid to touch a non-gas car. Why? Because I can barely keep up with getting— keeping my gasoline car filled. How am I going to keep up with trying to make sure I plugged it in? You know, what am I going to do when I start running out of juice? You know, like, I can barely keep up with a gas station on every corner. Now I gotta look for an electric station. But what I do know is that every Sunday right now, in my gasoline-filled car, I go to Costco, I fill it up because I know the week is coming. And I can wait until I need gas, or I can just rhythmically fill it up so I'm always starting the week on a full tank. That's what is important to you when you start your day, to start your day on a full tank. It will change the way you interact with the people in your day. It will change the way you interact with the pressures of the day. It will change the way you interact with the projects of the day because you're starting the day full. So what would fill you up in the morning? On my way to work out, if I'm, if I'm walking or if I'm going to a gym, I will eat an apple. This is after I've had my morning water. You want to know why? Because fiber. To start the day is amazing. It helps keep you regular. So I will have a banana or an apple on my way to the gym, or on my way to the, you know, on my way to the walk. These are the things that my morning routine look like. It is being quiet, making room to inhale, making room to start my systems, start my body, start my brain, start my soul. Inhale. And then I try to move. Stretching is something that I don't do as much of. I've done some yoga classes. I hear another little yoga studio, a little Hotworx place is coming around the corner. I may join that. But something in the morning— and I realize that to do all of this, you have to have probably an hour head start to whatever time you actually need to get ready. So for me, if I want to start, I backwards engineer my morning routine. If I want my children to be up and eating breakfast by 8, and if I want to be prepared for that, then that means I need to be in the kitchen at 7:30. If I want to be in the kitchen at 7:30, that means I have to be ready for my day at 7:30, which means I need to be showering and getting dressed at 7. If I'm going to be showering and getting dressed at 7, that means I need to be back in my house from whatever I did at 6:45. If I want that workout to have been really good, that's going to be at least 30 minutes to 60 minutes, which means I've backed up to 5:45. 5:45, if I want to have time to have devotions with the Lord, document all the things that are coming in my brain, writing down anything that I need to remember, that time needs to be at least 5:15. Why? Because I need from 5 to 5:15 to get dressed in whatever clothes I'm going to go work out in. So there you go, the 5 AM routine, which involves an hour for thinking, an hour for moving, and an hour for preparing for everybody else. So by the time you get to all of your people at 8 AM, whether that's at work or the kids in your home, you ready. You done had a full 3 hours. You, you have had a full amount of time. Now, if you've got to get to work, you got to plan in your drive time, then maybe don't work out for 45 minutes. Or maybe you prefer to work out in the evening, that's fine. But my point is you need to be fully aware of what's happening in your soul I don't want to start my day without hearing from the Holy Spirit. I don't want to be unprepared for my day because I didn't take the time to figure out what instructions I needed. I did not— I don't want to start my day without knowing that, yeah, I had a list of things that I put on my list to do today, but what is on your list for me today, God? Who do I need to call? Who do I need to see? What do I need to be aware of? And I want to make note of those things before I ever put my feet on the floor to hit the pavement for the people. You'll be surprised at how much more productive and how much more on top of the day you feel when you have put in place a routine that works for you. So that's what works for me. And it's, again, it's a rhythm. So it's not like, you know, 30 minutes. I have gotten on my spin bike, y'all, because I was determined to do it and did a 15-minute class. But I was like, you gonna move something. I have gone out front of my house and just walked the neighborhood street, just the street up and down 3 times just to get in 20 minutes of walking. Because it's all about me doing something. It's not about me checking the box that said I did it to the max. I just want to do something. If you're trying to figure out how to add more time into your morning, you don't have to add a 3-hour routine. Like maybe you just add 20 minutes. Maybe your goal for this week could simply be to get up, get something to drink and sit down. With a psalm or a proverb or devotional, and that's it. And then you go shower and get ready for the day. But starting with something that prioritizes your day— if you're in church, you know about the concept of tithing. And this idea, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, is that you give God your first fruits. Why? Because you want to say to God, I honor you first from everything that you've given me. Well, I believe that if God has given me the day, I honor God by giving him the first fruits of my day. Like, this principle of first fruits applies in all areas of life. Like, you tithe and then you save for yourself before you blow your money on everything else. It's a principle of first fruits and saying to the Lord, listen, I know what I have, and you've given me the gift of time. Even with my time, I go to you first. Let's talk about the evenings a little bit. Now listen, y'all, the evening routine for me is a little more loosey-goosey because it just all depends on what time I'm gonna go to bed. But I will say I'm at the season in my life now where I am very in tune with my body and I know what I need. I know if I need to be in bed at 9:30 or if tonight can be an 11:45 night. So my bedtime routine is not tied to a consistent bedtime, it's tied to a consistent bedtime range, which is about a 2-hour range. But I can tell you, here's what I would love to do in the evenings, most evenings, and then I'll tell you what I actually do when I'm stretched. Number 1, I need to shut the house down. I tell my children all the time, the kitchen is closed. The kitchen has been cleaned, the food has been put away, the kitchen is closed. We don't have all-night snacking going on. We don't have people pulling things out of the refrigerator. We're not doing the whole, you know, I went back because I was hungry. Nope. If you want to eat something, you can eat fruit that is self-disposable, meaning when you finish that apple, the core goes in the trash. Or if you're eating a banana, The peel goes in the trash, but don't mess up my kitchen. You're not cooking nothing. You're not microwaving any food. The kitchen is closed. When I close my kitchen, I like to run my diffuser at night because even as— in the evening, because even as kids come and go, as we close down the day, if we, you know, do a game at the table as a family, whatever, something about the smell of the home throughout the day, but particularly at bedtime. So one of my children knows that's his job. Actually, every morning, his morning routine after breakfast is to turn on the diffuser. We'll turn it on another time at night. And I'll turn on praise and worship music at night. So we'll get some Mav City going, um, you know, something like that. Get some Bethel going, just something that makes the house feel like the atmosphere is quieting down. I do this for me, but I also do it for the benefit of my family. The temperature of the house goes down when people start winding down. So that's number one. Number two is close kitchen, and then we're going to make sure that we've got— we've set the atmosphere in the environment. We have a shutdown time, even for my college children. In our house right now, we have a shutdown time with devices. So there's gaming time, but then there's like— that ends, and then there's device time. Because I realize that they, you know, want to be on their phones or want to do social media with their friends. But even that, all phones, all devices get plugged in downstairs. No devices in any bedrooms. We try to keep that the case for the kids. Even for me, I'll plug my phone in. I try to. I'm not, you know, 100% with it all the time, but I try to. Because something happens when you say to the world I'm done. You're done. I'm done. Now, my husband is a late TV watcher. We do not have a TV in our bedroom. So when I go into our bedroom and I plug in my devices, I'm really done. I'm really done. Now, I have a bad habit. I'll just confess, I will take my laptop to bed. And that's because even though I'm not watching TV or anything, it'll be because I'm preparing for the next day. I normally get a lot of work done at night, and I like operating with my feet propped laptop, and we just got a great mattress. So I like doing that. But, um, my husband will say sometimes he'll come to bed and there's no room for me, you went to bed with your laptop. So I will say, I will say, I will make that confession. But in general, we try to put the devices away. And at night, at my kitchen table, before I get in the bed, that is when I do my Bible study. So if I am in an active Bible study doing BSF or something like that, I do it at night because I'm not I don't have an end time. So if I started at 9 and it's really getting good to me and I want to do it for an hour, I can go, you know, longer if I want. I don't have that in the morning. So I do communion in the morning, devotion in the morning, chatting in the morning. In the evening, I study, okay? In the evening, I read. And right now I'm in the middle of 4 books because I, I get bored. So I'm reading a little bit about leadership, a little bit of fiction, a little bit about being positive, and a little bit about building teams. And I just rotate one or two chapters that I might read from two books in the evening. I might fall up— fall asleep with a book on my chest. But when I go to bed, um, I am trying to shut down the noise and trying to go to sleep with the things on my mind that are settling and forward-facing. Now notice I have not talked to you a lot about showering. I have not talked to you a lot about laying out my clothes. I have not— because those aren't things I actively do. Um, well, yes, I actively shower but I don't actively shower all the way in the morning or all the way at night. It's whatever works. It's whatever works. Sometimes I shower again at night if I was outside in the heat of the Texas sun, because this is summer right now and 100 and a million degrees. Um, sometimes I don't if I was indoors all day, and I wait until the morning. That is negotiable for me. Laying out my clothes the night before is negotiable for me because I have a drawer with black t-shirts and I have a drawer with black yoga pants. I don't have to lay out my clothes. Every morning I'm gonna pull out a t-shirt and pants. Now, I will add to my evening routine preparation for the next day if I have to think about what I'm going to wear. That's not something that I need. I primarily work from home. But the goal of the evening for me is to just— as slowly as I opened up my mind and heart to the world in the morning, I want to slowly close my mind and heart to the world in the evening. I recently was chatting with someone on the podcast just about rhythms and life, and one of the topics that came up was how bedtime is, is a worshipful experience. It's this idea that as you go to bed, that this is as close as you will get to eternity. Like, it's as close as you will get for all of your defense systems being down and anything that God wants to deposit in your mind and in your heart, he can do that anytime. But bedtime, being asleep, is a time where you can do that. Think about Jacob in his dreams. Think about all the dreams in the Bible where God talked to his people in their sleep. I can't tell you how many times I've had a difficult decision to make and I've said, let me sleep on it, and in the morning, without any more thinking, I have the answer. And it may not have even been an answer I had the day before. And I'll say it's not a good idea, it's a God idea. So the reason why you want to slowly close your mind and heart to the world is because you're also slowly opening your mind and heart to whatever God wants to whisper into your ears as you go to sleep. I also am very careful about what I am putting in my brain before I go to sleep because I don't want to dream about it. I don't want to dream about Meg 2. I went to go see that movie with my, with my youngest son. I was like, oh gosh, having boys It's just a lot. The movies they want to see— oh, give me a romantic comedy, you know what I mean? But I don't want to watch that stuff close to bedtime. I don't, I don't need any fantasies in my head messing up my sleep. I don't want to eat too late to bedtime. Have you ever had a pizza bad dream? It's no fun, no bueno. So for me, it is study, reading, music. I go to bed most nights playing worship music. I either have my door open, the bedroom door, and I can hear it from the living room where the whole house can hear it. Or if that goes off, I turn on my little Alexa Dot and I listen to music in there, often with some kind of smell. I go to sleep, y'all, feeling like I'm in a spa, okay? Because I want my sleep to be sweet and I want to wake up refreshed. I want to ask you, how do you need to open and close your day? What have I shared here that may be giving you ideas for how you can better open and close your day? Because how you start and stop most things matters. If you think about when you were in school and you had a great teacher who would call you to attention— when I was in school, public and private, younger elementary, in both cases we opened the day with prayer, We opened the day with a Pledge to Allegiance. We opened the day with morning activities. You know, you had to come in and put your homework in the slot and pick up. You had all these routines. Why? Because any good teacher knows that in order for you to have a productive day, you have to start it and end it well. The same is true for your life, whether you are 20-ing, 30-ing, 40-ing, or 50-ing, or 60-ing, or beyond. How you start and stop your day sets up help what's in the middle to be good. Listen, it doesn't matter if you're gluten-free. It doesn't matter if you take the whole bun and make it brioche, please. A great sandwich, a great burger is wrapped with something. So even if you're not going to have the bun, even if you don't want the white bread, you probably still will go to Red Robin or someplace like that and wrap it in something else— a corn tortilla, something gluten-free, or in lettuce. But you want all the stuff in the middle of the day to have a container. Because without a container, it's just all this stuff everywhere. This is what happens when you don't contain your day with a solid start and a solid end, because there are lots of things in the middle that are going to happen. And honestly, just like a sandwich, when you bite into that sandwich, some of that stuff goes everywhere. There are lots of things in the middle that you may not be able to control, but if you can at least control the container, if you can at least decide for yourself how you begin and how you end, that is a recipe for success. Try it and see. You write down right now, I'd love to see in the comments for those of you who are live. If you're watching the replay of this, I would love to see in the comments below what you currently do rhythmically that is serving you or not serving you. And after listening to this episode, what you think you should do that might serve you well. Here's what I want you to know. You are a rhythmic being. You don't have to be Type A. You don't have to be rigid, but you do need to think about what does your soul need? What does your brain need? What does your body need? And how can, in the context of the 24 hours God has given you each day to live, do you need to do on the front end and on the back end to enclose your day well? One of the things my husband and I tried recently And you know, we don't— we listen, we're not perfect. So we tried it, then we stopped doing it, but we liked it. I told him one day, I said, I heard strong relationships for married couples, uh, I have heard something very consistently, that they start the day together or they end the day together. And there was a week this summer where every night we went to bed at the same time, and the conversation in the evening was very, very sweet. And we started the next day with our heartstrings tied. Now the schedule got crazy and he had to go out of town and I had to go out of town. But that's something even for us, we're saying, do we wanna make this a thing? Because something happens when you decide to do good things consistently and how you start and end your day is the same. I want everything in the middle, regardless of what happens, the things that you can't control, the things that you don't see coming, to be carried because you set the stage when you started the day, and to be identifiably slotted. What do you do with what happened in the day because you end the day well? There's one thing that I want to add that starts and ends the day and should actually go throughout the entire day that will coat all that happens in your everyday with with oil. Do you understand what it means? You need your car to have oil running through it so everything runs well. You need to have the oil of the Holy Spirit flowing through your mind and your heart all day to make sure that you keep your mouth closed when something goes awry. Here's how you put oil in your day. You ready to hear it? Here it goes. Gratitude. You start your day, you end your day with gratitude, and all throughout the day you stay thankful. That is what lubes your day and should be a part of every rhythm you have. You find something to be thankful for, grateful for, and to celebrate. When you start your day well, you end your day well, no matter what happens in the middle. Listen, it'll be hooked together by you keeping a great perspective. So go on and tell me in the comments, what do you do to start? What do you do to end? And what do you do to hold all things together? Not only will I learn from reading your comments, but everybody else who was here will too. Now listen, y'all, I want to make sure you don't miss out all the wonderful things that are happening. So make sure wherever you're watching this, you follow, you like, you subscribe, all of that. So that way, every time I put up content, you won't miss it. All right, you have a great day, and I'll see you next week. Listen, I hope that that was practically helpful for you, but listen, y'all, I don't do this perfectly, and I I don't do it without help. Every day, if I'm really going to make progress in my day, I have to plan and document for what the day is going to hold. So I wanted to give you the option for grabbing a tool that might help you. I'm holding in my hands what I call my Daily Tracker. It's something that we actually sold alongside the planner. And this is a little daily book. It has 30 days in it. And it has a way for me to identify what I'm doing by the hour of my day. How much water am I drinking? What am I eating? What are my top 3? I love this thing. It goes everywhere with me. If you want to grab a copy of this, you can go to thesistercircle.com/tracker. I know that it'll help you because it helps me. In fact, I created it because people said, how do you track everything you have to do? Well, here you go. I hope this episode was helpful to you. If you're not subscribed, please do that. You can share the episode also with someone who you might think it could help. And listen, I will see you back here next time.