The Toxic Morning Routine Myth (or 1,204 Things to Do Before 9 a.m.)

What I really worry about is like this false sense of productivity based on what you did in the first hour, 30 minutes, hour and a half of your day. Just because you're winning the morning doesn't mean you're done. Like you can't check out. Like, you still have to have productivity in what I'll call. Not that your morning routine isn't the real world, but you have to put me in coach. Like now let me go be productive based on what I've set up as my morning routine. And frankly, Liz, burnout. Like at the beginning of this podcast, I said I broke my brain and broke my body. I burned myself out just doing way too much, trying to have it way too optimized, trying to have it way too much of a. All the other successful entrepreneurs do these 27 things. Why shouldn't I? I want to be like. No, I don't. I want to be like me.

Welcome back to Beyond. You'd default. I'm your host, Liz Morehead, and as always, I am joined by the one and only George B. Thomas. Our last recording of 2023. I know this is coming out after New Year's, but how does it feel?

Man, what a year. First of all, a lot of gratitude, positivity, unseen or unknown growth that if I look back right now at the two or three mornings that that I've had in 2023, pretty freaking spectacular.

I do have a follow up question for you because for those, for our listeners, our last episode was talking about the weirdness, at least in part, of this in between week between Christmas and New Year's and the pressure we often artificially put on ourselves going into the New year. How's that going for you?

I actually don't really feel a ton of pressure and more excitement, more anticipation, more looking for the opportunities that are going to arise. Knowing what to say yes to, what to say no to, that's actually a big thing that's on my brain over 2024. Because when way more is possible than one ever thought, your diligence of being a master of yes, no or later becomes really important. But this week has actually been a really good week. I haven't had a ton of meetings. I've been able to just do some work. I've been able to actually just watch some videos, do some learning. And so what's crazy is I wouldn't even call this week for me peaceful, which historically was not truth at all.

Good news, you have three hours worth of meetings with me later today. So I'm here to Ruin that party.

You're welcome.

You are welcome.

Gotta keep you honest.

Gotta keep you honest. Gotta keep you humble.

Yes, absolutely. And we gotta get stuff done right. Cause there is a new year, there is a new us. There is a bunch of stuff that is happening which again, excitement, anticipation, opportunity. Those are words that I'm leaning into and striving for for the next 365 days of 2024.

This is where I get really excited.

About what we're talking about today. Because leading into a new year, or quite frankly, anytime someone who is interested in personal or professional growth, or growth across both of those areas, we're talking.

About health, we're talking about wellness, we're talking about good habit building.

Let's talk about the fact that James Clear's Atomic Habits is probably about to be millions of people's big number one. Read or reread in the coming months. It happens every single year. And it's a great book, don't get me wrong. I absolutely love it. What's interesting, however, is the idea of the perfect morning routine. This is something that is mythologized to a legendary status that is almost toxic.

Yeah.

But the reason why we want to talk about this is that, like I said, those individuals who are interested in personal growth, likely those of you who are listening, I guarantee you've had a thought to yourself of maybe I should.

Google morning routines to see how I.

Can optimize my day. Because how you start your day is how you live your day in many cases. So I want to open today's episode. I did a little research and according to quote, unquote, the experts here are honest to goodness real recommendations of absolutely essential things you should accomplish before 9:00am.

Yeah, we might be here a minute.

We might be here a minute.

Wake up anywhere between 4am and 6am.

Never ever hit snooze.

Only people wasting their life hit snooze. Work out at home or go to the gym or do yoga or run three miles or start with the mobility workout and then do a second workout.

Of pro pliometrics later. Empty the dishwasher, do your morning skincare routine. Complete your daily gratitude journal. Then if it suits you, read the Bible or pray or if you subscribe to the Artist's way, Complete your morning pages. Three pages, handwritten, front and back, stream of consciousness. Then read for 25 minutes from a book that enriches your mind. Meditate, do positive affirmations in the mirror. Eat a well rounded home cooked breakfast, or actually don't eat anything because you're intermittent fasting. Or make a homemade smoothie with raw vegetables and whole food, vitamins and fruits and veggies and yum. And then don't forget to drink 32 ounces of water. Then review your emails for work and answer anything outstanding. Actually, scratch that. Don't do any work at all. That's your time. Then give yourself a pep talk. Then do something that brings you joy once again. Maybe it's reading a book, maybe some abstract beat poetry. Who knows? Listen to a podcast while sitting under a light therapy lamp. Take a hot shower. No, scratch that. Take a cold shower. No, wait, wait. Sit in an ice bath for no more than 15 minutes. There you go, kids. Now complete a visualization for manifestation. Go on a trail hike and watch the sun rise. Make your bed. Don't check your social media. Go forest bathing. And don't forget your kids if you've got them. Make them a balanced breakfast too, and a lunch for school. Have you meal prepped. You might want to pop that roast in the slow cooker before you leave for the office.

Let's be honest, the day is over.

The day is.

I am ready for a nap.

We might have to just take a nap and then come back and do the podcast because I'm stressed out and tired. Just after you reading that list of things, here's a couple of things I have to unpack. You're screwed. You drank 32 ounces of water and nowhere on that list did you give yourself time to go to the bathroom. Take a potty break in there. And then did I hear you say. Because I was like, maybe I heard it wrong. Did I hear you say forest bathing?

Forest bathing is an actual thing where basically you just go out and hang out with the trees in the woods.

I'm a big fan of sitting at the trunk of a tree, but to bathe in the forest, I'm like, what the God's name?

Not literal bathing. It's just a. It's a cute little term for something. But I'm like, okay, I had to Google it myself too, so don't worry.

Let's get rid of the stress though. So, like, independently, none of those things are potentially bad things. But the problem is that mere mortal humans will Google. They'll get the list of things, even if it's not all of those things. And they'll say, this is what I need to apply to my life. Which right there from the get go, is fundamentally broken mindset. The wrong way to actually do what you need to do. Now we're not saying that there isn't a reason to have a morning routine. I love a morning routine. And we'll have a morning routine in 2024 that is different than the routine that I've had thus far. But it will not consist of forest bathing and I will allow myself to have time to use the potty every now and then. Here's the thing. There are people out there creating content, creating YouTube videos for views, not because they're trying to create the most optimized morning routine for you, but the most optimized morning routine that gets the most views of everybody that's trying to do a morning routine. Now, hopefully you realize how that fundamentally is going to get you at the doorstep of the wrong house for what you need for growth, for your journey to the life that you're trying to create.

Now, I am going to acknowledge the irony that we are also content creators creating content about morning routines. But in our defense, I'm going to.

Be completely transparent and honest. I am not going to sell a $20,000 course for a thousand dollar special day discount. I don't give two squats about the amount of views or listens that this gets from a We're going to monetize it and get paid. Because listen, so far this joker ain't monetized. I'm just saying we're just creating it and putting it out into the world because we love you. We've gone through some stuff and we realized it's gonna be refreshing to have this conversation and realize I'm not trying to sell you my morning routine. I don't need you to do any of the things that I'm gonna say that I wanna do.

That's the thing.

There are so many absolutely essential recommendations out there for what we're all supposed.

To be doing each morning. As quote, unquote, go getters who want.

More out of life than the status quo. Okay, so do I need an extra 24 hours before the sun rises because I'm exhausted? So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Where is that line between a healthy morning routine and a morning routine that is toxic and unrealistic? And how do we make the right choices for ourselves for our own morning routine? I'm very excited to dig into this, very selfishly I might add, because morning routine is definitely something that I, I've had an interesting relationship with over the years. But let's start with you. So you and I both joke about our own struggles with the morning when we're thinking about doing this episode. So let's talk about it. What is the relationship you currently have with your own morning routine?

Yeah. So, Liz, I've had a love hate relationship with morning routines. To be honest with you, I have had none of them where I just like to stay in bed for a really long time. I've had the most probably insane versions of them where I broke my brain and probably my body at the same time. But all that to say through the love hate relationship of growing through this. I have a routine. I have a routine, right. Getting there was a little bit difficult because I kept trying to plug in some guru's version of the maximum morning routine. Be warned, if you get the ultimate the maximum, if we're using words like that, nothing against the humans, because the humans might be good humans and that routine might work for them or part of what they actually use of the routine that they're selling air quotes online might work for them. Nothing against them. They're smart, amazing humans. Most of them even have things that are backed by science, which, by the way, first warning sign of any routine that you might be picking up or pieces of a routine that you might be picking up if it's backed by science. My suggestion to you would to be watch out. Because if we're going from this, from the growth mindset, from the trying to optimize the human, we have to realize that we are very complex beings. And understanding the dopamine and serotonin and what sunlight does and what vitamins do and what the amount of right sleep gets you at the end of the day, like basing a lot of the routine on that, what causes joy and happiness in the brain and what are quick wins that you can get. But here's the thing. Most people morning routines look something like they pick one, they plug it in, it might work for a little bit, and then the battle begins, right? It's the way of doing this. It's like trying to run Apple iOS on an Android device. It's just not going to work. Your morning routine needs to be customized to you to your individual needs. The morning routine is about winning the morning so you can win the day. And you leaned into that at the very beginning, Liz. But the morning will set you up for how you feel about the day moving forward. Literally, this is why I look in the mirror in the. One of the first things I do is say, today's gonna be a good day. Today's gonna be a good day. Today's gonna be a good day. And I talk to myself about what we're gonna achieve, the morning routine is about knowing yourself enough to know what is going to get you into your peak state. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know if I can say you or your more in the first 12 minutes of this, but your morning routine shouldn't. What it shouldn't do is it shouldn't stress you out. It shouldn't be what Liz read out. It shouldn't be a list of I got to or I must anyway.

Yeah, but I won't go back.

I'll slow down for a second because I. I get pretty intense with this.

You do get pretty intense with this kind of stuff. And you also are so helpful that you neglected to really talk about yourself. I love you, George. I love you so much. And I love how you lead with love and you're always here to help. But let's go back to you for a moment.

Yeah.

Have you gone hardcore with rigid routines in the past? What is the gap you currently have between where you are with your morning routine and where you want to go? Talk to me about your journey with this.

I would say that I have been regimented, but not in a negative way. When I look at my routine, where it's at right now, which I'm sure we'll talk about, like, at a deeper level, one might consider it quite simplistic, which is why I'm sitting here and can actually be able to say in 2024, I want to add to it, because I've been living a simplistic morning routine long enough that I'm ready for it to grow. Here's the thing, though, that I want to put into this point. Even when you think you don't have a routine, you have a routine. It's just not intentional. And I want that to be a word or a theme that you plug into your brain for the rest of this podcast episode, is this idea of living life with intention, waking up in the morning with intention. Because my initial answer when I saw this question, Liz, was like, I had no morning routine. Kind of. And then I actually started to think about, listen, I do the same ish every morning. I just don't call it a routine, but it's a routine. And I've also had those moments where I've alluded to at the beginning of this episode where I was super regimented. And it was like, you had to drink this shake by this time and walk this many steps and read this and have seven HubSpot certifications within the next three days. It's just getting stressed about It. So what I will say is I've gone hardcore, but now it's about flexibility. It's about making it sustainable. Consistent maybe is even another word. This idea of what I had to realize is morning routines. I was making the same mistake as I would if I would go to the gym, right back in the day when I'd go to the gym, New Year's resolution, I'm going to lose weight and start to work out. And I would go to the gym and I would hammer the weights hard and I would basically kill my body. And my body would be like, I can't even move. I can't move. What have you done to me? I would do the same thing with my morning routines where I would try to go from like a morning routine zero to Hulk frickin Hogan of morning routines himself. And my brain would be like, what are you doing? I can't even like what are you doing to me? We have to ease into this. If you haven't considered yourself having a morning routine or if you're like on the treadmill and you're like, yeah, my morning routine is frickin stressing me out, back off. I had to realize that. And so again right now as we talk, very simple morning routine, but ready to add to that.

I love what you said there about the fact that whether we go after it with intentionality or not, we have a morning routine. And my morning routine has definitely evolved particularly over this year.

Can't wait, by the way, to hear your morning routine because you didn't know, but I've been waiting to ask that question. When we get to that question, I'm gonna be like, so what does your morning look like? So hopefully you're prepared for that.

I am prepared for that because it's interesting how much it's changed. I won't tell you just yet what my morning routine is right now, but what I will tell you is at the start of this year I actually had one of those very early birdie morning routines. Like I was up at 4:35 o', clock, I would do morning tape pages, a deep meditation. Like I was really cagey about my morning routine. And then after the separation and the divorce and I moved out, it could. That all completely went away. What was fascinating about that is that.

I realized the reason that I had the morning routine that I did was not necessarily due to enrichment reasons, but.

It was the one time of the morning where no one could get to me. I was in complete peace mode.

I was in my office, there was.

No one with me, I was just completely hiding, quite frankly, from the realities of what was happening and the breakdowns that were occurring.

And then over the summer, the morning routine that ended up being the one.

That I needed, even though it felt.

Horrible in the moment, is, quite frankly.

I slept a lot. I suffered from hypersomnia, which is a common byproduct of, like, when you're dealing with depressive episodes and things like that.

And so it was.

My morning routine was get up, grunt, look in mirror.

I tried to express gratitude, but I kept saying the same three things every morning. I am grateful for the sun. I'm grateful for this toilet. I am grateful for like. So I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna move on. But I think that's the thing. If you don't choose the morning routine, we'll choose you. And I don't necessarily always think that's a bad thing. I think sometimes we try to over structure and over control different parts of our lives. Let's talk about this a little bit. There is this obsession within the growth mindset crowd of the idea of the perfect morning routine. Like what you were talking about, Right. Optimizing our mornings within an inch of our lives. And I'd be curious. Let's talk about why you think that is. Not just the good reasons, but I think there's some not so good reasons hidden in there too.

Yeah. So I think there are good and bad reasons. I think really the idea of. So here's the thing. When we think about optimizing our routine, I think there's two things that we have to talk about before we dive into the good and bad here. I think that when I hear the word optimized morning routine, I think of time is precious. And we definitely live in an age where time is precious. But I would be careful with that, because sometimes I think, and this is something that my brain is working on right now, I think sometimes we tell our stories around time, and maybe sometimes they're not real and we might have more time than we think, but we're telling ourselves the story that it's at a minimum and it's a premium. And so we need to do this thing. So I think about this kind of optimized version. Time is of a premium. And then I also think about when we're trying to optimize it. It's like the natural sensor, Pareto's principle of what's the 20% that I can do to get me to where I want to go instead of needing to do the A hundred percent of some of the stuff that I might think is like non necessary or fluff. And that's the optimized side of this. But the why side of this is, listen, do I even think about having an optimized morning routine? I want to live a life that is intentional. I'm. I might feel like the listeners might feel like I'm tired of being tossed here and there by the waves of life. Right. I need it to be intentional. I need to be in a boat. I need to be able to cut through the waves. I want to be able to perform at peak performance. I have clients or a boss or a wife or a husband or a group of friends or whoever it is for you that I want to show up as my best. I want to be at peak performance when I show up to do things. I feel like honestly, this morning routine in an optimized morning routine is a major part of this conversation we have around designing our life. And you use the word control, but I would say not control in the normal negative sense, but control in the sense of. How do I want to put this? Because I want people control in the sense of regulating, not in the corrosive sense of. Of control. Right. And so I think that's a piece of it. So now if we go into. Why is the growth mindset crowd so freaking obsessed with the idea of perfecting this morning routine or ritual and the goods and bads. I think that good things that come out of this, Liz, when we put our mind to the measurement of creating a morning routine and what it could equal for us. I think one the reason growth mindset folks are doing this is one we're trying to optimize our brain. We have come to the realization that there are chemicals that can be induced, whether it be with sunlight or other stimuli that help us learn easier, faster, that help us retain information longer. So we're literally trying to optimize the central system of. In the cranium of this body that we're navigating around on the planet. I think past optimizing the brain, we're in the realization or we're realizing a couple of things about ourself and that's why we're plugging in different pieces of this morning routine. Why need to be more organized. Start by making your bed joker. Like why do you leave your bed a mess the entire day? No judgment. By the way, if you don't make your bed, I make mine every morning. Have to. Ever since I was in the military. If that I can't walk out of the room, bed has to be made, just throwing that out there. But you're realizing like, maybe I want to be a little bit more spiritual, maybe I want to be a little bit more healthy. And so these realizations and a morning routine is a way for you to plug them in and make them a priority. It's part of also designing the future that you're trying to design. You become what you think of, you become the actions that you take. And so every morning, if you're designing that morning routine, you're literally designing who you're going to be and how you're going to show up based on if your routine pays attention to that in the future. But I also think there's like enjoying life right at this point. Growth mindsets. If we're optimizing the brain, we're realizing things that we need to plug in. We're designing this future, we're enjoying life. So part of our morning routine might be based on the fact of I need to get my heart rate up more, I need to make sure I'm paying attention to my blood pressure. I need to make sure I lose 30 or 40 pounds. Because we're trying to extend the length of time which we can actually enjoy the places and spaces that we've been able to put ourselves into from being a growth mindset type of human being. And then I'll go back to the word that I dropped earlier. I think a lot of this is regulating controlling the seas of the day, the waves, the tsunami of tech and digital, the tsunami of everybody else's needs and expectations, the tsunamis that are waiting to just drowns your boat. Again, if I think about the good things, it's optimizing, it's realizing it's designing, it's enjoying, it's regulating the things of your life. Now the where this gets bad is I sent a video listeners to Liz. We're going to make sure it's in the show notes. But it's the epitome of holy crap, what the flip is this? Where this goes bad is when it's this thing that creates a lack of flexibility, when it's a morning routine that creates increased stress, when it's like something that actually reduces the creativity of your brain to dream and to customize what is best for you. A morning routine that actually makes you or not even on purpose, but just neglect of the other important aspects of your life. Listen, if we did everything on that original list that Liz read out, it would never see my family, my clients would fire Me, George, I wouldn't be.

Doing any work together.

You might be.

Liz, are you showing up for this meeting? And I would say I'm still in my cold bath.

I'm still what was. I'm still forest bathing. And what I really worry about is like this false sense of productivity based on what you did in the first hour, 30 minutes, hour and a half of your day. Just because you're winning the morning doesn't mean you're done. Like, you can't check out. Like, you still have to have productivity in what I'll call. Not that your morning routine isn't the real world, but you have to put me in coach. Like, now let me go be productive based on what I've set up as my morning routine. And frankly, Liz, burnout, like at the beginning of this podcast, I said I broke my brain and broke my body. I burned myself out just doing way too much, trying to have it way too optimized, trying to have it way too much of a. All the other successful entrepreneurs do these 27 things. Why shouldn't I? I want be like, no, I don't. I want to be like me. So how about I have my morning routine. I want you to be like you. So how about Moving forward in 2024, you design your morning routine.

I think you said something really important there that people need to keep in mind is that the morning routine is not success personified. A good morning routine is meant to set you up for success. It is meant to tee you up for the rest of the day.

Now, what's interesting is you started to.

Dabble in this a little bit, but I'd like to get a little bit.

More clarity on your thoughts here.

Do you think most morning routine recommend are realistic or unrealistic?

Most of them are unrealistic.

Why do you say that?

Because if you look at them. So first of all, I'll give an example. One of the ones that I actually really enjoy and somebody that I'm becoming quickly fascinated with is Andrew Huberman, the neuroscientist. Oh my God. But Eve. But you have to realize you're not Andrew Huberman. And so even to say I'm going to pick up the best of what I might call the best is still for most mere mortal humans unrealistic. Because you'll quickly realize that you're trying to put 10 gallons of stuff in a five gallon bucket. And again, that's been like a theme that we've been talking about. But you're trying to go from zero to a thousand miles an hour. You're. It's so hard. I'm going to do this for 30 days and see how it goes. Okay, we're. Now we're just trashing out. Consistency. This has to be something that can stick. It has to be sticky. It has to be like the long haul. And so most of these, when you grab them and try to plug them in, they just become unrealistic. Now, I will tell you this. When I listen to people like Tim Ferriss or Jocko or Andrew Huberman, I pick. Ooh, that feels right. That sounds good. I could use some more sun. I probably should hydrate more. Hey, I should tell my wife and kids to stop making fun of me. I'm getting plenty of sleep, right? There's pieces and parts that you can put into this, but just off the shelf, my word is unrealist. For most humans, ideally, what does your.

Morning routine look like?

I loved this question because it forced me to actually build out. I was like, what if? What's possible if I was to create a truly simplistic, be able to be consistent routine for me that hit on all the things that were important for me, what would that look like? Which, by the way, as soon as I share mine. Liz, I'm coming at you. I'm Liz. What does look like? So here's the thing. This journey was fun because I started with the fact I personally, I don't care when you wake up, but I personally, I wake up at 5:15. Okay? I draw the line. I'm not doing no 4 o'. Clock. 4:30. You'll hear Jocko talk about 4, 4, 3. Nope, nope, homie, this guy has to get some sleep. 5:15 I can live with, though. So I wake up at 5:15. And so the journey started with me saying, how much am I worth? How much time am I willing to invest in myself in the morning to then do the rest of the day in the way that it needs to be done? And I said, you know what? I'll give myself an hour and a half to two hours. So when I started to build this out, I was under the mindset of if I Woke up at 5:15 and had till 7:15 to do a morning routine before I hit my office at, let's say, 7:15, 7:30 to do work and to help humans, what would that look like? And so obviously I have to wake up. That's part of my routine. But when I say wake up, it's, I want to wake up, I want to make my bed and I want to do like, Small chores. Like, for me, small chores, I fold the towels. That's one of my duties around the house, is the dryer is drying the towels at night. In the morning, I wake up, I grab them, I fold them. By the way, while I'm folding the towels, I'm listening to Caleb 2000s. Because I just love the beat, the rhythm, the words of that kind of music, right? So it's just waking up, doing small chores, getting some lights turned on, and the eyes acclimated to being awake. Then I don't necessarily do this right now. I do have a bottle of water on my nightstand right now. But in 2024, what I would love to do is do, like, hydration and spiritual time. Now, here's the thing. There's some hidden context to that, and if you get it, but hydrate, meaning a bottle of water. And I really want to dive into this idea of some salts or some, like, actual stuff in the water to, like, give me a little in the day. But the reason for me that I'm saying hydration and spiritual time is because I want to hydrate with water, but I also want to hyd life with the living water. All right, that's as deep as I'll go with that. Now, after that, what I want to do is I want to spend some time with mindful meditation. So that's about 10 to 15 minutes different than spiritual time. Because during spiritual time, it might be reading the Bible, it might be praying, it might be doing a devotion, but that's when I'm drinking the water and I'm doing that meditation is I have Headspace app. I want to listen to headspace for about 10 to 15 minutes breathing exercises, getting myself just. Okay, affirmations would be during this time. Right? Just quieting down. After that, I want to spend 20 to 30 minutes physical activity. For me, this is going to be going outside and getting a walk. The reason I'm going to go outside and get a walk is because by the time I get to this, the sun should be up. And now I'm going to get sunlight in my eyes. I'm going to get sunlight on my skin. And if you listen to Andrew Huberman and a lot of other folks, sunlight is like a very powerful thing for us as humans. But also the movement of the physical exercise. After that, I want to come back and I want to do 15 to 30 minutes, probably 30, 30 minutes of personal development. By the way, while I'm on the walk, I'm going to be listening to an audiobook, But I've given myself to come back and if there's something that I want to learn HubSpot Academy video, a YouTube video, new tech that I'm trying to learn around AI whatever I want to give myself that time for personal development. Imagine what I could learn 30 minutes a day for 365 days. Imagine what you could learn which is 30 minutes intentional 30 minutes a day for personal development then. And by the way this is but backwards from the way it is now. I would go take a shower. After my shower I would eat a healthy breakfast and then after I eat my breakfast I would plan and prioritize my day. Couple things that aren't in here right now. Planning and prioritizing my day is there meaning I use ClickUp for tasks that need to be done. My life is run pretty much by my calendar but it's not like to the level in which I want to do where it's like what are the the four things today that have to be done and doing those first and then doing the rest of the stuff that can be done after that. So you can tell a couple of these are because it's about being more intentional in certain areas of my life but it's really designed out to be this like holistic micro chunks of growth consistent and by the way I'm going to say over the next 365 days but when I look at this I go no. This to me feels like the routine that will be the foundation for me for the rest of my life. Will I add time? Will I add things? Maybe. But this is a great foundation that is simple and can be consistent and I can allot that time for without feeling guilty about the morning routine. So Liz, now I'm super curious. Liz's morning routine why don't we start.

With what it is currently.

Yeah.

So one of the things that I realized, as I said earlier, I've lived.

Two different extremes of my morning routines this year. One was self preservation and one was a state of healing.

I now see it was the path I had to walk.

When I think about the morning routine that I have both developed with intention and also has developed organically on its own. If I look at the theme and.

How I want to feel in the.

Morning, I want to wake up in the morning and not feel like my life is living me.

That's really the goal for me is.

That regardless as to whether got a.

Good night's sleep, hopefully I did.

Like I don't want to feel like I wake up and the moment I.

Open my eyes I'm already behind or already failing. That is a big mindset for me that I really need to have. So my morning routine actually begins the night before. So as soon as I get home, this new little routine I've developed, which was not something that I was trying to do intentionally, but I've always heard your morning routine is going to be dependent on what your night routine is. So before bed, when I'm exhausted, I had this like list of things that I needed to do and I just didn't want to do it and I was tired and I would just go to bed.

So what I've noticed is that as.

Soon as I walk in the door, when I get home from the office, I'll go home, I will change, and then while I'm there, I'll just take two seconds and I'll do what's called habit stacking, which is something from James Clear's atopic habits, where you just stack things that you already do, but stack them together because it makes more sense from an efficiency perspective. So for example, instead of getting undressed and putting things away when I get home and then setting out my clothes for the next day as two separate things, I do that together. I do a quick change, I toss the clothes that I want to wear on a chair. So I'm like, okay, now I don't have to think about that. In the morning I'll do a little bit of tidying up. If I have to get my laundry together, I'll get my laundry together basically by the time I come, when as soon as I walk in the door and I get home from work, I take 15 to 20 minutes and just get everything set up so I can immediately get up the next morning and just walk in outdoor.

So when I wake up in the.

Morning, I have an approximate wake up time.

It quite frankly depends.

Is this a morning where I am going to be recording at 7:45 or is this a morning where my day.

Doesn'T start until 9? Those are two different mornings, but they have. It's approximate. I'll wake up probably I'll give myself.

About 90 minutes or so. I'll wake up, I will take a shower, I will make my bed. Liz wasn't in the military, so we're just gonna move on from that. I will say three things I'm grateful for, but I don't have some sort of like beautif aesthetically pleasing morning practice. This morning, quite frankly, I said the three things I was grateful for while I was going to the bathroom. I was sitting There I'm like, I am grateful for my tenacity. I am grateful for friends like George. I am grateful for this home. And then flush like, that was my morning. Then after that, I make my little breakfast. So this morning it was a little vegan breakfast burrito and it was delicious.

I listened to NPR up first.

I start getting ready for the day. I do my hair. I basically have created a morning routine.

Where I feel like I have space to breathe.

What is interesting, however, is that I used to do the thing where I was like, how can I optimize myself for peak or form as a growing individual? Like the morning pages, the this, the that, the meditating.

What I actually did instead was I said, these are the habits I want to complete daily.

So there are a few things that I do right? Like I meditate, I do duolingo. I'm currently learning German because after years of ignoring the fact that I I can't roll my Rs, I finally accepted that I can't. I've given up on Italian. We've now moved to German. It's super fun. So, yeah, daily reading, daily meditation, I go on a daily walk duolingo and.

I go to gym.

Those are like the nourishing my mind and body things that I like to do every day.

And my life got a heck of a lot easier when I realized the.

Best way to optimize my morning routine.

Is not to insist that every single good habit I do only exists in the morning. I actually sprinkle them in throughout the day. So I usually do my reading right after our first meeting together, because you and I usually have some sort of meeting in the morning. And I will take 20 minutes, there's a chair back there and I will go sit and I will read and then I will. Because that will allow me to context switch. So my work really requires me to do a lot of deep work, which makes it really hard mentally for me to hard switch to a next task. So some of these are like really good transitional things that allow me to do that.

So then I have a couple hours where I have some website pages I need to crank out. Then after that I'm going to go on a little walk. I'm going to get my head back together, allow myself to pull myself out of that deep work project. And then usually I end my day by doing my language learning and my meditation.

Now, what I would like to switch.

And what I would like to experiment with is that I've noticed my meditation is the thing I enjoy doing. But it's the practice. I am very much checking the box on, and I'm wondering how much more benefit I will see from that if I move that to something I start my day with with, rather than something I shoehorn in somewhere just to say that I'm meditating. So that's really where I'm looking to have my ideal morning routine. My ideal morning routine looks actually pretty close to what I have right now. But mostly because one of the things I'm really focusing on in this current chapter of my life is I have a tendency to be the person who looks to other people to say, yes, you're checking the box. Yes, you're doing life right. And so what is healthy for me right now is to say, what does a good morning feel like? And I'm like, I just want to feel like I'm not already behind. That's all I want. And what I've noticed is I've given myself that gentleness. My. My heart and my mind and my body started telling me what belonged in the morning. I also will tell you how clean your space is, will dictate how good your morning is. Because if you can't find anything, you will never feel organized. You will wake up disordered. And I have a thing where it's if I have a messy head, I can see my space around me. So I've gotten pretty. That's why I started habit stacking around, like tidying up and getting stuff ready for the following morning.

There's so many good pieces that first of all, that last piece, you leaned into total podcast episode. Females in cleanliness and men in actual not it needing to be spotless. Go do some YouTube searches on that one. I don't know if we'll make it an episode or not, but I stumbled across that maybe like a week or two ago and was like, like this is why I don't care about dusting or if there's five pieces of paper out of place and why it's always getting fixed and done around me. But anyway, I digress. Here's the thing, Liz. There's a couple things that you said in that section. One, I would want the listeners to be careful. Anytime you're making any type of routine, whether it be morning routine, daily routine, and you feel like you're checking a box because you have to check a box, it might not be the right thing for you to actually have in your routine. Or like you stated, it might be in the wrong place of your routine. Like maybe it's a little bit of a heavier Mental lift. And so it should be at the beginning instead of the end. But watch out for anytime you feel like, I've got to check this box, and I must do that or else I'm going to be a complete failure for the entire day. The other thing that you said that was interesting is like, I. You said, I'm the type of person that I need somebody to tell me that I'm doing all right in life, that I'm checking the boxes in life. But then a few seconds later, you then said, but I've realized. And you use the word my right, listen, nobody's here to tell you that you're doing amazing in life. This goes back to that. I've said it on the podcast before. Nobody's coming to save you. It's not really anybody's job to have. And again, I'm talking adults, not children. I'm not diving into the parent and child relationship, but it's really nobody's job to, oh, you're doing a great job. We have to build that into ourselves. We have to have the self metrics of I killed it today. Even though you know what? I had to put Duolingo on the shelf for a day because it was just a day. But dang, gone, we killed it. I'm killing it. We have to have that inside of us. But there are a couple pieces in there that I just wanted to unpack where my brain went as I heard you saying them.

It's interesting how you responded to that, because the idea of I'm doing things because I have to check the box, I would say, yes, I agree with you, but with an asterisk. Because one of the things that has been really powerful for me is this idea. And this is coming from a book that you and I are both reading together and we're doing a little internal book club, which is called the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. He's an incredible modern scholar on stoicism. He's. He wrote the Daily Stoic and the Daily Stoic Journal. Ego is the enemy, discipline is destiny.

Et cetera, et cetera.

But one of the things that shows up as a theme in the Obstacle, the Obstacle is the Way is this idea of motion before emotion, meaning we will often talk ourselves out of doing the things that we need to do just because we don't feel like doing it or our perceptions of a situation will talk us out of it. So, yes, I agree. I think, for example, apps like Duolingo can make you feel like a freaking failure because you broke your Stroke streak. But then it obfuscates the fact that you literally, out of the last 90 days, practice German for 89 days and you'll get stuck on that one day because the streak is broken. I completely agree with you on that. And I think there are moments where it's, you know what I need. I deserve a day of rest. But for example, yesterday I did not want to go to the gym, but it is about discipline. And so I went to the gym and I was like, I know I don't feel motivated to go right now, to go do the thing I need to do, but if I wait to feel like doing anything in my life, I'm gonna wait to feel motivated to write 2000 plus words on compound interest strategies. Like, I will be waiting forever. I will be waiting until I am 87. And even then, what am I gonna do? Because I won't be able to type. Right?

Yeah.

So I think there is that line, that healthy line that we all need to find of what is the difference between things that we do because we are disciplined and times that we give our to breathe because we're human beings who don't have to be perfect all the freaking time.

Yeah.

I would say the other thing too, just to clarify that idea of when I used to look at others to tell me I was doing a good job, it was really because I wanted to feel like a sense of belonging, because I was looking outside of myself for the fundamental belief in myself that I was a good and worthy human. So I will often say that if you are looking outside of yourself to say, I am checking the box in these ways. I don't want to be overly prescriptive about where you are on your journey, but often, at least in my experience, that comes down to the idea of who told you weren't worth it already, just as you are right now in this form.

Yeah.

Okay.

And hang on, I want to double click on that. If you heard what Liz just said and you're like, amen, sister, go listen to episode 17 of the podcast. That's all I'm going to say. Just go listen to episode 17. Cultivating a home from within to create the home we seek without out there will be some nuggets that help you. If you were just like, amen, sister, Preach. That's the next episode after this.

I love it. All right, we talked about our morning routines, but we've talked about our thoughts on the whole morning routine. Industrial complex. How should folks go about constructing their own morning routines? How do you choose what advice to listen to and what advice to ignore.

Yeah, so I think there's one. There's constructing the thing and then there's the advice to ignore. So first of all, Liz, have you ever had one of those moments where moments in life just made sense? You, like, you, you get to a point, you're like, oh, that's why we did this. Because it was preparing me for this moment right here.

Yeah. Like how for Vin Diesel, boiler room led to triple X, which led to Fast and Furious. And now here we are.

Exactly, Exactly. You get me. I'm just gonna throw that out there right now. What a great example. In the moment, when I think of constructing, because I have leaned into. It's gotta be customized for you. You. When I think about constructing your own morning routine. 1. You need to know yourself. You need to know yourself. By the way, episode 10 of this podcast, you need to know what you're trying to achieve. By the way, episode 21 of this podcast, you have to be kind to yourself when you're constructing this bad boy so that you don't burn yourself out. By the way, episode five. It has to be created for the long haul versus get it fast. By the way, episode seven. Seven. And you have to own your routine once you construct it. By the way, episode 16. Literally, as I was like thinking about the pieces and parts of how I would construct a great morning routine, as I was constructing my 20, 24 and beyond routine, I was paying attention to those things as I did it and realizing, oh my gosh, we've created content about every piece of what people need to be thinking about. And so literally, you could go and listen to those episodes, find the base of that tree again and start to construct what your morning routine will be. Now to get to your original question of what advice should we ignore? Listen. And we drip this along the way. If it's the most optimized, if it's the hack of the century, if it's the non scientific based, if it's somebody who is using it to lead into a thousand dollar course, if it's, it feels wrong, if it doesn't feel like it fits in your life, Listen, we're all humans. We have good BS meters. And when you're going through the research of what are the things that I could do, what are the things that I should do, and what are the things that I must do to create the most amazing morning routine to set me up for future success in the day and future success in the future, I'm going to ask you to just Turn that BS meter up just two or three notches. Just two or three notches. Give it a little bit more. That's what you ignore anytime your radar goes off. Nope. We have to be very careful of other people's agendas when creating our masterpiece for our mornings.

I love the way you just ended that there with creating the masterpiece for your mornings. My process for that, for developing my.

Own morning routine and deciding what advice.

To listen to it ignore, was pretty simple.

I already alluded to it already. Like I just sat down and and said, by the end of the day.

I want to say that I have committed and quote, unquote, checked off. Whatever these habits, I already ran through them.

Reading, meditating, duolingo, going for my walk.

Going to the gym. Then there are other little things too, right?

Like I do take whole food vitamins in the morning and I drink a ton of water. And there are a bunch of other.

Things that I do. But I did do research, and I think that's an important thing to go out there and do. You know, I think it's important for people to go out there and do the research because I know we've talked a lot today about how there's like a ton of like, very aggressive research out there, and there is. But I think it is important for people to go out there and look at what is available to them, but only after you really decide what you want, your goal of your morning. Because I think the fear I have for folks is that some of this stuff that's out there is written in such a way where it's, if you aren't a cold bath, dunking forest bathing light lamp, raw food, organic 4Amer, you're never gonna be a success. Like, you've already failed before you've hit your first meeting. That's real life. And also, I think the thing we need to remember is that many of these bajillionaires who sit down with these interviewers and talk about their brilliant morning routines can do so from a place of deep privilege because they have bought their way to having an excess amount of time. I guarantee you these people were not shotgunning raw vegetable wheatgrass smoothies and doing 18 hours of meditation before they started their day when they were beginning their business out of their garage. Let's be realistic here. Come on. So when I think about what advice to ignore, look to people who you aspire to be, but remember the context in which they are living and the choices and things that they have available to them. Because people of great wealth and Privilege. And many of them have earned it. I'm not shaming them here. One of the things that wealthy people always try to buy more of is time. So they often have more of it. They have more flexibility and freedom because they can delegate the administrative tasks that we all have to manage within our own lives of mere mortals.

So don't fault yourself. Like, there's that mug that says Beyonce also has 24 hours in a day. Yeah, Beyonce also has staff.

Staff.

And don't get me wrong, I love Beyonce, but she has staff. Do you know what? I used to have a cat who considered me staff. That's where we're at.

It's funny. I love that if you're not. If you're not in the forest bathing, you're a failure in life. I love that you did like that whole trip. But then also, I really want to pull apart this piece of context to where they are at in life and who they are and where they're at on their journey.

Journey.

What's funny is, Liz, when you said that, I was like, what would make a really dope interview is to get somebody like Jocko or Tim Ferriss or Andrew Huberman and ask them, okay, we're gonna take a 15 year journey and I want you to explain your morning rituals now and do five years before that and five years before that and five years before that, and literally have a context of a linear growth path to who they became, to what was important and what they did in those morning moments. I feel like that would shed light in a completely different way than the narrative that is being told online right now about these kind of morning routines.

Oh, completely agree. Just take a look at the three very different morning routines I walked you through this year because I went through a significant amount of life change. Like, I think there is something to be said for whether we're talking about morning routines or a different type of habit structure. The morning routines that you start with are not always necessarily the morning routines that you grow with.

And that's okay.

And they're going to evolve over time. And you have to also adapt to the seasons of life that you're in. Let's say, for example, you have some.

Baller morning routine, and then all of.

A sudden you have your first kid, guess what, cupcake? That kid now runs your life. And it's okay that your morning routine is a little trashed. Why? Because if you just had a kid and you tell me you're still running 13 miles a day doing a cold.

Bath, then forest bathing, but then Also journaling and doing all these things.

And you just have a kid.

Where is the child in a pack and play.

Where is the child in the crib?

Hello. You have a baby.

We're doing our first official challenge.

Yeah, George, are you ready?

This was exciting when I saw this.

So in January, you and I are both going to commit to integrating one. Only one. One new morning routine. I know you can't because you never. You don't follow directions on this podcast and you don't follow directions on the other podcast asked. I just want to be very clear about that. I respect you, George. My God. So here's what I'm going to tell you. So we're each committing to doing one morning habit. You are going to test and report back on to our audience in February. Now, George, I knew you were going to pick more than one. I'm not a lunatic, but you need to tell me which is the one. That's the non negotiable. You have to pick one to rule them all. I'm not saying you don't report back on all three.

It's only two. It's only two.

Okay.

Not all three.

All right. So what are you doing, George? What are you doing in January?

So, yeah, it was difficult, Liz. I always have difficulty with the one thing. So for me it came down to two, though, and it was only two. And those two were very easy to be like. This is what I would say and this is what I want to focus on. One is hydration and spiritual time. 10 to 15 minutes every morning, drinking some water, devotion, prayer, Bible. Okay, solid. Got got to start adding that more to my life. Been super blessed. Just need to take some time to put back into that. The second one is physical activity, 20 to 30 minutes. I'm leaning on the 30 minute side of going for a walk in the morning. If I had a failure over the last year and a half or 18 months or whatever, however you want to frame it, is the lack of continual exercise that I once was doing that helped me lose about £79 and once stopped doing it because other things became priority. Listen, you can find what once was lost. I'm just gonna throw that out there. And so getting in that exercise, that physical activity for me in the morning is going to be really important. So if I can only pick one of those, the one that I'm going to report back on because I feel like it's the one that I need more accountability on than the other one, which. Yes. What I'm saying, listeners, is you are now My accountability buddies is the physical activity. Being able to come back and say I walked for 30 minutes every morning since the day that we set the challenge down is important to me. Or being able to say that maybe I even walked a little bit longer or more or what? Actually doing that 30 minutes in the morning. What happens Because I did that. So that's the one I'll pick is physical activity 20 to 30 minutes in the morning. That's my challenge piece. Liz, what about you?

So I've already mentioned mine. Wait, just to confirm. So the we have a couple in there, but the one that we are going to be reporting back on when you and I record on February 5th, which means it's going to be dropping that week.

You've got the date. Geesh.

Oh yeah.

Because I'm literally about to make a calendar invite. So neither of us forget. So we can't get to this. We can't get to the end of our challenge. Life happened and boohoo to us.

Oh, we're not going to be able to skirt this one.

No.

We will not be Tokyo drifting our way out of this.

No.

Okay.

Okay.

Good. Awesome. Woo. Let's go.

But just to confirm, the one that.

You really want to report on is your walking. Any physical activity?

Physical activity? Yeah.

Mine I already mentioned and it's going to sound simple but I'm really going to be measuring it from the perspective of not only my doing it, but how it impacts my discipline around my morning routine and also my mindset going into and that is meditating in the morning for 10, 10 minutes instead of just doing it willy nilly throughout the day. And I used to be someone who did like daily set of 15 to 20 minutes. I've even done 30 and I've noticed now I'm down to five minutes sprawled out in bed. Cause I'm like crap before I start.

Binging Gilmore Girls again.

I better get that in because I won't do it. So I'm very interested to see across those different areas what happens. I picked 10 minutes intentionally because it's a manageable time that doesn't force me to completely restructure my morning routine or how much time I take. Cake does force me to be disciplined and mess around with it. So I'm going to be a good human and say this begins on January 2nd. Because January 1st I have plans on being a potato. That is my plan. That is my plan for the day. I am going to be a human potato who is functionally illiterate and it's going to be amazing.

I'll be a sweet potato, potato. I'll be a sweet potato. I love me some sweet potatoes. Sweet potato pies, Sweet potato fries.

Anyway, speaking of sweet potatoes. Flawless segue right there. Just kidding.

So finally we're having this conversation today because even with all the toxic stuff, this mornings matter and we firmly believe that here, how we start our days matters. So with that in mind, if you could leave our listeners with one way they can rethink their mornings going into 2024, what would it be and why?

Yeah, there you go with that one way stuff again. Listen to me, what comes to mind is one single major word that I would pull out of this episode, and that is the word intention. Being intentional with your morning helps you live a life of intention. And as we move into 2024, rethinking our mornings to embrace mindful flexibility can transform them from this. And we've talked about it. Rigid set of tasks that I have to check off into a nurturing, adaptable practice that can truly enhance my daily life. Your daily life. I want you to think about personalization over prescription instead of strictly following a popular or prescribed routine. And we've named some names. Customize your morning to fit your unique needs, preferences and the lifestyle that you're living and where you're living it right now. Like we talked about how change is going to happen in life. So what does it look like for you? This personalization of your morning routine will ensure that your routine resonates with you and supports your specific goals, which this is where I sneak in the second thing, because if it is that, that you can focus on it being simplistic and sustainable. Listen, I'm going to tell you, aim for simplicity in your morning routines. A sustainable, straightforward routine is more likely to be maintained in the long run, the long haul I mentioned earlier in this podcast and less likely caused the thing that gets most of us and I've dealt with and that's burnout. And remember, the journey to a life beyond your default is not a sprint. A life beyond your default is not a sprint. It's a marathon of magnificent mornings. So be intentional with each and every one of. That's what I would say you do as you start to craft those magical morning routines. And of course I'll end this with let us know what's your challenge. Email us, hit us up on social, send a carrier pigeon. But inquiring minds wanna.