TJ Walker warns against copying celebrity morning routines. Naomi Pham found that strict borrowed habits create stress and burn out. Instead, list what energizes you, experiment, and keep routines flexible enough to breathe.
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Why you should not adopt successful people's routine Morning routines A bit contrarian so they talk about how if you search morning routines, you end up with hundreds of millions of results. Certainly Tim Ferriss has mind that pretty well, but so have many, many other people. And they're all about how successful people start their day, how billionaires start their day. And some of them are good tips. But here's what the author said. And this is an author, Naomi Pham, and she's a freelance writer for Thrive Global. She says, quote I've tried it all Success driven morning habits. Getting up early, doing meditations, listening to motivational videos, reading books, writing journals, et cetera. For a while it worked. I became more energetic, focused and alert. I could perform tasks more productively than ever before. But then the stress kicks in. I felt pressured and reluctant to wake up at 6am every day, only to find myself caught up in a hamster wheel of tasks. So one day I decided to take a break. I woke up without an alarm clock. I got a full eight hours of sleep. I didn't dive into listening to motivational videos right after waking up. I didn't free write for half an hour before having breakfast. I didn't try to squeeze any of the so called productivity boosting activities in the first hour of my day. Instead, I indulged myself with a satisfying breakfast. Then I remained at the dinner table for the next 30 minutes or so, waiting for the sun to rise while enjoying a steaming cup of coffee. A stream of calming and fulfilling air rushed through my entire body. I had never felt more alive and peaceful. No stress, no hurry. I simply enjoyed my morning. The rest of the day progressed in that manner, calm and slow. To my astonishment, I managed to accomplish loads of things. So, important lesson here, and I've tried to cover this on this show as well, is it's fine to learn what other successful people do and experiment. But ultimately you have to pick routines that help you. You have to pick habits that make you happier, that make you more fulfilled. I guess Jack Dorsey's doing okay. He's a billionaire. He's the CEO of the Square and Twitter. Life seems to be pretty good. But he gets up at 4am and he only eats one meal a day. I would go crazy if I did that. My guess is the vast majority of you would go crazy if you tried to do that too. So here are the points the author takes. What works for others may not work for you. Do you dress the same as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs do? Then why copy their morning routines you probably don't dress like them. None of us are the same. We grew up in different environments, lived different kinds of lives, have different hobbies, lifestyles, likes and dislikes. Great point. Point number two, and this is important, this is important in everything I stress as well. You will run out of steam eventually. Successful people are highly disciplined individuals who spent years shaping strong habits and personalities. Anthony Trollope was able to write from 5am to 8am before heading to work because it's what he's been doing for 30 years. If you just plunge yourself into a similar morning routine, you won't be able to keep up with the demand and soon run out of steam. Longevity, sustainability. Part of what I look for in every single new habit that I want to acquire for myself or that I recommend for others is, is this sustainable? That's the problem, I think with the Paleo diet. Even the Tim Ferriss avoid white diet. The Atkins diet is from everything I've seen testing on myself and from other people and clinical studies, they're simply not sustainable. You might be able to do it for a month, six months, maybe a year. But if you're trying to do Atkins or Paleo and it's two and a half years and now you're at an Italian restaurant celebrating something with family and friends and it's a Tuesday night and the most extravagant, wonderful, delicious smelling garlic bread with butter is piping hot, fresh, put right in front of you. You're not going to be able to say no to what I only do meat and Paleo and it's not my cheat day. It's just not going to happen again. You can do it for the first month, maybe for six months. I lasted six months on Atkins, but that's why it's not effective. Habit. Long run, it's not sustainable. As this author points out, you will run out of steam. Number three, you don't want your life to be too rigid. A lot of successful people build their morning routines around a long list of tasks. Reading, checking emails, writing, going for a job, etc. You don't want to force yourself in such a compact routine where with no room to breathe. Now here's where I would not disagree with the author, but put, I guess a comma. And the comma is unless that's what works well for you. I know for me it works really well for me to have dozens and dozens and dozens of tasks every day that I do the first two hours of the day. And I really like checking them off. I like the fact that I can check off I drank a whole glass this size of water within the first hour of waking up. One of my habits is I drink one and just one cup of coffee every morning without cream or sugar in it. I write at least 500 to a thousand words every. I like having the checklist stuff. You might not want to do anything but just relax the first two hours in the morning. And you still might have a more productive day than I do if you figure out other times of the day where you are most productive. So I absolutely endorse this author's principle here. If you don't want your life to be too rigid, the only caveat is make sure you're really trying to control your own life. Because the opposite of not having checklist of things like writing in a journal every day, exercising every day is to kind of go with the flow and do whatever. And going with the flow and doing whatever in our modern culture in 2020, unfortunately means watching TV, watching entertainment, video, reading nonsense news about celebrities who don't care about you. And yeah, once a year for Academy Awards is fine. But if you know how many sisters Kim Kardashian has, that tells me you're probably in trouble. You're spending too much time reading pop culture news that has no impact on you. So try not to be too rigid. But everybody has some rules of how they construct their morning. And if you're not writing your own rules, someone else is writing those rules for you and you might not even be aware of it. That's my only caveat with this author. So here are her suggestions of how to develop your own morning routine. Make a list of what pumps you up. Ask yourself the question, what are the things you could do in the morning to pump you up for the rest of the day? Now, this can be different for everyone. I know I get pumped up by literally doing 20 jumping jacks. It feels kind of silly. It kind of feels like something I did in kindergarten. But you know what? Feeling like a kindergartner can be a fun thing or a first grader. And today I, in fact, did it with my first grade daughter. And we had fun doing it together. But make a list of what makes you feel good. One of the principles that I talked about on this show routinely is that you will be more productive in life the happier you are. And if you do things, especially beginning of the day, to make you happier, it's going to make you more productive with everything else you do. The next item. Take it to action. Now that you have a list of things you want to do in the morning, it's time to experiment. Find out the routine that works best for you with experimenting with different morning routines. Notice how it makes you feel. Do you feel tense or relaxed carrying out an activity? How does it affect your mood and productivity throughout the day? If you catch yourself feeling reluctant to do something, try another activity the next morning. Don't feel guilty if you can't commit yourself to seemingly good morning routines like reading a book or going for a 30 minute jog. I know personally I don't like to do any strenuous exercise first thing in the morning. I'll do pull ups, I'll do some jumping jacks, I'll do stretches but I'm not going to run full out on the treadmill at 6am 7am I'll do that a little later in the day. So great article and a great website Thrive Global. I would urge you to check it out. I have linked to it in the show notes as well.
