012: How to Start Your Life-Changing Morning Routine!

In this episode we'll talk about why a morning routine is so important and how it will change your life. We'll cover the benefits of doing it in the morning, sleep and going to bed on time, tips for getting up in the morning, and the components of a great morning routine!

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  Hi, my name is Katy Blommer and my passion is helping women learn how to put themselves first, I learned all the tools for success on my own 12 year journey that has led me to finally figuring out how to live my best life. My journey included overcoming body image issues, and yo yo dieting, climbing the corporate ladder to a multiple six figure career, navigating mom guilt through a 60 hour workweek turning around marriage issues and much more. Now, I'm truly living my best life. And I've pretty much become obsessed with teaching others my tried and true methods for creating balance, maintaining healthy habits, improving your relationship, career development, and how to stop tying your value and worth, to the way you look and how you serve others. I'm so passionate about helping others learn this, that I created the working mom happiness method to help you get there too. So if you're ready to learn how to live your best life, pull up a chair or put on your walking shoes and get ready to dive in. This is the working mom happiness method podcast.

  Hi, welcome. I'm so excited because we're gonna talk all about morning routines in this episode, and my morning routine personally changed my life. However, I want to start with acknowledging that we have just started module four of the working mom happiness Method program, and I love module four. So in modules one through three, we were building our best life master plan document. So if you're just joining us for the first time in this episode, first of all welcome. If you want to get the full benefits of the working mom happiness Method program, go back and start in episode one. And you're going to build what we call your best life master plan document. And you're actually going to need that for your morning routine, because that is, in my opinion, I think the most important part of the morning routine, and we finished creating it in module three, the last page of it that you need for your morning routine is boundaries. And I will acknowledge for those of you who've been working on your best mat, best life master plan, there are still some pages after boundaries, we're going to get to those later in the program as part of module four, which is all about tools for success. So Module Four has I believe it's 14 different topics. Those include creating your morning routine, which is where we're going to start protecting your energy we get into relationships, we get into career development. That's where we're going to dive deep there. We talk about budgeting, we talked about money mindset, we talked about sex. I mean, there, it runs the gamut. Because before I started this program, I interviewed quite a few working moms to see what are your struggles, what are you struggling with, you know, on a regular daily basis. And I made an effort to incorporate that centrally, all the main themes that came up. And it turns out, we all have the same struggles in common right at varying levels, depending on what the subject is. But it's so fascinating that we just all struggle with similar things. So we're going to cover the whole list as part of module four tools for success. And the way I want you to think about your best life master plan document for now is think of it as it's ready to go, you can start your morning routine with it. And it already is life changing in what you've created. I want you to think about it though, as it relates to being a dynamic document. Because what may happen as you go through all of the different topics we're going to cover in module four is that you might want to go back in and update your best life master plan document in various areas based on what you're going to learn here. And that's great. Please do that. That's why I love that it's an electronic version. And then even after you finish the working mom happiness method, the formal program, even if you get all the way through Module Four, that best life master plan document is going to stay it's going to remain a dynamic document because what we do is we update it every quarter going forward, every single quarter, you're going to want to relook at your goals for the next quarter your goals for the next year, you're going to want to just revamp if you have any new affirmations, you want to add any new boundaries that have come up, you're going to remove goals that you've achieved. So it always will be a living, breathing document. And that's how it was designed. So think of it that way. And as we start Module Four be thinking of things you want to update or change in there as you go through and learn. Alright, good. Now let's get started on morning routine. Let's jump right in to what this episode is all about. And I want to let you know the basis for me of this information that I'm about to share comes from a book called the Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it. Years ago when I decided to focus more on personal development reading this is the book I actually started with. And prior to starting with this book, I'd heard about morning routines I knew that very successful people in the world sort of all had this in common that they had some sort of morning ritual or morning routine that they do on a consistent basis to set their day up on the right foot positivity, productivity. I had heard all of that. But if I'm being completely honest, I thought of it all as being a little bit woowoo, like I was a little bit almost like had an iron rolly attitude, towards the whole concept of a morning routine. And plus, I am not a morning person. So I have always been I was I've changed this, but I was always the type of person who I would sleep until the maximum amount of time I had to get up, hurry and get ready and get out the door. Like, I would even shower and wash my hair the night before to get more sleep. So certainly not a morning person. And so that turned me off to the idea of a morning routine as well. And then after I read this book, he convinced me when I say he, I mean how Elrod the author of the book because it his story's incredible. He convinced me to give it a try. And I did. And it. I know this is cheesy, but it has genuinely changed my life. I really believe it was the foundation and basis for me being brave enough to put up some hardcore boundaries, which eventually led me to walking away from my corporate job because I was in complete burnout mode and not seeing my family. And then being brave enough to go back in a way that completely met all my needs, with boundaries, having a great balance, that and multiple other things. I mean, it I really think it was instrumental in me achieving my goals, starting this business, and improving my relationship, my marriage, my relationship with others. It's really when I started to get super consistent with meditation, which has also changed my life in the ways that I described in the last episode. So complete and total game changer. So if you're skeptical, don't take my word for it, just trust me enough to give it a real shot, you've put in the time at this point to create that best life master plan document, don't set it in a drawer somewhere and forget about it, put it to use, because it genuinely truly will change your life. If you start to read it every morning consistently. Alright, so in this, I'm going to tell you, we're gonna go way more into tips and tricks on how to do this right now. So in this episode, we're going to cover the importance of the morning routine, why in the morning, so why do it in the morning, we're going to talk about sleep and going to bed on time, tips for getting up in the morning. And components of the morning routine with timing. Alright, so let's just jump right in. The first thing I want to cover and I say this so many times in this program, but it's because I really want to just like beat it into your subconscious, small consistent actions done over long periods of time will change your life. And I don't remember what episode I mentioned it in. But I've said this before, there's a book that I read. And also as part of my current personal development reading, and in my morning routine, called The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. And he really drives this concept home have small, consistent actions over time will change your life. And it's done over long periods of time. That's the key here. So how is this relevant to the morning routine, you got to do it consistently over a long period of time before you're going to start to consciously notice the changes that it's creating in your life. All right. So that's key here, you have to trust the process and keep going even when you don't want to get up in the morning, even when you're tired of reading your best life master plan. And that's going to happen, all those things are going to happen. We're human beings, you have to trust in the process and keep going for a long period of time. And I promise your life will change if you do that. Why is this so important? The morning routine, because it sets your day up on a positive note. And when you read your goals, affirmations, boundaries, and you do some visualization, all these things that you've put in your best life master plan at this point, when you read those in the morning and visualize and think about those things, that it's not woowoo it's not like magic, you read it and then it happens, right? It's not that it's very action oriented. You're switching your brain into an upward spiral starting in the morning. And an upward spiral just simply means positivity. You're looking at those goals. And when you have them fresh on your mind throughout the day, you are so much more likely to take the actions required to achieve those goals. It's real, it works. It's amazing. And this is as opposed to starting your day off scrolling social media, looking at your work email, looking at the news negativity that starts your brain off on a downward spiral. And that is absolutely not how you want to be starting your day. Okay, life changing, I promise. But we have to trust small consistent actions done over long periods of time are where the change comes from.

  Let's talk about the benefits of doing the routine in the morning. And before we jump into some of the more science based benefits, I want to acknowledge that nocturnal or sorry, not nocturnal. circadian rhythms are real. Okay, so I just want to acknowledge that different humans have different circadian rhythms. And so if you are one of a person who is not a morning person, that's real, there truly are some people in this world who struggle more to get out of bed in the morning than others, it's very, very real. The challenge there, if you're using that as a reason to not start a morning routine, in your mind, is that our world runs on a nine to five typical schedule, right? It just does. And it actually runs on a man cycle and man's schedule. And we'll get into that a little bit more later in the program. There's a great book on that called in the flow by Alyssa VT. And I think I'm saying her name, right, Alyssa VT, I think it is in the flow, she talks all about how the world was created to run on a man's hormonal cycle, because men have hormone cycles that are 24 hours, and don't vary very much in that 24 hours, they do a little bit. And women, obviously, we have a 28 ish day cycle. And so we're gonna talk about that when we talk about actually, in an episode, it may even be the next episode coming up soon, when we talk about protecting your energy. The reason I bring that up, though, is I really do want to drive home, it truly is more difficult for some people than others to get up in the morning. And that's real, and I want to acknowledge it. But I also want to just stress the fact that our world runs on a schedule that you are going to benefit from training yourself to make it easier for your body to wake up earlier, that is very real. And I fell into that category of people who did not enjoy waking up in the morning, it always felt hard for me, until I gradually and slowly change this. So trust the process, give it a shot, you have to do it consistently over a decent period of time before it's going to start to get easier. But I promise that it will eventually start to get easier, it may never feel completely easy for you. But it will start to get easier, the longer that you do it. So the benefits of actually doing it in the morning versus a different time of day. Your brain is in prime information absorbing mode in the morning. And there there's a more scientific way to sit to say this. In fact, Mel Robbins in her book, The Five second rule, she goes into the science, and she states, the studies, all of that good stuff, I don't have all the studies on hand, you can go check out her book if you if you need that sort of stuff to trust it. But Multiple studies have been done that show that the it's about a 90 minute period after we come out of that last sleep cycle in the morning is when our brain holds on to information the most. And so when you read something, whatever you read in the morning is going to be a lot more impactful in your life than reading it at other times of the day. So that's one real benefit to why you should do it in the morning. Plus it starts your day off in the right mindset that we just talked about in that upward spiral. So that's great. And then another just very practical benefit is you get it all done before energy, any energy draining things happen throughout the day, right. So if we put these things off the components of the morning routine, which we're going to go into detail about what those are in just a minute. If we put those off until later in the day, the chances are so high that we're gonna get too tired to want to do them, or we're going to have something pop up that needs to be done. And then before we know it, the day is over. And we haven't done these healthy habits that come as part of the morning routine, right? Especially exercise and body movement, knocking it out of the way in the morning is your best bet at staying consistent. If you are a busy working mom, woman person, your best bet of being consistent and exercise is getting it done. First thing, even if you hate doing exercise in the morning, it really will change your life and improve your health. Now, it's also important to note that if for some reason, you just cannot do this in the morning, your life's not conducive to it, maybe you work a different shift at work that doesn't allow you to do this, maybe you have a baby. For those of you who have a baby, your sleep is definitely a priority. And if you're going on a couple hours of sleep, I do not recommend getting up early to get this done. I recommend what I've done with the new moms who I've coached is we've worked out little bits and scheduled the components of the morning routine throughout their day. And that works better. So give yourself some grace. If you have a baby it you'll still get benefits from doing the routine in different parts of the day. It's just most beneficial to do it in the morning. So I just want to acknowledge that.

  The number one reason people struggle with trying to get up earlier is due to not going to bed earlier on a consistent basis. All right. This is very real, right? How many of us have the thing where the only me time we get is actually everyone's in bed, the house is finally quiet. Nobody needs you. That's your time to binge, your show scroll your social media, online shopping, whatever it is you do, some people get caught up in their, you know, really awesome fiction novel and read for hours. And before you know it is way past your bedtime and you have to get up in the morning, and then you've lost that precious sleep. And sleep is precious, right in our five, non negotiables. It's second on the list, right water than sleep. So we really, really have to stop doing this. And I am not saying it's easy. It is so much easier said than done. And the secret here is you have to start creating me time during the day. And I know that sounds insane. You're like, where am I going to get that time from you have to create it create is the key word here you have to create the time. How do you do that, you have to learn to value yourself so much that you do radical things like asking for help for somebody to watch the kids for an hour. So you can scroll social media or watch a show paying for extra childcare. So you can get a morning routine in or exercise during the morning. Speak up if your husband isn't helping you out enough in a way that he will hear. And we're going to tell you exactly how to do that in the relationships component of this program. And really, this entire program is completely geared towards you learning how to value yourself enough it to be brave enough and have the courage for the radical self care it takes to create me time for yourself during the day, meaning taking time away from your kids, asking somebody else for help, potentially upsetting somebody you care about in order to take that time. And it really is just such a bummer that society has made us feel like that is radical self care, because Sorry, not sorry, men do it all the time with ease and without guilt. Not every man but most of them do good guys to not saying bad guys good guys do this way more often and much easier than than we do it. So we really have to be more like them as it relates to this. So that's the number one reason and this whole program is geared towards helping you do that. But that is so critical to having a consistent morning routine is getting to where you are going to bed earlier consistently. So let's talk about some tips for logistically getting to bed earlier. Number one is no screens one hour before bed, right? We know that looking at screens before we go to bed impacts our brain and can make our mind race if you do use a screen. So for example, I read books in the Kindle app on my phone. So sometimes I'll read at night on my Kindle app, and you can get blue light blocking glasses that can help you fall asleep easier. And they haven't them cheap. I have a pair from Amazon that was like $11. And it's really cute too, which is fun. So definitely see if you can invest in something like that. If you're somebody who like reads a book before bed on a screen,

  figure out what calms you down before bed and make it a routine. i This is so funny, I kind of want you to treat yourself like a baby, right? So we those of us who've had babies, we know that getting your baby into a consistent bedtime routine helps them to fall asleep. So you know with a baby, it's like giving them a bath and singing them a song and swaddling them are and you get to do it in a consistent order. And that helps them go to sleep better, right? So we want to actually do that to ourselves. We want to treat ourselves like we would a baby and create a bedtime routine and play with different things that might work for you. It might be taking a bath it might be reading something to get your eyes tired sleep stories, they have sleep stories on the calm and headspace apps where it's like some soothing voice telling the most boring story you've ever heard you can fall asleep to you can play with that meditation, I really like to as I'm falling asleep, I just start a little meditation in my head where I just focus on my breath and fall asleep to that and that's really helped me a lot and even if it takes you a while to fall asleep that way you're getting the benefits of meditation. So play around with different things, see what works for you and then be super consistent and see if that helps you start to fall asleep earlier. Another thing is doing a brain dump before bed keep a notebook by your bed and write down all the things that are swirling around in there so it's just like literally brain dump literally that's not literally actually take any thoughts that are down and just write them out on the page. Just anything that's in your mind that's going on things you need to get done tomorrow random stuff stressors, crazy untrue thoughts about yourself when you said something dumb throughout the day all these things that that tend to race in our mind the second our head hits the pillow write them down It's huge, I'll make a massive difference. The other thing is keep your bedtime consistent. This is huge. Our bodies really struggled to adjust when we're going to bed and waking up at different times every day. So I recommend keeping your bedtime consistent every weekday, and then it's okay to stray from it, I think within an hour, but I wouldn't go longer than an hour I try to stay between 30 minutes and an hour on the weekend if I want to stay a little later and sleep and a little longer. But you're going to be feel better make this easier, the closer you can stay to exactly consistent bedtime and wake time. So that really is a game changer. The room temperature and conditions matter are you somebody who likes a cold dark room? Do you need blackout curtains, you're worth it, you're worth figuring this out and making an investment in whatever it takes to create a sleep environment where you where you will fall asleep faster. So whether that's a fan in your room, ceiling fan blackout curtains, maybe you like it warmer, heated blanket different mattress, you're worth it, you're worth investing for your own health, which we know is so correlated to sleep and getting good sleep, what you're eating matters to. So we're going to talk about this more when we get into the intuitive eating module. But a game changer for me as soon as I let go of focusing on weight loss and the way that I looked and shifted over to focusing on true actual health. And remember, they are not as connected as our society has had has brainwashed us to believe, right? True health and weight loss are not as connected as we think they are, we had to let that go. I know I'm like driving that one home. So but anyway, what you're eating matters. And what happened to me is that when I finally let go of just obsession with weight loss and how my body looked, it allowed me to open up space in my mind to really pay attention to how foods make me feel and affect me. And when I started to learn was certain foods can give me anxiety and make it harder for me to fall asleep. And I just know that now. And here's the thing, sometimes I still choose to eat them, right. But if I'm going to choose to eat them, I choose to eat them on a Friday night where it doesn't matter so much. If I struggle a little bit more to fall asleep. So game changer to start paying attention to what foods are correlated with you struggling to fall asleep. The other thing here that's important is it takes the average person 15 to 30 minutes to fall asleep. That's normal. So plan for that. If you need if you're the type of person who needs like a full eight hours of sleep, account for 30 minutes from eyes closed to the time you actually fall asleep. Super normal that it takes that long. Alright, so game changing. Alright, I want you to try these. Let's also talk

  about tips for getting up in the morning. Because if you're going to start a morning routine, you're going to need to get up a little bit earlier than you're used to. So the first one and I a lot of these come from like I said, Hal Elrod, his book, The Miracle Morning, Mel Robbins book, The Five second rule, they're awesome. First one is put the alarm where you have to get up to turn it off. So get put your phone over on a dresser, nightstand, maybe over in the bathroom, somewhere where you can hear it, but you have to get out of your bed and walk over and turn it off. Because just getting your body up moving, getting blood moving through your body that's going to help you be more likely to not go back to sleep. Don't hit the snooze button. Mel Robbins talks about this in her book, The Five second rule, the scientific studies that have been done on what happens when we hit the snooze and fall back asleep. And it is so not good for our brains because of those sleep cycles. So essentially, the quick version of what happens is we have 90 minutes sleep cycles as adults. And if your alarm goes off, you are most likely interrupting a sleep cycle you get better at not interrupting sleep cycles if you get your bedtime and your wakeup times really consistent. But if you are larm goes off, you're most likely if you're not super consistent yet in the middle of a sleep cycle. And the worst thing that you can do for your brain and for how that day is going to go and your mood and your productivity is to interrupt your sleep cycle, wake up from it. Immediately lay back down and start another sleep cycle. It creates massive grogginess and brain fog throughout the day and you're just not going to feel good. So I really challenge you if you're a snoozer to stop doing that and I know if you are you hate what I just said. And I apologize, but I don't apologize because it's going to change your life. Alright, so just it's something to work on, don't snooze. The other tip is brush your teeth immediately upon getting up. I recommend when you get up to turn off that alarm. You go right to the sink and brush your teeth that fresh minty feeling in your mouth is going to help to wake you up and at the same time. Drink six to eight ounces of water. Have it already ready. If that works for you. Just chug it as quickly as feels comfortable. Turn on the light keeping it Dark will make it more conducive to you going back to sleep. If you sleep with a partner who's not getting up at the same time as you, that's fine. Maybe you can go in a different room and turn on the light. I also sometimes if I don't want to go into a different room, use my little cell phone flashlight that helps to look at what I'm going to do in the morning. And a quick stretch to wake up your body can help as well, just in just 30 seconds stretch, get the blood flowing, that can help to get you actually up and ready to start the morning routine. And you do it especially when you're beginning the morning routine, you do want to get out of your bed, to do it to actually do the morning routine, because you're so likely and so tempted to go back to sleep if you stay in your bed. I'm to the point now where this is such a habit and it's changed my life and I enjoy doing it that I actually do stay in my bed, I can do it in my bed. I just sit up in my comfortable warm bed and I actually look forward to it. To me it's become this.

  It's just it's a more peaceful way to wake up. It really is. It's fascinating. And before I started a morning routine, my wake up would be alarm have to get out of bed. And usually I would walk straight to the shower and get an I'm not really a person who enjoys showers. I know some people really love showers. I'm not one of those people. And my wakeup was just it was I would dread it, it was just so jarring and have to get up, get in the shower, hurry and get ready to kick things lunches, get myself ready for work, get out the door, you know, all while the chaos was going on. And this is so much more peaceful. Yes, you're getting up earlier. But you're waking up to a peaceful meditation, reading books that I've gotten to feel excited about. I picked books that I really like. And by the way, if I pick a book, because Because personal development reading is going to be part of your morning routine, I'll tell you that in just a sec. If I pick a book that is boring, all know it a couple of days into my morning routine. And I'll just give up on that book. And I'll pick one that's more exciting. So I get excited about it. And I want to wake up. Alright, let's move into the components of the morning routine. So what is the morning routine actually going to look like. And right now if you're feeling like you need to take notes, you're going to forget these things, you can take notes, I think it's great for retaining information. But if you don't have a way to take notes right now, and you're worried you're not going to remember these things. What I'm going to make available to you in the show notes for this episode is you can request a free copy of just it's just a one page document that has the components of the morning routine, and I have some different timing options on those that will be super helpful for you to try out. So you can go to my website, women's best life University comm you can click on podcast, you can go find the morning routine episode, I think it's going to be episode 12. Don't hold me to that. But it should be episode 12. If not just look for the one that says morning routine. And in those show notes. You can click a you can enter sorry, you can enter your email. And we will send you this document that has the components of the morning routine and some time suggestions, some different timing components. So here are the components. The first one is meditation, I personally recommend starting with this. Because for me, it's just such a peaceful way to start my day, some of the ladies I've worked with have actually preferred to not start with this, because they during their meditation fall back asleep. So some of the ladies who I've worked with like to do this after their body movement, because they're more awake, that's fine, you can figure out the order that works for you. I like to start with meditation. The second part of the morning routine is to read your best life master plan, the pages that you've completed. So far, those are values all the way through to boundaries. So I think it goes I'm going off memory, I don't have it in front of me. But it goes values, long term vision and goals, goals for the next year goals for the next quarter, Affirmations, Visualization and boundaries. Now I realized that sounds long, I timed myself. And then I had the first group of ladies who took the program, I had them time themselves how long it takes to read this. And we found that on average, it takes about seven to 10 minutes to go through the whole doc. And you don't have to be reading every line and pondering it, you can kind of skim it and you'll get familiar with it, where you can end up reading it pretty quickly. And you still get a massive benefit. The visualization piece is is critical and it's baked in there on the page that you created your little vision board. What I want you to do when you get to that page and the seven to 10 minute estimate includes this, I want you to just pick one of the things and just close your eyes and really take a second and do the visualization that we talked about back in the episode where we talked about affirmations and visualization, right? We talked about really bringing up a feeling of actually being in what you're visualizing. And then I love the visual visualization exercise of putting what I'm visualizing in a bubble like I actually visualize a bubble so so I'm visually visualizing me success successfully having what I want or doing what I want the thing that I picked for that day. And I visualize it in a bubble and I bring up all the good feelings in my body, like what does it feel like using my five senses, and then I send it away in the bubble. And that helps us to visualize with high intentions, but not be attached to the outcome of having it because when we cling to it, we want it so badly and we cling to it, that energy can actually drive it away. And we're going to talk about that. I don't remember what episode but we'll talk about one of my favorite philosophies, which is high intention, low attachment Hyla. So the visualization is part of that. So that's number two component of the morning routine is reading your best life master plan. Alright, that's where the magic happens. You're setting your mind up for looking at your goals, reading out loud your affirmations every day, which will absolutely make them come true over a long period of time doing it consistently over a long period time. You're saying out loud your boundaries every morning, how much more likely are you to stick to your boundaries, if you read them out loud every morning, and you are reading your goals for the next quarter and an author your long term vision the year, the quarter, every morning, when in your life? Have you written your goals in such a thoughtful way and read them every morning, I'm willing to bet it's never for me, it was never before I started this process. And I'm telling you, I am knocking them off the list. And the ladies who have taken the program before you are knocking them off the list. And it has been one of the most surprising aspects of this program, the how happy and good it makes us feel to make progress against those goals. So it's awesome. Okay, number three is personal development reading. So the other thing actually, you know what the other thing I'm going to give you, when you request your document that has the components of the morning routine and the different time timings you can do them in, I'm going to also give you my list of recommended personal development books that I love. And I, I've gotten way more than the list I'm gonna send you but these are the ones that I recommend really starting with to get you going. That will be for most of us, I think exciting, and they'll keep you excited about getting up in the morning and going. So personal development reading. Now, the key here is this is not reading a fiction novel, I want to make that really clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with reading a fiction novel. In fact, such a great way to escape, relax, it's a healthy way to get some self care time and I love it. But do it at a different time. Don't do it during your morning routine, because in the morning, we really want that personal development, more self help or learning a new skill type of a book, because that's going to cause that upward spiral in your mind and set your day up for success and get you excited. So it can be anything from traditional self help to if you're learning a new skill. So for example, if you want to get into gardening, you can read a book about how to get into gardening as part of your morning routine. Some people who are religious love to do this as scripture study time. Absolutely, that's fine if that. If that energizes you and gets your positive juices flowing and sets you for an upward spiral. Please do that. A lot of ladies who taken the program, they alternate between religious reading like scripture study one day, and then they'll do personal development the next day, and they'll alternate. So that's cool, too. Whatever works for you is great. The fourth component of the morning routine is writing or journaling. And this can be anything you want it to be this can be you take one minute and write down three things you're grateful for it can be traditional journaling, where you write down what you did the day before, you can use it to jot down your to do list for the day, you can use it to plan your day out. I have a little guided journal that I love. It's called the Five second journal by Mel Robbins. And it's just gets me thinking it asks questions that I answer and it gets me thinking about how am I feeling and why am I feeling that way? And what's my top project for the day? And what am I grateful for? It has some really cool little prompts. And that way I don't have to think too hard, I can just go answer. So I love that one. There are lots of different great options out there that you might prefer. And then the fifth component of the morning routine is body movement. And body movement can be anything that you want it to be I highly recommend and when back when we talked about sustainable exercise, actually, you know what we didn't talk about that yet. I apologize that's coming is part of this module tools for success. The Sustainable exercise, we're going to talk about this more. Finding a form of body movement that you don't hate is life changing. That sounds obvious. It's not obvious though. Most of us for our whole lives have been forcing ourselves to do exercise that we dread or hate and finding a form of body movement that you don't dread or hate. You don't have to love it. You might which is amazing if you find something you love, but just not hating it and not dreading it is a game changer for being consistent. So I want you to play around with that and see what you like the morning routine. You can do your full workout during that time or you can just do like one minute of squats or crunches or jumping jacks something to get your blood flowing in the morning. The health benefits are huge. And also even if you just do it for one minute in the morning. You're brain starts to associate you as someone who does exercise consistently. And that is incredible for getting consistent. And a lot of times what happens is people who are not used to doing any sort of body movement or exercise, start doing it for one minute every morning. And then they start to feel better, because you you will feel better just from that and your body from that blood flow that comes from that, they start to feel better and they start to add a little more on and a little more on and a little more on to that. So game changer. Don't think an all enough all or nothing mindset, you can do even one minute of body movement during that morning routine.

  Alright, so those are the five official components, there is a bonus item, the bonus item is to make your bed. Alright. Game Changer. There's a YouTube a not not not a huge, it's a YouTube video or a TED talk I can't remember of Oh, my goodness, I can't remember who it is. It's a some form of general or senior leader in the military has a talk about how making his bed changed his life and why we should all make our bed you can go Google it, I don't, I can put the link in the show notes. Because I off the top of my head. I can't remember his name. It's I loved it. I loved the talk, though. And I did not used to be a bed maker. I used to think it was dumb. I used to think why would why would I make my bed when I'm just going to sleep in it, you know, 16 hours later, it's a waste of time. It is so not a waste of time I finally started doing it. And again, small consistent actions over a long period of time, you got to do it consistently. What it does is it helps us start our brain in an upward spiral because we start the day feeling like we've already accomplished something. That's it, it really is that simple. I found other benefits too, though that I don't get as nervous. If a guest in my house comes upstairs and maybe looks in my bedroom, I actually just feel better having my bed made and look nice. And for those of you watching on the YouTube right now you can see my bed in the background. And it it was made this morning. And actually I've gotten my husband into the habit of making the bed as well. So he actually does it more days than I do to be honest with you because of our routines. But I actually now love sitting on a made bed to watch TV, it just feels I don't know, calm, it's very calming. So that's a bonus item if you want to make your bed. Okay, at this point, I'm starting to go way too long in this episode, because I know I try to keep these under 30 minutes. But as you can tell, I'm just so passionate about a morning routine. So let me wrap this up. So what I have are the timing recommendations that I mentioned earlier. So I have these five components broken out into a 15 minute plan, a 30 minute plan, a one hour plan and an hour and 20 minute plan. And I'm going to give you a free document that shows how much time I recommend you spend on each to fit into each one of those time periods. So what you can do is if you're somebody who really struggles with getting up, you're not a morning person that sounds horrible to you, you can start with the 15 Minute plan and you're just committing to waking up 15 minutes earlier, maybe 20 to give yourself five minutes to brush your teeth, drink your water get awake. But you can do that you can commit to 20 minutes. I know, I know it's not going to be easy, but you can do it if you want to start there. Or the other thing this is really cool is if you have a day where you don't have as much time in the morning, maybe you accidentally slept through your alarm or something, you can just do that 15 minute plan or the 30 Minute plan. Even if you normally do like a whole hour and 20 minute plan, the hour and 20 minute plan assumes you're going to do your full workout in the morning. So it bakes in 30 to 40 minutes of body movement time. Whereas like the 15 Minute plan, it has you doing most of the components for just one minute, it just gives you like 10 minutes to read your best life master plan documents. So that's what those look like. But go ahead, click the link in the show notes. And you can we'll send you when you input your email, we'll send you a free document free version to show you those split outs that I recommend. And we'll send you a list of my recommended personal development reading. All right. Okay, let me just wrap this up. I'm so excited about it. I promise it's gonna change your life. Please go follow me on Instagram at Katy Blommer at Kty BL O M M er, follow me there message me, let me know how that's going message me with any questions. And as always, please, if you're getting value from this, if you would be so kind as to go in and leave a positive review and share this with others. It just helps the more folks who leave reviews, it helped the algorithm within the podcast and the YouTube. If you like or subscribe, it helps show it to others. And that is my whole goal is to get this information out to as many women as possible. So please do that. And I'm so excited to hear how this is going for you and I'll talk to you in the next episode. Thanks

  Thanks so much for listening to the working mom happiness method. If you liked what you heard, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from listening for show notes or to enroll in the working mom happiness method coaching courses, visit www Women's best life university.com

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