5 Steps to Have Your Best Morning
The mornings set the mood for the whole day. If you have a good morning, you’ll be set up to have a good day. But if you’re running late and are angry that you’re rushed in the morning, it will bleed over into the rest of your day as well.
Set yourself up to be a morning person, and the rest of your day will fall in line with your mood in the morning.
Even though I’m a natural morning person, I still found that sometimes my days felt frazzled and disorganized. Once I got control of my mornings, my days felt smoother and I ended the day feeling productive and accomplished.
*Update (8/9/2016): My favorite morning secret is on sale for 50% off this week! Ends Midnight 8/15!*
Here are my 5 steps to help you have your best morning.
1. Wake up
Do it. No snooze, just go for it! Yes, it’s hard. But this is the best thing to do. When the alarm goes off, sit up and put your feet on the ground. It’s harder to go back to bed once you’ve gotten out from under the cocoon that you have in the blankets. After a few days, this won’t feel quite so painful anymore, I promise!
2. Have everything set out the night before
When you know that everything is there waiting for you, you don’t have to worry about fumbling around looking for everything. It helps give you some motivation to make it happen. It also helps to do all of the chores at night so that when you wake up, the house is clean and ready for the day.
Clothes
Setting clothes out the night before helps eliminate the “but it’s going to be cold when I get out of bed” dilemma. Plus, it’s dark early in the morning. So you won’t have to fumble around looking for everything.
Coffee
All the coffee, all the time. I love my coffee maker. I had to make sure that I got one that can not only brew my coffee strong, but I can also set up the night before so that I wake up to a hot cup of coffee. I set my coffee the night before, 15 minutes before my alarm goes off. That way the heavenly aroma of coffee is enough of an incentive to get me out of bed.
Anything else that you’ll need 
Do you need to have your breakfast prepped overnight? Do you need to make the kids’ lunches? Do you like fruit in the morning? You can do all of this prep the night before when you still have the energy. I hate making myself breakfast in the morning, so I started getting everything ready for the next morning so that all I have to do it crack the eggs in the skillet.
3. Sleep with the curtains open to let in the natural light.
Your body is programmed to wake up once it starts getting light outside. By leaving the blinds cracked, this helps to wake your body up even before you consciously wake up. If you don’t like the idea of leaving your curtains open, there are actually alarm clocks that light up slowly to imitate the sun rising.
4. Have a plan
When you wake up, have a plan for what your morning will look like. I’m a list-maker, so this is my favorite. A schedule can look like:
- 7:00 – Wake up
- 7:15 – Go downstairs and start breakfast
- 7:30 – Eat breakfast while reading a chapter of my book for the week
- 7:45 – Catch up on emails
- 8:00 – Make sure that everything is ready when the family gets up
Or you can have a checklist of things to get done between a period of time, which can look like:
- 7:00-7:30 – Get up, get dressed, make breakfast, read book
- 7:30- 8:00 – Catch up on emails, finish getting ready for the family to come downstairs
Do what works best for you!
5. Have an incentive to get up on time
Having an incentive is a powerful motivator. For me, my incentive is having quiet time before the kids get up. That is a powerful motivator for me! Alone time is like gold for me. So I have to make sure to get out of bed and get downstairs before the boys wake up. Maybe your incentive is quiet time to read, or eat your breakfast alone, or anything else that would give you an incentive to wake up in the morning.
Being a morning person doesn’t have to mean you’re up before the sun!
Sometimes just changing your morning routine so that you’re not playing catch-up all day is enough to change the way that you feel about mornings.
Crystal Paine has an AMAZING online course called Make Over Your Mornings that is truly going to change your life. I don’t say that lightly. It helps you change the way you think and feel in the mornings. And, the best part, it’s not about getting up earlier!
*Update (8/9/2016): BOTH of Crystal’s courses are on sale this week! You can purchase both Make Over Your Mornings and Make Over Your Evenings for just $17! They are normally $17 EACH – buy them together this week and save 50%. *
What do you do to get going in the morning?
Love this list! I am sooo guilty of the snooze.
Great ideas. I always had a problem with getting up after my kids..I hated it and it really bothered me. So a very long time ago I started getting up at 6 every morning.(earlier if I have to).I can get soooo much done now.I have time to cook,time for bible study,and almost as important…I can take a shower!!!
I love having a plan tip. I have to have a plan in the night before for my morning. I look at my day planner first thing to get me on may way. lol
I am such a nght owl! These are great tips. Pinned and tweeted. Thank you for sharing at #overthemoon.
Ugh, mornings. I’ve never been a morning person, but I definitely agree that the most important thing is just getting up. Unfortunately I’ve been forced into morning person life by kids, but still haven’t been able to get to the point of enjoying waking up ahhaha
I need to work on getting up when my alarm goes off. I have a tendency to hit the snooze button.
I know, Kali! I got into a bad habit for a while and would snooze my alarm for almost an hour. Yikes!
Great tips! I usually wake up in a good mood if I wake up before the baby as it means I get alone time, otherwise I’m like a zombie feeding her while I’m starving waiting until I can eat!
#TwinklyTueday
These are all great tips. I have had to learn to become a morning person when I had my children. I am still not good at it, but getting better. Thanks for linking up at Family Joy Blog Link Up Party.
I struggle with staying up late but knowing I should get up in the morning. 🙂 But in my heart of hearts I know I am a morning person because when I rise later everything is chaotic. Life goes so much more smoothly with time in the morning!
I’ve been getting up earlier to workout since my fiance started working in the evenings and I lost the time I had in the evenings to do it. Not only do I get my workout in now, but I feel much more prepared to tackle the day. Pinning, stumbling and tweeting this. <3
Great list. I am switching from 2nd shift to 1st shift and wondering what I will do! Getting up early is not too hard for me but getting up early AND being ready is where I fall behind. I’ll have to start laying out my outfits. One big motivator for me is having a pre-made breakfast like overnight oats, oatmeal back or an easy shake to mix up. Such timesavers!
These are great steps! Coffee is a MUST!
I found your post today on Think Tank.
Hope you have a blessed day~
Melanie
I need to try step 3. Maybe that will help me.
Thanks for sharing this, Caroline. I used to wake up when my daughter would wake up, and I found myself less productive when I do. So about a year and a half ago, I started getting into the habit of waking up before her. It has made such a difference! Now my mornings are my most productive and I start my day off a bit more relaxed instead of rushed and sluggish. So glad I found you on Totally Terrific Tuesday this week. Will be sharing this on my social media outlets next week. Have a good one!
Yes! Do not hit snooze. That is my secret to getting up. Just do it. The tone for me whole day is set by those early morning hours I spend alone. Thank you for sharing Caroline at Faith Filled Parenting.
Yes! Having quiet time before the kids get up is a very powerful motivator, isn’t it? I already get up at 6:15. I wish I could get up earlier, but I take my “me” time at night after the kids go to bed. I need that time at the end of the day. 🙂 I really do have to learn how to not hit that darn snooze button! Stopping by from Saturday shuffle. Hope you have a great weekend! If you have any healthy posts, I host a new link up called “The Balanced & Healthy Link Up Party” It’s going on now. 🙂
I agree with 4 of the 5 tips. Please don’t sleep with curtains open. Your body can not get the restorative rest it needs when there is light in your room. It is much better to have an alarm that lights up as it gets time to get up.
Hey Caroline!
Thanks so much for sharing this informative post. I’m with you on the coffee in the morning, thing. But no amount of coffee can make me a morning person. :o) I find that your first point really resonated with me. Getting out of bed is the toughest part. So like you said, Just Do It! And I like your idea about leaving the blinds open. I find it really does help!
I found you through 100 Happy Days.
Blessings,
Tiffiney
WelcomeHomeMinistry.co
Great suggestions! I still don’t consider myself a morning person, but I’m improving! 😉
I’m stopping by from Sincerely, Paula’s No Rules Blog Hop! I’m happy to have found your blog. 🙂
I’m so terrible at getting up in the mornings – the only thing that works for me is consistent early nights. If I go to bed late the whole thing falls apart! x #FridayFrivolity
These are great tips! I’m actually much more of a morning person than an evening person, but there are some days that I just can’t get out of bed. These tips would help a ton! Thanks so much for sharing at the Best of the Blogosphere Link-Up! Hope to see you again tomorrow 🙂
I’m the same way, Ashley! There are some mornings when I swear I slept through my alarm going off for a half hour. Thankfully, those are not the norm!
I’m a morning person so I love the quiet of the house in those early morning hours but I admit to hitting the snooze button a lot due to being up with little ones all through the night. I’ve recently started using my FitBit as a gentle alarm and it’s a bonus because it doesn’t wake up everyone else either!
This is such good advice! The incentive thing is really smart… going to try to be more deliberate about that!
Thanks for sharing at #FridayFrivolity –pinning and tweeting!