How to Create a Morning Routine You Love in 5 Steps

Mornings: Some people love them, others wish they could just throw their alarm clock out of the window as soon as it starts beeping.

Mornings have become quite a widely-talked about subject on the internet these days. Those stories of people who get up at 5am and feel amazing are very intriguing to me. But it’s something I never truly understood, until I started to experiment with my own morning routine.

For as long as I can remember, my morning routine was focused on trying to get as much extra sleep as I could (Hello, snooze button!), before stressing to get out of the door. There has to be another way, right?

If your mornings look a lot like mine did, you may have asked yourself this question before. To answer that for you: Yes, there is another way! What you may not realize is that you can control the way you start your day. You can choose what you do in the morning and how that makes you feel. You can choose to reap the benefits of waking up before the rest of the world or to lay in bed just a little bit longer and feel stressed. But once you start taking control over your mornings, you can create your morning routine in such a way that it makes YOU happy.

Today, I’m sharing the exact steps that I took to change my morning routine. With this article, I hope to inspire you to take control and create a morning routine you love.

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1. Evaluate Your Current Morning Routine

To create a morning routine you love, you first need to have a good look at your current morning routine. Think about what your ideal morning routine would look like.

How do you want to feel when you wake up in the morning? Positive, relaxed and energized instead of tired, moody and stressed? What activities do you want to make time for in the morning to help you feel that way? It could be something like doing yoga, journaling or reading a book. Or perhaps you have a personal goal or business you want to work on that sparks a light in you. Anything that helps you feel that way in the morning, is right for you.

Finally, ask yourself if you have any other morning habits you want to change to make your mornings better? Perhaps you want to have breakfast every day instead of skipping it. Or you want to stop wasting time on scrolling through social media when waking up. Think about those things you’re currently doing that are not serving you in the morning in any way and that you want to let go off and replace with something else.

2. Adjust Your Sleep Schedule

Now that you’ve figured out what your ideal morning routine looks like, you can gradually adjust your sleep schedule. Gradually is the key word here. Because if you’re used to getting up at 7:30am and suddenly decide to wake up at 5am, it’s going to be harder and more difficult to keep up with than doing it in small steps.

Your body has to get used to your new rhythm (kind of like with a jet lag), so give it some time. It’s best to start slowly by waking up 15 minutes earlier the first week and work your way up from there. If you wake up earlier, it’s essential to pay attention to your bed time as well and ensure that you’re getting enough sleep. Adjusting to a new routine can feel uncomfortable and be challenging, especially in the beginning. You may not always feel like waking up early. But soon, having that extra time for yourself in the morning will be the greatest reward.

3. Start Doing More Things You Love In The Morning

With the time that you’re creating for yourself by adjusting your sleep schedule, you can start to implement more activities that you love to do in the morning one by one. You can use the time to develop yourself personally, learn new things, or pursue a long-held dream or goal. Or perhaps there’s something you’ve been planning to work on in the evenings, but it never happens because you’re too exhausted and don’t have the energy for it after a long day at work.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. When I started changing my morning routine, I had no idea what activities I’d love to do in the morning. I tried a couple different things and stuck with those I truly enjoyed. If you find your why (what it is that you love to wake up for in the morning), your entire perspective of mornings will change. If you need some inspiration to help you get started, you could try some of the morning habits on this list.

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4. Start Small & Keep It Simple

Similar to adjusting your sleep schedule, you can’t just completely change your routine from one day to another. The reason being that it’s simply too much to do all at once. You’re probably not going to keep up with it and that can make you feel frustrated. It’s important to start small and build it up from there. Try to keep your routine simple and don’t overdo it. I don’t want you to beat yourself up for not being able to make it work because you’ve taken to much on your plate.

A good way to start is by replacing a current habit with a new one. If you’re a snoozer, try to wake up when your first alarm goes off and use the time you create with that to do something you love, such as reading a book. If you’ve gotten used to that habit, try implementing something else you’d like to do in the morning. Say you want to eat breakfast in the morning, something you usually don’t have time for. Get up 15 minutes earlier to create time for that. That’s how little by little you can create a morning routine you love.

5. Trial & Error

Creating a morning routine may sound easy, but it can take some trial and error to figure out what works best for you. If you don’t have your morning routine put together within a week, don’t feel discouraged or frustrated. It can take a couple of weeks, or even months to figure out what works well for you and to get the hang of it.

At first, you may experience some discomfort and resistance from getting up earlier and doing things differently than you’re used to. There may be times that you will ask yourself: Why on earth am I doing this? But if you stick with it then, through repetition, the resistance and discomfort will go away. Your routine will grow on you and it will become a habit.

What your morning routine may look like

Here’s an example of what your morning routine may look like after implementing these steps:

6:00-6:15 Wake up slowly & drink water
6:15-6:30 Do yoga
6:30-7:00 Eat breakfast and listen to a podcast, read a book or journal
7:00-7:30 Get ready
7:30 Out the door

Before you leave

I hope that with the help of this article you’ll be able to create a morning routine you love. Remember to find what feels right for you, because what works for someone else, does not necessarily work for you too.

As always, I’d love for you to share how you feel about your mornings and what you would like to change about them. What have you tried in the past to make your morning routine better? What has worked and what hasn’t?