The First Ten Minutes

Do you wake up in the morning and mindlessly slip into your daily routine, feeling like a lead bag?

I know I used to. Until I picked up a life-changing book called the 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari', by Robin Sharma. More on this later, but, it was in this book that I first came across the idea of the 'first ten minutes' of the morning having a massive impact on your mindset for the entire day. Sounds dramatic right?

But it got me thinking, what do I do in the morning?

It went something like this:

6:30 am - Alarm goes off. I swear and hit 'Snooze'.
7:00 am - Alarm goes off again. I drag my body up feeling like a bag.
7:15 am - I turn on the TV to keep me company. This morning's trashy gossip news blares in the background.
7:30 am - I gulp down a thick murky coffee
to 8:00 - I continue feeling like a bag. I brush my teeth mechanically, shower, shovel food down my throat, criticise myself for 10 minutes in front of the mirror, grab my bag and run out the door.
8:15 am - I've missed my train. I'm swearing and sweaty after running to the station. I feel ROT-TEN.

And so begins another day.

Pretty crappy start right? Clearly I was doing something wrong.

So I tried this - I told myself I would wake up in the morning and meditate. This is coming from someone who had about 10 different voices in her head talking at the same time, at any one time.

But what the heck, I tried. And it was AWESOME.

1 and a half years on, I have a rad routine I go through every morning, which keeps me somewhat sane. Like I said in my first post, there are days when I wake up feeling off, and that's when the following routine comes in super-handy:

6:30 am - Wake up, saying a massive thanks to God/The Universe/whatever, for the super-awesome day ahead. Force myself to smile.
6:45 am - Meditate
7:20 am - Go upstairs, look at myself in the mirror and say 'I love you!'
7:30 am - drink half a cup of watered down coffee, followed by a cup of water and a vitamin tablet

NO TV until 8 am.

The next thing I want to do, is to add music to the 'morning mix' as well, and maybe a spot of exercise. That way, I'd wake up mentally and physically revitalised.

Long story short, it is so true. Your first 10 minutes really do shape how you feel about the rest of your day. Because my first 10 minutes are so beautiful and relaxed, I feel pretty great at least until midday, when hunger hits. But that's another story.

So that's my tip for today -

Change the way you wake up, and you will change the way you EXPERIENCE every day.

They say a habit forms over 21 days of consistency. So stick to it - because if I can, you mo-def can.

Til next time,

Peace and Love!

A.

How did this tip work for you? Leave your comments below, I would LOVE to hear from you. (If you're the first to comment, you have to click on 'No Comments')