In this episode, you’ll learn exactly what I do to get ready for the day ahead, how I manage to stay consistent and I’ll share how I maintain the right perspective even if my mornings get interrupted by little ones…
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This Episode Discusses:
How to have a morning routine in a very busy season of motherhood.
How to be flexible, yet consistent with your routine.
What to do when your morning routines get interrupted.
Why you shouldn’t copy other mom’s morning routines.
How a morning routine impacts all areas of your life.
How I’ve learned to journal even when I was initially opposed to doing so.
Don’t have time to listen? Here’s the episode all typed out
Simply Freeing? Motherhood doesn’t feel simply freeing when you’re on autopilot in a home filled with chaos, stress and a ton of pressure. In order to survive the chaos we NEED the right strategies and mindset to embrace the simple and enjoy the few short years we have with our kids. I believe that we are called to see that we CAN rise up, get out of our head, shut out the expectations of the world and what mom life is supposed to be like and change what’s not working so that motherhood is fulfilling. Join me as we discuss all things motherhood, homeschooling, minimalism, faith and health. My mission is to help you embrace simplicity and find freedom in your motherhood. I’m Jackie from Whole9Family and this is the “Simply Freeing” Podcast.
Hello! Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are going to be talking about morning routines and in particular I’m going to share my morning routine with you. I hope this will be helpful for those of you that are really wanting to start one or have tried in the past and failed. If you’re wanting something that you can stay consistent with and be sure that it actually works, I’m going to share all the details about what I’ve been doing that’s working.
Last week we talked about why morning routines matter and why you may have failed if you tried to be a morning person in the past so if you didn’t listen to episode eight please go and do that. It will be very helpful.
I am currently in a very busy season. I have four kids, I homeschool and I also work from home. My morning routines don’t always look the same but there are certain things that I do consistently and that’s what I’m going to share with you today.
My routines don’t start and end at the same time. I don’t have a set time that I aim for each day. It really depends on what’s happening the night before. Remember, I talked about being a robot mom in episode 8? That’s something that I try to avoid doing. When I go to bed super late at night and also try to wake up early in the morning…That is not going to work for the long-haul. Those are the types of things that I try to keep in mind when I decide what time I’m going to be waking up each day depending on what my life looks like.
My mornings are not always alone. I get lots of visitors. My little ones love to wake up in the middle of the night and they always want me. They need me at night. They love me so much. 😂 I don’t always have a quiet morning. Sometimes I have a visitor with me. I’ve learned to except that and be OK with that. Usually, when they wake up if it’s too early for them to really be awake, they’ll fall asleep on the couch next to me after a little while and that’s OK. I’ve just accepted that that’s going to happen. I don’t let it throw me off and get me frustrated and annoyed like I used to in the beginning.
The things that happen in the mornings is what matters more than anything else. I really want this episode to be empowering for you. I don’t like podcast episodes where the host talks about themselves the entire time but in some cases I think learning what someone else does, really helps if I’m struggling in a certain area. If you struggle with mornings like I did in the past, especially if you’re in a busy season of motherhood like me, I think this is going to help.
Like I said in the last episode, when I was in the “I wish I was a morning person” phase, I did a lot of questioning of other moms that were morning lovers. I wanted to figure out what I was doing wrong.
It turns out that the first problem was that I was trying to copy other mom’s routines who were in situations that were very different from mind.
I am a nursing mom and nursing babies typically don’t sleep as well. They wake up a lot more and they are just much more demanding, in my experience.
What if I had asked a mom who was not nursing and had children who were really good sleepers what her morning routine looked like?
What if I asked a mom who had older children what her morning routine looked like?
If I listened to their response she’s and then tried to compare it to mine, I would immediately start feeling discouraged. What does that do for anyone?
I’m trying to compare myself to someone else’s life…Someone else who has a different view on sleep training. Someone else who has a completely different marriage. Someone else who has a different work schedule than mine or maybe sends their kids to school as opposed to homeschooling. There are so many different types of family situations and it’s just not fair to put all the burden on yourself and try to be like someone else that you cannot possibly be because your life doesn’t look like their life. This is going to do nothing but make you feel guilty for your inability to be like them. I know this because I did this. I set myself up for failure by comparing myself to others all the time.
Here’s My Morning Routine:
The dog is actually the one who wakes me up in the morning. He’s got me whipped. 😂 He wakes me up anywhere between 5 and 7 AM and he will whine right by me. Only me. He won’t bother Jon. It’s really weird.
Once I’m up, I will get the coffee going. While the coffee is brewing, I drink two glasses of water. You are naturally dehydrated in the mornings. It’s become a rhythm of mine to drink two glasses of water right off the bat as soon as I wake up, while the coffee is brewing. Once I’m hydrated, then I focus on getting my caffeine fix. I cannot focus and function in the mornings without coffee. That’s just how I am and I know many of you are the same.
While I’m drinking my coffee, I start out by sitting in silence. Just sitting and being still. I had to practice this because this is not something that came easy to me, especially knowing that I have such a limited amount of time before the ticking time bomb‘s wake up. My gut instinct says to go go go. Let’s get some work done. Let’s do as much as I can. I’ve had to train myself to just sit in silence.
I used to eat breakfast in the mornings but now I don’t. I’ve been attempting intermittent fasting. This means that you eat generally within an eight hour window of time during the day in order to give your body a chance to digest your food for the remaining 16 hours. There are studies that show that intermittent fasting can help you lose weight and also reduce brain frog. I just have a little bit more clarity of mind since I’ve been doing that so that’s what works for me. It was a little hard in the beginning to not eat but my body got used to that overtime so it wasn’t as hard as it was in the beginning.
After I sit in silence and drink my coffee, then I read a devotional. I’m currently reading through a study on the book of Romans. The chapters are really short so it doesn’t last very long but it’s just a better way to start the day.
After that, I read through affirmations that I’ve written about all topics in my life. (personal business, motherhood, being a friend, being a wife) These affirmations help keep me focused and stay grateful for the things that are currently in my life. If you’re not familiar with what affirmations are, they are statements that are typically read out loud that affirm your beliefs. I speak and I pray through my affirmations. For me, they are a form of thankfulness and reflection. They help me start my day off in the right frame of mind and keep my thoughts in a good place. Renewing your mind each day is really, really important.
After the affirmations, I journal through whatever is on my mind. Let me just say that if you rolled your eyes at the word journal, I was you. I was so skeptical of people who journaled. I felt so disorganized that I could never rest and I was always under the assumption that journaling was something that you did when you were at rest. I avoided rest because rest meant that I had to think and thinking made me face hard things. I was too overwhelmed for hard things. My form of rest in the past was to shut out the world, grab some cheese, wine and crackers and watch a TV show. Maybe if I had the chance, I’d shower and dry my hair.
That was my thing.
In order to journal I’d have to face my problems and get all of my thoughts out of my head. I didn’t want to do that. I have better things to do. I had to organize the toys for the trillionth time and continue running from activity to activity. These are the same reasons why I didn’t enjoy getting my nails done. I just couldn’t sit still.
I also didn’t really know how to journal. At the time of this recording, I still haven’t researched journaling in depth. It’s something that I plan to do in the future but the little that I have been able to do has been amazing. I think we overcomplicate things. Journaling is really running down your thoughts.
Here’s what I do. I start out by writing the date. Amazing right?! Profound! Dating the journal is more important than it seems though. One of my biggest internal goals has always been to become a more consistent person because I struggled with consistency in everything. In order to be a consistent morning person, I had to be aware of how often my morning routine actually happened. You know how mom life goes. You have no idea what day it is and every day kind of just rolls into the next one. If you say you’re going to do something, before you know it, I t’s a week later and it hasn’t gotten done.
Here’s something that might surprise you…My morning routine doesn’t happen everyday. Right now, my routine happens on average about four times a week and I’m OK with that. After I write down today’s date, I look back at the last page of the journal to see when was the last day that I actually journaled. If I see that I’ve missed a few days, guess what else I notice when I look at my home and my life?
Things have started to back up.
My thoughts aren’t as positive.
I’m easily irritated.
I’m less patient.
My home isn’t as clean.
I’ve done the bare minimum as far as work tasks go.
Does this mean that I am able to get all those things done in the maybe one hour that I get alone in the mornings? Not really! It’s because when I don’t consistently set aside a period of time to decompress alone and get things done, it causes unnecessary stress throughout the day and I just feel backed up.
If it’s been a few days since I’ve woken up early, I’ll set the alarm for the following morning right then and there on my phone. That night, I’ll be more intentional to make sure to ask Jon to wake me up if he sees that my phone alarm is going off and I’m not in our bed, the following morning. This happens a lot! I’m usually with the kids by the time the sun rises. I’ll also make sure that I’m not trying to be a robot mom by going to bed late that night.
Let’s recap…
I wake up. I drink two full glasses of water while the coffee brews. I sit in silence while drinking coffee. I read through my devotional. I speak affirmations. I take out my journal. I write today’s date. I check the last day that I got up early. I make sure to get some accountability in place to be sure that I don’t miss waking up early tomorrow.
After this, I begin journaling. I basically write out my feelings, my prayers and my biggest concerns. Sometimes I write a simple to do list for the work that I’m going to do that morning and I’m basically just writing anything that’s on my mind. That’s called a brain dump. Sounds funny but that’s what it’s called. Some days I write more than others depending on what I have going on. After that, I complete homeschool scheduling for my oldest and work tasks until the kids wake up.
In an ideal world, I don’t want to be working once the kids are awake so I’m really and making sure to sign off once everyone in the house is up. Usually the youngest ones wake up first, and I try to spend time with them. Sometimes, I’ll have one work task or two that will trickle over depending on what I have going on for the day and I’ll put a show on for them just so I can finish up but it really depends on the day.
The biggest thing is that I try not to let my feelings run my actions. Your commitment to something has to be bigger than your feelings. If you don’t feel 100% energetic about doing something, like waking up in the morning, you will give up quickly. Like I said before, there are many mornings that I have visitors that wake up to cuddle before they should actually be waking up for the day but I know that this is a season. I’ll grab a blanket. I’ll put them on the couch next to me. I know that this is not going to last forever. There are many days that I get interrupted and I don’t get much done and that’s OK.
As far as an official wake up time goes, my little ones usually wake up about 8:30 and the big ones around 9am. We start school a little later in the mornings.
I know that this morning routine is going to change as the kids get older. My entire routine is going to get thrown upside down. I have to expect that and try to rework the routine depending on what we have going on.
If you want some additional motivation, I have a free guide that I created called your morning motivation. You will get a little kick in the pants and some insight into how to create a consistent morning routine for you that actually works.
This Guide will help you get motivated and be sure you are working on the right things in the morning. It will help you figure out which things to work on. It will help you be productive and consistently get your priorities accomplished. I know that this is going to help you because this is exactly what I did to think through how to set up my routine.
You can get it at simplyfreeing.com/morning Thank you so much for joining today come say hi on Instagram at @whole9family. I’d love to DM with you and we can chat about whether you are a morning person or not. 😉I’ll see you next week!