Quick Tips To Build Your Ideal Morning Routine

Ready to power up your waking hours? I've got you covered. This episode is an exploration of morning routines and their transformative effect on productivity and creativity. I'll share my personal journey and how this simple yet powerful habit has drastically reduced stress levels. I'll guide you on how to carve out a routine that fits your lifestyle, emphasizing the need to pre-decide morning activities. Plus, discover the profound benefits of keystone habits and why hitting the pause button on email, Instagram, and the news first thing in the morning can be a game-changer.

Stepping into the spiritual realm, I discuss the invaluable practice of decision-making in advance and adherence to it. I'll touch upon how it can skyrocket your success rate. Drawing inspiration from the tale of King David, I underline the perils of depending too heavily on personal strength and neglecting faith. Trust me, this can be a real eye-opener!

Transitioning into the calming world of meditation and mindfulness, I get to grips with how a mere five minutes of 'me' time can reset your amygdala and enhance resilience. Picture the tranquility of a serene place, focus on your breath, and let the magic happen. Learn how the four-by-four breathing technique and harnessing your five senses can ramp up your mindfulness experience. Get ready to start your day from a place of presence, gratitude, self-awareness by blending gratitude with meditation. Give this episode a listen, and I promise you'll welcome your mornings like never before! Don't forget to spread the word and leave us a review! Let's dive in!

Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships


Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 200,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.


Website: www.kimberlybeamholmes.com


Thanks for listening!


Connect on Instagram: @kimberlybeamholmes


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Transcript

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 0:30

Any of you who have been listeners to this podcast for any length of time likely know that I am a fanatic when it comes to my morning routine.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 0:39

It's one of those things that, whether I'm traveling or home, sick or not, I am still doing some kind of morning routine, because it is the foundation that sets my mood for the rest of my day. In this episode, I want to give you some quick things that you can use to become part of a morning routine, whether you have one or not. Hopefully you do, but if you don't, I believe implementing a morning routine is one of the quickest ways to increase your output during a day, to increase creativity, to help you feel grounded, to decrease your stress levels, to give you more energy and, honestly, to just make you feel amazing every single day. Not that I always feel amazing every hour of every single day, but the days that I don't have my morning routine it feels like I'm living in a different universe. I am totally off kilter. I'm not on my A game, I can't think straight. It's made a huge difference for me. In this episode, I'm going to give you some of the things that work for me, some of the things that have worked for people I know, so that you can create the one that works the best for you. Let's dive in to today's episode.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 2:01

Morning routines really set a strong foundation for the rest of your day to build upon. I believe that the things that we do say and think in the first hour, two hours of our day really can set us up for success or for frustration. As we enter into the demands that every single day inevitably brings to us. Even on a Saturday, on a Sunday, even on a weekend, there's always going to be things that come up, that can be stressful, that can get us off kilter. But when we start our day with the things that are going to be more life-giving, put us in a positive mindset and give us clarity on the things that we really should focus on, then, of course, we're going to end up having a better day than if we start our day checking our email, looking at Instagram and watching the news. All of that's just going to get us completely befuddled and hazy and foggy on anything we need to do because we've let other people determine what we should think about the first thing in the morning.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 3:04

My first question for you, as you consider your own morning routine is simply that what are you doing right now in the morning, and is it setting you up for a day of success? If the answer to that is I don't know what I'm doing in the morning, or it's hit or miss every single day, there's not a consistent routine to it, then this is absolutely the episode for you. If you're the person who says I do have a morning routine, I am good to go, I feel great in the mornings and I have clarity, I have an intentionality to my day, I'm more positive, I have a sense of gratitude and gratefulness, then hey, share this episode and what you are doing with a friend, because there's other people out there in the world who need to hear this. So if your answer to the question is no, I don't have a morning routine, then my next question to you is going to be what do you wish you could accomplish in your first hour of the day that could set you up for the most success? To really get more done, be more present, be more mindful and be more optimistic and positive throughout the rest of your day. This is what we call Keystone habits and, you see, the idea here is when you set a morning routine as opposed to just waking up every morning and deciding what you may feel like that day. A routine or a habit is simply a decision you made in advance. It's a decision that's already been made so that when you wake up you don't have to decide what you're going to do. You know what you're going to do.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 4:45

And in psychology there is some debate on this topic of willpower. Some researchers say that willpower and motivation is limited on a daily basis, that people only have a certain amount of decisions that they can make in a day before their mind kind of gives up and begins to just say whatever, like, whatever you want, just do. And then there's another set of researchers that say no, it's unlimited. We have an unlimited amount of willpower and tenacity. I could see both sides. I could probably argue both sides if you wanted me to, but overall what I have found has worked and of course has worked in millions of people's lives over probably thousands of years has been the idea that when you go ahead and determine what you're going to do and you don't have to make the decision in the moment, it's just, it's a given, it's like a rule, a rule of life. It's a decision you've already made, then of course, you're way more likely to do it. You're going to do it, you have to do it. It's what you do. My morning routine is what I do. There's no bargaining with me about it. There's nothing like that. In fact, I will schedule flights around my morning routine. I won't take a flight if it's before 8 am, if at all possible, because I want and have to get my morning routine in. It's a decision I've already made. That's the idea here.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 6:09

The next question to go into that is, if that is true that these routines and these habits that you have on a daily basis are the decisions that you're going to make in advance and that you're going to adhere to, then we need to make sure that they matter, because you don't have an unlimited amount of time in your day. We all only have 24 hours and eight of those should be sleep. We only have 16 hours in the day. In the morning then we may only have 30 minutes an hour. Maybe some of us can have two hours if we have a little more flexibility or our kids are a little bit older, or something like that. But determine the amount of time that you truly have depending on when you wake up, and not trying to wake up super early to get this done either, but make sure you get your eight hours of sleep. Do the math backwards. In fact, I like to do it where I try to wake up around 6 am, so I need to go to bed by about 9.30 pm because I'm optimizing my bedtime for my morning routine. I'm very fanatical about this. So when you wake up, determine the amount of time that you logically really have 30 minutes, great. Two hours, fantastic. But depending on the amount of time you have, then you're going to use that as the filter for what you want to get done during that time. That's going to give you your biggest bang for your buck.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 7:34

So for me, because I tend to be more anxious, I tend to have more racing thoughts like waking up and having a list of things that hit my head that I have to do. Then I'm going to be a person who wants to move my body first thing in the morning. So my morning routine consists of getting out and going for a walk. I'm getting out, I'm getting that sunlight, I'm getting just some cool air if it's in the winter, or maybe some warm air if it's in the summer on my body and I'm moving my body and it's allowing me to process the demands of my day and the things that I just need to process before people start talking to me while I don't have any demands on me yet. So I get out, I go for that walk. It's gonna be about 20 to 30 minutes. My routine. Now I will say that over time and in different seasons of my life, the amount of time I spend on each area of my morning routine may fluctuate, but I still do each and every part of my morning routine. So right now I'm getting up and I'm going out on my walk.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 8:40

Secondly, I'm coming back in. I'm making my coffee because I just love the ritual of making coffee. I love how it tastes, I love how it's hot, I love so much about my coffee and it's a sacred time for me. So I'm coming back in, I'm making my coffee. While I'm making my coffee, I'm doing some stretches, I'm doing kind of just some mobility work while I'm standing there for about the five minutes it takes to grind my beans, to get my chemics ready, to pour in my coffee, and then after that I'm sitting on the couch and I'm reading my Bible and I'm journaling. So, whether I'm following a Bible reading plan or if I'm in a Bible study during that season, like I just, and depending on how much time I have, I have, I'm starting my morning in the word, and here's why because, for me, that is what sets my mind in the right place for whatever demands the day is about to bring on me.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 9:38

This morning, for example, I was reading in first chronicles and I'm reading this and for those of you who don't know the Bible or don't know scripture, please don't tune out, because I love the takeaway that I had from this this morning. But it's just a book in the Old Testament and there was a king in Israel's history. His name was King David and he's one of the greatest kings that Israel has ever had. And he was a great king because he was a man after God's own heart, and David was actually part of coming in and taking over the promised land and protecting the Israelites from the enemies that were coming against the Israelites, and so he was a man of war, he was a warrior.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 10:20

But one of the things that happened, and one of the things I read this morning, was that there came a time in David's reign where he started to perhaps rely too much on his own strength and not enough on trusting that God was going to deliver him, no matter what happened. And so David actually took part of a census, or he commanded a census to happen in the nation of Israel, for his commanders to go out and count how many warriors he had in his army, how many fighting men that there were in all of Israel. And we see in scripture that God really didn't like this, and it doesn't really tell us why. So the reason why is some speculation, the speculation being that my interpretation of it is that God didn't like it because God had delivered Israel from the hand of their enemies time and time and time again. And then this is the first time we really see that David kind of starts taking matters into his own hands and wanting to trust in his strength as opposed to God's strength.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 11:20

And so God, because he didn't like this and because there's consequences to our actions, god came to David and he was like there's three options of how I'm going to discipline what you just did. The first option is that you it was something for three years, and I can't remember what it was it was something for three. You'll have a famine for three years. That's it. So you can either put your land, you and your people subject to a famine for three years, or you can be subject to the hand of your enemies for three months, or you can be subject to me, the Lord, and my hand put upon you for three days. And I love what David said, because he basically said I do not want to fall by the hands of my enemies, I would much rather your hand, god, come against me, because I know that you have mercy.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 12:19

And that really struck me this morning because I thought, man, even in God's punishment, david trusted him because he loved him. He knew that God loved him and he loved God. And even when he knew he had to be disciplined, he still trusted God. Enough with that. And I thought, like I wanna have that much. I wanna have that kind of love and that kind of trust, knowing that even if God is trying to revert my path or discipline me if I do something stupid or if I start to let ego or pride take a hold of my life, like I wanna trust God to, in all of his sovereignness and glory, to lovingly pull me back, even when there might be pain in it as well.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 13:13

Why do I say all of this? Because I'm talking about morning routines, because I'm talking about that and how that becomes a source when I'm filling my mind with scripture and with what God says about me and seeing what God says about me through the stories that we see from history of how he has dealt kindly with others, even when he still had to bring justice, because he is God and he is holy, that there's peace and there's trust and there's life giving nature to each of those circumstances. And that's what I begin to think about throughout my day, as opposed to waking up and seeing the news and all the things I should be scared about. When I see the news later in the day, after I've come to it from a stance of like God is good and he is holy and he will protect us, even though life is hard and things hurt, I'm able to process all of that in a different light because I've started my day and filling my brain with the things that even like neurochemically. When we fill our brains with those positive things, then our thoughts begin to go on different trajectories. It's called neuroplasticity and so, yes, like I wanna get the biggest bang for my buck in life by starting my day with that.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 14:34

So I'm doing my walk, getting some sun, I'm getting my coffee, I'm doing my Bible study, I'm journaling so the things like I journaled about that this morning, the takeaway that I had from my Bible study, and then, depending on which morning it is, I might have some more time. There's some days I have more time than others than I'm pulling out my some like business books that I'm reading or my marriage helper journal that I'm just a vision casting for the future of marriage helper, and I'm taking that time in the morning before other people wake up or before I have to really get ready and actively, mentally, be involved in the day, to just spend time like praying and asking God. What is it that I need to focus on? What are my core, my core focuses for today? The big things that I need to do in order to move forward towards the goals that I need to get done, and that's a huge part. Those are the things that have to happen for me every single morning. I'm doing some kind of workout, I am drinking my coffee, reading my Bible, journaling and I'm doing some sort of forward-looking process, and that's what works for me. I'm then able, I feel like I've gotten all of the things in my head out at that point and on paper so that I know what I need to do for the day before other people have asked anything of me.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 15:57

Now there will be other seasons of my life, and there have been over the summer. For example, this past summer was a season where I really had to get some work done on my dissertation for my PhD, and so in my morning routine I also added in spending 30 minutes working on my dissertation and just chipping away at that devotedly every single day, intentionally, and just chipping away over time, as opposed to blocking out full days, which I've also done. So there's definitely times where, again, I shift the amount of time I focus on each part, or I might add a couple of things in, but the things that I've already mentioned are the key things I do every single day. What are those things for you that, if you're able to do this in the morning, then it's a keystone habit, it's a keystone routine that sets you up for success and to make better decisions throughout the rest of your day. And maybe you're struggling with what to add here, but what I would encourage you to start with is by not only asking what is it that could set me up for success, but ask yourself the flip side of that question, which is what is it that, if I do, is actually going to set me up for confusion, for frustration, for failure, for just like not being able to see the forest from the trees because I'm so deep in scrolling on Instagram or looking at all the terrible things on the news or whatever that might be. And every person is going to be different. There's some people who are going to want to wake up and have, you know, a lot of conversation. They might want to go on a walk and like, call their friend or call their mom or do completely different things, but for them, that's what sets them up for success. That relationship, connection early in the morning is what puts them in the right mindset and gets them good to go for the rest of the day. It's going to be different to some extent for every single person. The other couple of things that I would add in here that I wish I was better at and I would encourage you to try and incorporate into your morning routine, as I intermittently put them into mind, are the two practices of mindfulness, or meditation and gratitude.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 18:12

I love a good. I love a good meditation. I love a good five minutes, taking some of those deep breaths, thinking about something specific or positive, whether that is in my mind, like there's a place that I go. It's this beautiful countryside. There's a lot of greenery, but it kind of jets up right against a bay where there's an ocean. It's cloudy outside, there's a little bit of a chill in the air, but it's this beautiful scene in my head, like this is the place I go when I start focusing on my breaths, when I feel like I need to just slow down and to be present. I picture myself here and I picture myself with Jesus, and sometimes we're just hugging. Sometimes I can't even look him in the eyes because he's too like. I don't know what he looks like, but I know he's there. Sometimes we're like laying in the grass and sometimes I'm just at his feet and it is my favorite way to meditate.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 19:34

That's one way to possibly do it, as well as just being mindful, going on a walk but not having a phone, counting your steps as you do it, listening to the birds, even just taking three minutes and using your five senses, or maybe, yeah, three minutes, user five senses, 30 seconds each for each sense. I mean something like that. But you start with what am I smelling right now? What do I hear? What do I see around me? What can I touch on my skin? Maybe it's the feel of the cotton on my arm from my sweatshirt, or the Berber carpet underneath my feet, or the slight breeze from the fan that's in the room that I can feel hitting me. What is it that I can touch? What is it that I taste? What is it that I see? Smell, taste, hear, feel.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 20:30

Using all of those senses and becoming grounded and aware of your present situation, using the opportunity to do the four by four, breathing, which we know if we do those, breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four. That those are, that practice is a really great way to help reset the amygdala and better deal with stress. It increases and builds resilience in our lives. When we're able to do that, that's an option. Another option is to combine gratitude with your meditation and mindfulness practice. So, as you're just breathing deep, thinking about the things in life that you're grateful for, and starting your day coming from a place of groundedness, from presence, from awareness, from self-awareness, from gratitude and thankfulness, from thinking about positive things and filling your mind with positive things. How much better would your day be if that was how you started it, and that is the purpose, the benefit and the hope of having a great morning routine.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 21:45

If you benefited from this episode, I would love for you to leave a review, tell me about your morning routine, or tell me about a new part of your morning routine that you want to implement based on what you heard in today's episode. Leave a review wherever you hear or listen to podcasts. It helps us to reach even more people and share this with a friend. If you have a friend who's really struggling with just waking up and getting ready for the day, then now is the time to implement a morning routine. It is never, ever, ever, too late.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 22:18

And speaking of reviews, I love reading the reviews that you all leave on the podcast. Here was a review that was recently left where Rob H says what makes this podcast on attraction stand out is the trademark pies model of attraction the physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. That encompasses all aspects of attraction. With these aspects of attraction in mind, this podcast will cover a large body of evidence on how to improve one's self-esteem. And I read that podcast, or that review, this morning the titled best podcast on attraction and I thought, oh, I love that review.

Kimberly Beam Holmes: 22:56

And perhaps what I love even more is that it's my husband who left it, and I didn't even know it. He left this several months ago, and what a sweetheart Actually. A couple of weeks ago he was going on a walk and I asked him what he was going to be listening to, like, actually, I'm going to be listening to your podcast on, and I can't even remember which one it was and I was like you're listening to my podcast, how, that's probably one of my favorite listeners ever. I would love if you would leave a review as well. Share this with a friend and until next week, stay strong.