Morning and Evening Routines for Optimal Health
Your health is important. There is no doubt about that. But time and time again you have tried eating healthier. You have tried this diet and that diet. You have lost 20lbs only to put 30lbs back on. You woke up 10 years later and 25lbs more. Why?
Over the last 7 ½ years of helping people live healthier around the world it has always come done to one thing. It was never about what they were putting in their mouth. It was never about their situation whether they wanted to blame their spouse for always wanting to eat out or their job that didn’t allow them time to prepare properly for the day. It was not that they had to haul their four kids around to different sporting events on Saturday that forced them to eat fast food all day long.
It was always about their mindset…
In the next few pages I have put together the OPTIMAL morning routine that I have been using over the years and have taught to others. The results from a simple change in action has caused major changes to physical health, mental health, and spiritual health for many around the world.
These are things you can start applying to your life tomorrow and see a difference immediately. Some of you will be able to make the full change right away. Some of you may take one or two aspects of it and apply it over the next month until it becomes who you are. There is no wrong or right way to go about it. But you must GO ABOUT IT. You can not let it sit and put no action behind. Every change in your life with start with a different action than what you have been currently doing.
May these little tools be something that you take on for a lifetime.
Does This Sound Familiar
Let me know if this sounds like you. The morning alarms sounds. The hand reaches over and slaps the snooze button. Eventually after the third snooze, you get up. You sluggishly use the bathroom, brush your teeth, get in the shower, get dressed, and make your way to the kitchen.
Once in the kitchen you begin to make the coffee and maybe a bagel as you are getting the kids up and getting them ready. As you pull your phone out of your pocket to check the time you realize that you are behind schedule and need to start rushing. This often requires the voice being raised towards the innocent souls in your control (because we all know that makes them move faster) and the stress is already rising for you to be out the door and at work on time.
Finally, in the car and rushing too school you realize you forgot something at home and start playing out scenarios in your head if it is worth going back for or not.
You get the kids to school. They are out the door. And now you have that 45 minute drive ahead of you being stuck in traffic, dealing with rude drives, and coffee splashing around the cup holder as you just hope it does not hit you.
You walk into the office, satisfied you made it on time, but stilling feeling overwhelmed from the morning hustle and bustle that it will take you a few hours to finally get in the groove of work. But in those few hours it took you relax, you got behind on work projects and no will not be able to finish what you need to by the end of the day.
Now, you are leaving to rush home to get the kids, with your work not finished and more to do, back into traffic, picking up cranky kids and you still have not thought about dinner. Now the stress from this morning has carried itself home to your evening routine.
Day after day. Week after week. This continues and you find yourself constantly stressed, tired and always behind.
Well now is the time to change! And it all starts with the morning routine that you are about to learn!
Wake Up
Wake up when your alarm goes off. Stop making excuses why you have time to sleep another 15 minutes. There was a purpose why you set your alarm for 6am the night before and not 6:15am. Honor that purpose and complete your first goal of the day. When you hit the alarm and don’t get up when you had planned, you are already behind. Don’t start the day that way.
I was once told to get as many victories as you can before you leave out the door. And getting up on time is your first victory for the day. Besides that extra 15 minutes won’t do crap for you, so get up.
You want to take getting up to the next level. Get up with a purpose. Know that you have goals for the day outside of just going through the motions. You were created with a purpose so get up with a purpose.
Tomorrow set your alarm and get up when it goes off.
Workout and Get Blood Flowing
I actually enjoy working out first thing in the morning. I don’t have to worry about unexpected phone calls, kids, or any other distractions. Too many people wait until they get home from work. For some that works. For many they just find a way to use excuses not to get that workout in.
So, build it into your morning routine. I promise you as someone who used to believe with all my heart that I needed a full eight hours of sleep every night to be productive that is false. I typically work off 5 ½ hours of sleep and fill amazing all day. Why? Because I get my workout in and get that blood flowing. The workouts and with great nutrition is what is going to fuel your body…not the extra 15 minutes you are trying to sleep in. And not the extra rest you will get by skipping your workout.
For some it is impossible to workout early in the morning because of certain constraints, but it doesn’t mean you can not get a few jumping jacks, pushups, sit-ups and every one’s favorite, burpees in before your shower. You will find that if you can get your breathing up and your heart pumping first thing in the morning that you will feel more alive for the day.
Get your workout in!
Fuel Your Body
More important than the workout is what you are putting in your mouth in the first hour after getting up. After every workout I’m have an amazing Herbalife smoothie and Green Tea and taking my tablets. The smoothies work well for me since my days are busy. They are quick and easy and packed with great nutrition to get my body going. I’m married, have three young kids and running a full time business. I don’t have time to do a lot of meal prep, and to honest, don’t really want to. I have found the smoothies give me what my body needs and energy for days!
Within this first hour of working out and having your breakfast, make sure you are drinking tons of water. Your body dehydrates over the course of the night and dehyrdration is a key source to being tired. In fact, just get in a good habit of drinking ½ your weight in ounces of water every day.
Before I was taking care of my nutrition, I would stop on the way to work at one of my favorite coffee shops to grab coffee (that never seemed to give me enough energy) and a blueberry muffin (blueberries are healthy right). Having a poor nutrition on top of the stress because of not getting out of bed when I planned to, was not a good combination. I put on a lot of extra pounds which is never a good thing with extra stress.
Today I’m proud to say I’m 27lbs lighter and in just as good shape as when I was playing football for Texas Tech. It feels good to be old and yet feel so young!
Quiet Time/Personal Development
Working harder on yourself than anything else should be a top priority in your life. I mentioned earlier that if you want things to change for the future then you must change a few things now. And one of those things that must change is you. “For things to change, you must change” said by Jim Rohn is a quote that made me go into action on myself. I was at a point in my life where I was blaming everyone and blaming all situations around me. When I heard that quote, I realized I had to be the one that changed.
Personally, the first thing I read and relfect on is the Bible. There is no greater book that has stood the test of time, teaches leadership, and teaches heart change than this book. There is not a scenario in life that the bible does not teach on or how to handle.
After some time in prayer and reading the Word, I typically have another book I’m reading or I mayb be going through a personal development course. In the past I have done courses with Jim Rohn, John Maxwell, and others. There are many great ones out there. Don’t get stuck thinking about which one to do, just choose one and I bet it gives you exactly what you need for that moment.
Try finding something that will challenge you on a topic you want to get better at. “Discipline Equals Freedom” by Jocko Willink is a book that actually helped me build a lot of consistency with my morning routines. I was lacking discipline at the time and decided to read that book. And guess what? My discipline became more consistent.
There are many principles that I have pulled from other books to help me build the lifestyle I have today. But understand, if you skip this personal development piece every day, you will not build the tools you need to be who you want to be tomorrow.
Affirmation
The person you talk with the most on a daily basis is you. You are either allowing lies and junk to dictate how you feel and think of yourself or you can put positive thoughts and truths into your head and become who you are called to be.
Honestly, I thought affirmations were for those weird people. But the minute I started applying these to my life every morning, my days became stronger. Affirmations don’t have to take a lot of time. Write down a few truths about yourself and a few things who you want to grow into and say them out loud daily.
Here are a few of mine:
I AM A CHILD OF GOD
I AM LOVING MY WIFE FOR WHO GOD CREATED HER TO BE
I AM AN ENGAGED DAD
I AM INTELLIGENT AND HARD WORKING
I AM A VISIONEER
I AM A LEADER
I AM PROUD OF WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED IN MY LIFE
As you can see they are nothing special. Some are simple reminders of who I want to be daily. And others are things I want to grow into. By reminding myself daily, I have began thinking and acting the way of who I want to become.
Plan & Review Your Day
How many times do you get up, go through your chaotic morning, get to work, and don’t even know what you need to get done. You don’t know who is picking up the kids. You don’t know what is for dinner. You don’t know if your son has practice or not. John Wooden said, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”
Take five minutes every morning to look at your calendar. See what appointments you have today. Put a game plan in place for dinner before you even leave for work. Have a plan for the day and execute. Stop allowing chaos to rule you. Spend 5–10 minutes every morning beating the chaos before it shows up.
At first, this routine may take a little longer. But with some practice and consistency you will be able to do this quickly and efficiently.
Motivation Video
This looks different every morning is never longer than 5 minutes. Find one that you really like or change it up every morning. Listen to the words. Listen to the thoughts. This video is the last little shot of energy juice in your system before you attack the day. You never know what thought It may leave you with or what new direction it may take you.
As you do your personal development everyday you will start hearing and seeing things differently. You can listen to the same video daily, but as you grow you hear it from a different perspective.
Yes, there will be mornings where you don’t want to pay attention. But put it on anyways in the background. Let it sink into your mind. Let’ it become part of your morning routine.
Summarize
Your morning routine will dictate your day. If you don’t have a morning routine except the current one filled with chaos, I bet your days, weeks, months, and years have felt like chaos. As you start working and grinding (because it isn’t easy) to get your morning routines in place and consistently, I promise the rest of your life will follow suite.
If you apply these principles and you find your daily results are getting better, please find me on IG at twelveninejosh and let me know. I always love hearing from people who lives are changing for the better.
EVENINGS
By this time, once the kids are sleeping, and the wife is in bed, I’m usually wiped out. And yet there are a few things I get done every night to prepare me for the next day. I will not go in depth with these as I talk about them in other material, but here they are.
1. I get my workout clothes together and ready to go. That way when the alarms goes off there is less thinking early in the morning. I can simple get dressed and hit the weights.
2. I get my pre-workout drink together and put it in the refrigeration. Again, making it one less thing I have to worry about. I simple get up, get dressed, grab my drink and get to my workout.
3. I have my workout planned and I know what I’m going to do. The goal to all of this is eliminate as much thinking in the morning so your morning routine becomes just action.
4. Review my day and write out 10 Gratitude’s. I like finishing my day knowing what I’m getting into tomorrow and the next few days and being thankful for the blessings that today has brought. I used to go to bed mad and frustrated. It took me some time to really dig deep and find the positive things to be thankful for. Today, it is harder for me t find the negative things as I’m more aware of the great things happening and the small victories even in the middle of the busy hard life. Life will life. We must get better.
Use your last 10 minutes of the night to get ready for another great day. Get the things done that can get done the night before. This habit will open up your mornings even more to continue getting those little victories in before you get out the door.