Having the right morning routine is literally the difference between making $2.5 billion overnight and starving in a cardboard box by the side of the road occasionally giving $2 blowies to truck-drivers.
Your morning routine is everything. Therefore, if you don’t have a morning routine, you are nothing.
My morning routine is super easy to follow and will help you gain 40 lbs of muscle in just 3 days, while simultaneously hitting 2.5% body fat. My morning routine will also make you fluent in Japanese overnight and catch wild buffalo with your bare hands.
The morning routine requires you to get up at 2:30 am (top tip: go to bed earlier than a naughty child) and meditate/pray to the moon for 3.5 hours.
You then spend the next 4 hours of your morning routine taking cold showers. Cold showers increase testosterone, which you’ll need plenty of in order to get through the next 90 minutes of the morning routine: upside-down sit-ups suspended by your ankles. If you can’t hit 1,000, you’ve failed the morning routine and, thus, life.
The penultimate part of the morning routine requires you to bullet journal with real bullets for 45 minutes. Express gratitude for at least 100 people and then visualise your perfect life for 30 minutes while sitting in the reverse lotus position.
Finally, you gorge on bacon, butter, and scrambled eggs.
Do we really need another “Morning Routine” article?
In case my thick British sarcasm wasn’t obnoxiously obvious enough…
No, I don’t do all that crap in the morning.
But you’re with me on this, right?
Do a Google search for “morning routines” and you will be bombarded with unrealistic morning routine after unrealistic morning routine.
It seems like everyone in the freaking world has this golden perfect morning routine that propelled them to the heights of success.
Gone are the days where morning routines used to consist only of:
- Roll out of bed
- Take a dump
- Shovel food
Now morning routines have to involve hardcore meditation, cold showers, gratitude, journalling, calisthenics, and a thousand other things that will result in you being tardy to the office until you’re swiftly laid off.
I’ve tried a bunch of different morning routines but it’s only in the last year or so that I settled into a morning routine that felt easy to adhere to and set me up for a perfect day.
This past year I’ve also noticed more creativity and happiness and I think my morning routine plays a small yet significant part in that.
The reason I love my morning routine is because it is so simple.
This morning routine only requires you to do 3 things and avoid 1 thing. That’s it.
This morning routine also takes a time commitment of anywhere between 25-45 minutes so you do need to get up early. But most people waste at least that much time in the morning just lolling their head in front of the news and Weetabix. So I’m sure you can do it if you make a conscious effort.
This morning routine will nurture your mind and your body and set you up for a creative day and a great mood.
Let’s get into the morning routine.
My morning routine for greater happiness and creativity
My morning routine has three components. You can do them in any order.
The morning routine also has an explicit rule about what to avoid so let’s get into that first because it’s probably the most important part.
Morning Routine Component #1: Keep your phone in airplane mode
Most people (at least the younger generation) are eyeballing their smartphones before they’ve even rolled out of bed and taken a piss.
That used to be me.
I used to be so exhausted first thing in the morning that I would immediately default to scrolling through my email inbox, scrolling down news and hate-article feeds, and going through different shallow messages on social media.
I justified it by saying I would just do it until I felt more awake.
The problem with that?
This activity does not make you feel more awake.
It also does not set you up for a great day.
Going straight into your emails and texts first thing in the morning instead does these things:
- Puts you in a reactive mode – you are passively responding to the world instead of imposing your will
- Hardwires your brain to seek out shallow, unrewarding activities (low-calorie food for the brain)
- Makes you anxious, sad, anger, depressed, or whatever else the world wants you to be.
Wouldn’t it be better to begin the day with a sense of calm, a sense of taking charge, and a sense of peace?
I’ve noticed that you can have peaceful feelings on tap and set yourself up for a wonderful day by simply delaying your emails and texts for at least 1 hour after waking.
If you’re used to attending to your phone immediately after waking, this will make you feel anxious the first few days of doing it.
What if I miss something important?
Let me ask you:
When was the last time you legitimately missed something important because you didn’t look at your phone first thing in the morning?
I’ll tell you my answer:
Never.
Give yourself the gift of disconnecting.
You will be so much better equipped to deal with the world if you can have a nice slice of peace first thing in the morning.
That’s the foundational hook of my morning routine. Now let’s get to the icing on the cake.
Morning Routine Component #2: Read high-calorie literature
I recently bought the complete little black Penguin collection and I try to read one volume every day first thing in the morning.
As you might know, Penguin Publishing celebrated their 80th anniversary a while back and released 80 pocket-sized paperback classics for 80p a pop.
These books fit right in your pocket. You can finish one on your commute. They’re short (40-50 pages or so) but give you a glimpse into a literary world you may not have otherwise discovered.
This collection is the ultimate curated cerebral reading experience.
If you read one a day, each day you can dip into the best works from the entire expanse of world literature, from established classics to little known gems, powerful poetry to thought-provoking non-fiction.
One day you can read a selection of bawdy tales from The Decameron, the next you are appreciating the thick poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the next day your reading an Old Icelandic saga, and so on.
I read one of these slim volumes first thing in the morning and it really sets me up for a wonderful day.
I’m already calm because I’m not looking at my phone.
Instead of scrolling through nonsense emails, I’m learning new exciting things about the world.
I personally read my popular fiction before bed because it soothes me to sleep. But first thing in the morning I want to get the gears of my brain whirring! And there is nothing better for that than some high-impact classical literature.
The reason I prefer short works (such as these Penguin Classics) is because you also get a sense of accomplishment first thing in the morning.
It might feel too daunting picking up The Decameron first thing in the morning. You’ll only be able to get through a few pages. But having a sense of finishing a volume will propel you forward throughout the day. It will also help you think it different creative ways and have more interesting things to talk about with the people around you.
Morning Routine Component #3: Breathe like a madman
Wim Hof’s new course, Wim Hof Method Fundamentals, is even better than the original course.
You get a different theme each week (from beating stress to unlocking creativity and having more adventure in you life) and you get a yoga workout and a one-on-one guided breathing meditation workout.
In the morning, I’ll do a few minutes of some stretching or I’ll do some foam rolling (I recommend this foam roller).
Then I’ll pop in the guided breathing meditation. In my opinion, this is one of the things that really differentiates the new Wim Hof Course from the one I originally wrote about a year ago.
The breathing techniques, combined with the method of squeezing oxygen to the head, make you feel high.
I’m talking high as in high on drugs.
I always felt amazing doing the Wim Hof Method but after doing the Wim Hof Method Fundamentals I actually starting laughing and crying at the same time.
That’s how damn good it makes you feel.
You’ve already conditioned your mind for intellectual and creative pursuits from the reading portion of the morning routine. Now this breathing fortifies you mind, body, and soul against stress.
It conditions you to breathe correctly throughout the day and it energises you better than a shot of triple espresso.
Now we’ve just got one more piece to the morning routine.
Morning Routine Component #4: Give yourself some juice
Vegetable juicing is amazing at any time of day. But first thing in the morning is real magic.
I find the entire process of cutting and washing vegetables, feeding them into my juicer, and then sipping the end-result to be extremely meditative and soothing.
Sometimes I pop in a podcast, lecture, or audiobook while I’m prepping vegetables and juicing.
While I’m juicing, I put a pot of coffee on.
When my juice is ready, I have a cup of strong black coffee and I also make myself a protein shake with the following great ingredients:
- Vegan protein powder with veggies (doesn’t hurt the stomach like whey)
- Creatine Monohydrate (helps concentration and helps you lift more)
- BCAAS (helps reduce soreness from working out)
The combination of healthy vegetable juice, black coffee, and protein powder with BCAAs and creatine blunts my appetite for hours and makes me super energetic and in a great mood.
I feel like superman first thing in the morning after this breakfast.
If you want a few specific juicing recipes for creativity, I wrote them down here.
That’s my morning routine!
It’s simple, doesn’t take too much time, and really sets you up for an amazing day.
Since adopting this morning routine, I’ve felt more creative, energetic, and happier than ever.
I implore you to try this morning routine yourself.
Or maybe you already do something similar in your own morning routine? Let me know.