How To Create a Powerful Morning Ritual
All of us have little rituals we incorporate into our day. Crawling back into bed with a book and a cup of herbal tea before starting work. That’s a ritual. Running a hot bath, lighting a bunch of candles, and slathering on half a tub of body cream after a long soak. Also a ritual.
Put simply a ritual is a sequence of actions or activities performed in a prescribed order, at a set time of the day, and creating a powerful ritual that aids your personal development is a surefire way to see big, exciting changes in your life.
By starting each morning with a ritual, you’re setting an intention for the day ahead, and ensuring that you rule the day, instead of the other way around.
At first glance, having a ritual you repeat day in day out, may seem tedious, but once you’ve experienced the life-changing benefits, you’ll want to do it again and again, and you might even find that without your morning ritual you feel in a bit of a funk.
Here at The Head Plan, we call building your habits the #RitualRewire because having effective daily rituals can rewire your brain. It’s an essential way to set yourself up for success and ensure you have a great day, not just out of luck or chance, but because you engineered it that way.
Ready to start your own #RitualRewire? Let’s dig in.
How A Ritual Can Change Your Life
Have you ever heard the phrase ‘know your why’? As with any new goal or intention, you need to clearly know why you are doing it in order to succeed, and the good news is, the reasons for rewiring your morning ritual are plentiful.
Get this: the way you start your morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. By starting the day in a relaxed, fulfilling, and positive way, you’re more likely to carry those feelings into the afternoon, and feel more equipped to handle any challenges that come your way.
A morning ritual can also help you to laser focus on your goals and give your day a clear purpose and intention. Starting your day with a ritual can help you to prioritise and problem solve which in turn makes it easier for you to complete tasks and inch closer to your goals.
That’s not all. An effective morning ritual can be incredibly grounding. Having a set morning routine that you complete every day without fail can help you feel in control and can lessen anxiety as a result. Add to that, you’ll go through your day with a sense of achievement, clarity and control.
Simply put a morning ritual is a surefire way to feel like ‘you got this’, not just in the AM, but the whole day through. And if you still aren’t sold on the benefits of a #RitualRewire? Oprah is a fan. Rumour has it she starts her day with a set series of spiritual exercises. Enough said.
How To Get Started
Step 1
To change anything for the better, you first need to look at what’s not working, so before you excitedly grab a pen and start plotting, write out what your current morning routine looks like.
Do you wake up late and spend the first 30 minutes of your day rushing around in a blur? Do you open your eyes and anxiously run through all the tasks you have to complete that day? Perhaps you spend the first 10 minutes scrolling through Insta.
Step 2
Now it’s time for the fun part: creating a new plan. One that will set you up for the best day, every day. Close your eyes, and imagine your perfect morning. What are you doing? How do you feel? And most importantly, how do you want to continue to feel throughout the day?
Step 3
Write it out, and suss out how much time you’ll need in the morning to complete each activity. You don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn if you aren’t an early riser. A morning ritual can be as short as 10 minutes or as long as an hour. However long it takes you to feel grounded and excited for the day ahead. And that’s it, set your alarm for the morning and get ready to rise.
Doing a #RitualRewire and following up with it has never been easier with our best-selling Productivity & Wellness Journal as well as our Gratitude Journal, where you can find pages dedicated to ritual creation.
Doing a #RitualRewire and following up with it has never been easier with our best-selling Productivity & Wellness Journal as well as our Gratitude Journal, where you can find pages dedicated to ritual creation.
Stuck for ideas?
Here’s the good news. There’s no hard and fast rule for what your new morning ritual should entail. If you’ve identified that your day is often filled with negative thoughts and complaints, you might like to kickstart your morning by jotting down 3 things you’re grateful for in your journal.
Maybe you’ve identified that your day needs more structure. That’s a great excuse to open up your copy of The Head Plan Productivity & Wellness Journal and list out your goals, intentions, and tasks.
Next, you could recite some affirmations to set positive intentions for the day. If anxiety is a problem, 5 minutes of meditation might help you feel calm, while a quick review of your goals is sure to give you a lasting jolt of motivation.
Need some other ideas? Sip on hot lemon water to start your day on a healthy note. Crack the spine on an inspiring book. Do some stretching to limber up for the day ahead. Go for a lovely sunrise walk.
Whatever ritual you’ve decided upon, commit to it using the FREE #RitualRewire PDF we have for you and remember there’s no right or wrong way to do it. It’s all about finding a system that works for you, and one that you can edit and adjust over time to suit your needs.
What About Those Days You Really Need A Lie-in?
We bet even world-renowned life coach Tony Robbins sometimes hits the snooze button, and you should never feel guilty about needing to rest, but if lazy mornings mean you forget about your ritual altogether, here’s a trick. Create a mini ritual for the days all you really want to do is to catch some more zeds.
The simplest way to do that is to identify the most effective action in your current ritual. Which activity could you not live without? Which one gives you the biggest rush of high vibes? Commit to that one action on your lazy days and you’ll still see your life change.
And if you miss a day? Don’t beat yourself up. Remember this, habits are not a finish line to be crossed, but a lifestyle to be lived, and consistency trumps perfection every single time.
