How to Have a Morning Routine with No Routine

Everyone loves to hear or read about a solid morning routine. And for good reason. It appears that any prominent business person, athlete, entrepreneur, life coach, etc. openly talks about their morning routine and how it is an integral part of their personal and business success.

. I, for one, am obsessed with hearing about other people’s morning routines and get so inspired by the things they do. From waking up at 5am and meditating, to sipping lemon water and crushing a workout, there is definitely a common thread in most of these successful people’s start to their day.

For many, the thought of waking up at 5 am to journal, meditate or move their body sounds like torture. To me, it sounds like heaven haha! But regardless of if you want to wake up at sunrise and practice mindfulness or sleep until 9am and then chug a giant coffee, the idea behind the morning routine is that you are doing something that feels good for you and that you are doing it consistently.

The problem for many, myself included, is that it feels impossible to establish a morning routine when your day has no routine.

I know so many of you reading this right now are new moms and the start to your day (and the middle of your nights) are completely unpredictable. One night your baby might sleep 7-7, the next you’re up 8 times a night and then up for the day at 5 am…ouch! And if we’re talking a realistic morning routine, it probably looks like brushing your teeth hours after you’ve been awake and re-heating your coffee 6 times.

So what do we do?

The first thing I want you to do is choose 3 things that, in a perfect world, if you had an hour to yourself each morning, you would do. Write them down on a piece of paper or in a notebook the night before.

For me they are: meditate, journal, workout

The next thing you are going to do is find a way to do these 3 things before noon. Technically that’s the morning right? When you do these things, cross them off with a pen. *(Best feeling ever).

And that’s it.

Probably sounds too good to be true, but let’s unpack this a little bit.

If I want to meditate, journal and workout, this could easily take up my morning, precious nap time, or if I had other kids, leave me no time to tend to them. But it doesn’t have to take up so much time.

Your meditation could literally be on the toilet while you pee, even if your toddler is pulling at your underwear. Close your eyes, take 3 deep breaths and there you go.

Don’t have time to pull out your journal and sit for 10 minutes? Open your notepad in your phone and write 3 things you are grateful for.

No time to workout? Move. your, body. Go for a stroller walk, play tag with your kids, do some squats while shushing the baby. Just move.

And then go cross those 3 things off your list.

I get that these are not an ideal way to accomplish these goals and they don’t bring much “self care” to the table, but it is still better than nothing. It’s been hard for me as someone who was so attached to their routines before having a baby to not be able to start my morning the way I want to. And while I do have random days I can get up before Lily and crush a workout and drink green juice, they are really few and far between. I just sneak it in when I can and that’s the idea.

So while we might not be consistent, our routines may be less than ideal or hardly routines at all, we can still pull little elements from these people’s 20-step morning routine we so desire ourselves and do the best we can.