3 Ways to Win the Morning and Save the Day Not checking email first thing, fueling your body properly and working on yourself are three a.m. processes that will jump start the rest of your day.
By Matt Mayberry Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I am a firm believer in how we start our day determines how the rest of our day goes. If you go to bed late, hit the snooze button multiple times, roll out of bed later than you were supposed to, get stuck in traffic, and then end up being late to work, that's a good indication to how the rest of your day will go.
Related: 5 Ways to Begin a Productive Day Before You Get Out of Bed
Most people are the furthest thing from being intentional about how their mornings go and what they do first thing when they wake up. Jim Rohn famously said, "Either you run the day or the day runs you."
Unfortunately, there aren't enough people who run their days. Instead, they let their work, other people and technology rule their every move in the morning. They neglect themselves and forget about the self-love that is needed in the morning to set yourself up for a majorly successful day.
I am fortunate that in being a former athlete, I am ridiculously obsessed with structure and having a plan for my mornings before I do anything else.
Here are three simple ways to dominate your morning.
1. Don't check email for the first hour upon waking.
For some of you, this may seem like an impossible task to follow through with, but I promise that it will completely shock you at how it makes you feel over time. What do you do when you check your email? You respond to what everyone else wants from you or is asking you to do.
Instead of being proactive and setting the tone to how your day is going to go, you are spending precious and valuable time being reactive to everyone else's wants and needs. I put this practice into my own life two years ago, and I was blown away by the results.
It's amazing what can happen when you leave your phone alone in the morning and don't check your email while you go to work on yourself doing things such as meditating, working out or reading before doing anything else.
Related: 5 Habits You Should Steal From Other Entrepreneurs' Morning Routines
2. Give your body the fuel that it needs.
The second thing that most people do in the morning after waking once they have checked their email is consume a ton of sugar and drugs to get their day started. Scarfing down sugar and caffeine first thing in the morning believe it or not is not the most beneficial way to start your day. You may feel energized and ready to go, but that same feeling is the main culprit as to why so many crash and feel sluggish after lunch and later in the day.
Give your body the fuel that it needs. I start each morning with a glass of warm lemon water to jumpstart the detoxification process, a green juice from Suja Juice and hydrate myself with water before I do anything else.
I'm not telling you to not drink coffee or indulge in your favorite drink, but I am encouraging you to give it a try in giving your body the fuel and energy it needs to sustain peak-performance all day long.
3. Work on yourself before you start your workday.
Working on yourself could refer to exercising, journaling some sort of spiritual practice or reading, among many other things. Find a routine that works best for you and execute on that routine every morning. The only requirement is that it involves working on yourself somehow, someway before you begin your workday. To me, this is the ultimate game changer that can be included to anyone's morning routine.
When you set aside the time to work on yourself before you start your workday, you not only will begin to grow as a human being, but you will increase happiness levels, drastically decrease stress, anxiety and other negative emotions that rob so many of us from keeping a peaceful and healthy mind.
Find something that fits well with your schedule and goals, and then formulate a plan to follow through with that every morning. Over time, the results will be astonishing. Working on ourselves is something that so many of us forget to do in this fast paced and strenuous world that we live in. Self-care, self-love and self-growth are three wonderful gifts that you can give yourself each morning -- and you do just that when you work on yourself.
Related: How Waking Up an Hour Earlier Every Morning Can Transform Everything
Instead of talking about specific morning routines which has been written about so much, I wanted to share three practices that have added great value to my mornings and life since I have incorporated them. They are extremely simple things to do, but pack an incredible punch of excellence when you religiously follow through on them. Remember, when you win the morning, you win the day.
