This is it. FINALLY, your breakthrough year.
You’re SO ready to take your success up a few notches this year. Start fresh. A new beginning!
First on the agenda: start a kickass morning routine to jump into each day feeling fired up and focused!
Yet when your a.m. alarm goes off, it takes all the energy you can muster just to hit snooze. You repeat until there’s no choice but to drag yourself out of bed.
Groggy, you leave the cozy comfort of the covers and head straight for the coffee pot.
Now more alert, you realize you need to HURRY to get to work.
No time for breakfast… that morning journaling practice you keep putting off…. or the workout program you swore you’d try to start today.
As you race against the clock, you feel grumpier by the minute. By lunchtime, you’re hangry & still so flustered from the morning chaos, you can barely think straight.
You feel more stressed as the day goes on. Before you know it, dinnertime has approached, and still, there is so much to get done. You stuff your face with any quick snack-attack-friendly foods you can find {read: crackers, chocolate chips, the last few crumbles of cereal at the bottom of the box}, just to feel human until dinner is ready, while simultaneously stressing over all of today’s unchecked to-do’s.
At the end of it all, you plop down on the couch… exhausted. There’s still so much to be done, though. You convince yourself you’ll be ahead for tomorrow if you can just power through and do this One. More. Thing.
Tasks that should only take a few minutes seem to drag on forever.
Easily distracted, you end up scrolling social media… or vegging on Netflix …absentmindedly decompressing with a glass or two of wine…. and finally call it a night.
You’ll try again tomorrow.
Again.
Tomorrow.
The cycle will continue.
{how to make this end & stop spinning your wheels?!}
Sound familiar?
It was the story of my life too, for over a decade, in virtually every ‘overachieving woman’ scenario imaginable: the M-F 10-hour workday plus 1-hour-each-way daily commute…. a high-pressure career in the medical field as a remote contractor while simultaneously nursing fussy babies/ attending to toddler tantrums/ juggling my whole world as a round-the-clock work-at-home mom…. and in the early years of my transition from that contracted corporate position to author/ holistic wellbeing mentor/ homeschooling mom/ entrepreneur.
It was frustrating because, not only was I exhausted each day…. I also felt like a failure. I mentally beat myself up over my inability to become a perky, powered-up morning person. In case you haven’t guessed, this cycle did not serve me well. It prevented me from making the more impactful shifts I really dreamed of infusing into my life.
I was stuck in an endless cycle of being too time-poor and fatigued to make it happen.
Over the years, I had gradually integrated healthier habits (like workouts and flexible nutrition that actually feel good to me). Despite this progress, three years ago I found myself reeling from a near-debilitating period of burnout. I had finally hit rock-bottom when I realized that fitness and nutrition alone were not completely fulfilling my healthy lifestyle needs. I would lose my business – my life’s mission – if I did not figure out what was the missing element from my self-care routines.
A researcher by nature, I utilized this skill, combined with my education in the medical field, to uncover the missing link to morning routine (and holistic wellness) success… the one simple piece that had eluded me for so many years.
The key to establishing a solid morning routine is to start the night before.
I know, it seems counterintuitive. We want to start the day fresh and new. However, when we start off exhausted, we’re already behind the curve.
With this discovery, I worked on my own bedtime habits. Through hours of study and a massive dose of trial and error, I pieced together a block of nighttime activities that soothes me naturally into restorative sleep. I wake up refreshed and energized, ready to hit the ground running the moment my morning alarm goes off.
I now mentor other ambitious women through the streamlined system I developed to create their own personalized bedtime, morning, and wellness routines. Working together, we end their cycle of stress-exhaustion-lack of motivation as a launching point to start or reboot healthier lifestyle habits.
After completing this process, my clients report an average 35% increase in energy daily and over 40% increase in mood!
They have put a stop to the frenzy that used to start their days off feeling like crap. They’ve infused feel-good activities and relaxation practices into their everyday lifestyle. They feel more patient and connected with their children and partners. They feel less impacted by others’ negative moods and energy. They are more confident, peaceful, and productive.
They have finally conquered their blocks to staying consistent with a new-and-improved morning routine. This was all made possible by the willingness to let go of old failed patterns and try something radically different.
As our combined experiences show, the best strategy for creating a new beginning is to start at the END.