Hi this is Cyril from Works Smarter, Live Better. In this video I want to discuss a very important time of the day which is the morning. And what I mean by the morning is, what you do when you first wake up?
I think a very important time of the day is what we do when we wake up. The first thing we do when we wake up, the first hour of our day. It decides if we’re going to start the day with lots of energy, we think that we enjoy or start being stressed straight away. So, really the first part of the day’s really important. And most people don’t really think about it, they’re just on automatic mode in the morning without really scripting or thinking about the first thing they do in the morning.
Interesting, all the studies on performance shows the importance of routine. They show that performance is not about doing one thing great one day. It’s about the kind of routines that you build in your day, in your week. Aristotle, the Great Greek Philosopher, had this quote, saying “You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”. “You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”. What are the habits that you build in your day, in your week to be on the top of your performance.
So with my clients, when we work, one of the things we do is we talk about operating rhythm, what are the kinds of operating rhythm during the work week, at work? We talk about the ideal week. Your week will never be ideal but it’s really good to have a template about what your week should look like. And then at the end of the journey, in all of these years a lot of my clients have asked me and say “Cyril, we spoke about the business side, but it has to link with the personal side”. So now at the end of the journey when we coach a team, we talk about building your personal habits and one of the habits we discuss is the morning routine.
My advice: script your morning routine so precisely that someone else could do it. Really think about your first hour of the day and script it. What do you want to do? For example, for me, I wake up every morning at 5:45. That’s my wake up time. And there are three things which are really critical in the morning. The first thing for me is I always start with a meditation, 20 minutes. The second thing is I learn, I love reading. I mean there’s so much interesting things to read, so I make sure that every day I learn something new. And I spend about 45 minutes reading. And then I have breakfast with my kids. That’s my morning routine. That’s what gave me so much energy every day. I love starting like this. One of my friends, he lives near the sea, every morning he goes barefoot and walk on the sand. That’s his great way of starting the morning.
Script your morning, really think about what’s the best way you can do. I was talking to the executive of a large company. We started talking about that and she was really challenged by this, but she said “I’ll give it a try”. And one of my biggest challenges with her was ‘don’t jump in your e-mail first thing in the morning. You are putting your brain in stress, the first thing you do when you wake up you jump straight on emails. No, I highly suggest you don’t’. And she was really challenged by that but she said “I’ll give it a try”. She sent me an e-mail a few days after, and the e-mail was “Oh my god”. The impact it had on her morning, on herself, on her husband, on the kids who could see the difference. It was huge, it was a beautiful e-mail to be honest with you.
Take the time to really think about your morning routine and script it.
This is this week’s Works Smarter, Live Better tip. Highly suggest you think about your morning routine, you script it the way you want. I hope you enjoy it until next time. You take care. Thanks! Bye-bye.
