5 Ways Your Morning Routine Is Setting You Up for Failure

In the grand scheme of things, your morning routine might not seem that important. The process of waking up, cleaning up, getting dressed, eating, and traveling to work, when compared with the hours you spend actually working, is pretty insignificant.
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In the grand scheme of things, your morning routine might not seem that important. The process of waking up, cleaning up, getting dressed, eating, and traveling to work, when compared with the hours you spend actually working, is pretty insignificant.

Or is it?

You may not realize it, but your morning routine has the potential to make or break your day. The hours of the early morning should be managed and spent carefully, like any other hours of the day. But beyond that, the physical, mental, and emotional foundations you build for yourself early in the morning have the power to last the entire day--for better or for worse. In fact, your morning routine might be setting you up for failure without you even realizing it.
How could this be? Here are five ways:

1. Skipping breakfast.

I really shouldn't have to tell you to eat breakfast--it's the so-often-claimed most important meal of the day. Yet still, 31 million Americans skip breakfast routinely in an effort to shave off a few minutes from their morning rituals. The time savings you get from this action don't make up for the loss you'll experience in other areas. Missing out on breakfast will diminish your ability to think clearly, leave you hungrier throughout the day, and may even contribute to the long-term acquisition of diabetes or heart disease.

2. Checking emails from your phone right when you wake up.

Just because your smartphone is charged and next to your bed doesn't mean it's a good idea to start using it the moment you wake up. It can be tempting to dive into work immediately. After all, the sooner you get started, the sooner you'll get finished, right? Actually, overloading your brain immediately is a bad way to start the morning. Your mind isn't exactly in peak condition when you first wake up, leaving you unable to complete tasks efficiently. Not only that, you'll start stressing yourself out immediately instead of taking the time to decompress and prepare yourself for the day.

3. Rushing.

Rushing through your routine is a bad idea. You'll cut corners, leaving your tasks incomplete or haphazardly thrown together, possibly putting yourself in a compromising situation. But more importantly, you'll stress yourself out early in the day. Usually, rushing is the result of not giving yourself enough time in the morning--either setting an alarm too late or sleeping in. Work on waking up earlier and earlier, gradually if necessary, to give yourself more flexibility.

4. Reacting and improvising.

Studies show that having a plan, proactively, can help you increase your productivity many times over. When you outline your goals, your directives, and how you intend to achieve those directives, you'll have a clear path of execution. Without it, you'll respond reactively to any situations you come across, improvising without a clear direction. Every night before you go to bed, make a brief plan of what you intend to do the next morning (and the entire day, if you can). Even if it's only a mental list, you'll wake up with greater direction, and you'll perform better throughout the morning.

5. Getting frustrated.

When you let your morning routine get you in a bad mood, that bad mood tends to stick with you the rest of the day. Though you can't always help your frustrations, you can avoid certain situations and find better coping mechanisms to deal with your frustration. For example, if you know one route to work is typically congested with traffic, you can take an alternate route or leave early to avoid it. Alternatively, you can take along an audiobook and use the traffic as an opportunity to do something you like. The key is to find some way to stop it from stressing you out.

These five missteps are common among the working population, but they have a tremendously negative impact on how you perform for the rest of the day. You owe it to yourself to take your morning routine seriously; invest in it and try to improve it over time. When you start out your day with a more productive, balanced, healthy, and calm introduction, the rest of your day instantly becomes better.

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