Every day I look forward to getting up. I look forward to starting the day. Sleep is good, but I LOVE action. I love getting going and making things happen.
Here is the thing, each of those decisions are a choice. I am making a choice to get up and get my day going, I want to be ahead of the game and ahead of everyone else. Not in a “I am going to do more than you” attitude, but a thought process of no one is going to out-work, out-hustle, or out-learn me.
As a business owner, I am making hundreds of decisions daily; from the largest to the smallest things I am always making a decision. From how to answer a disgruntled customers email, to the pricing of catering meal, to hiring employs, to signing leases on property that I will be locked into for years to come.
All of us are human, and it has been proven that we get to a point mentally where we have made so many decisions that the important ones we have to make suffer because we have made so many other decisions throughout our day.
Michael Lewis Wrote in a Vanity Fair Article about Barack Obama:
You also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” [Obama] said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions.
Steve Jobs was the same way. He wore the same thing every day. Black turtleneck, Blue jeans and New Balance shoes. He did not want to waste his decision making ability.
Albert Einstein. It has been reported that the famous physicist bought several versions of the same grey suit because he didn’t want to waste brainpower on choosing an outfit each morning.
Powerful morning routines are not a fad. They have been embraced in both Eastern and Western cultures for time immemorial. There are records of Jesus himself practicing a regular Morning Prayer routine before traveling to new towns to teach and heal.
Mark Zuckerburg the Facebook CEO told NBC’s TODAY host Matt Lauer that he owns “maybe about 20” identical grey T-shirts. Zuckerberg said, “I mean, I wear the same thing every day, right? I mean, it’s literally, if you could see my closet at home.” Why does he do this? He owns a billion dollar company and he wears the same thing every day. I have to believe part of it is the brand of Mark Zuckerburg, but the majority of it is that fact that he does not want to waste the decisions for things that really don’t matter.
The famous American dancer and choreographer, Twyla Tharp, extolls in her book The Creative Habit, “I begin each day of my life with a ritual.” Hers begins at 5:30 a.m., where she wakes and puts on workout clothes, walks outside her Manhattan home, hails a taxi, and goes to the Pumping Iron gym to work out for two hours. “The ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go, I have completed the ritual.” She adds that this ability to harness the power of morning ritual is transferable to all other areas of her creative, professional, and personal life.
How do you create a morning routine?
You have to find what works for you. You can look at my morning routine and follow it, but it may not be exactly what you are looking for. It has taken me years to develop and get it to where I want it to be. If you look at some of the most successful in the business, there are a hand full of consistent things that constantly pop up.
Here is a list of the things that many of these highly successful people do.
- Wake up early (5 AM is a common time)
- Coffee or Tea
- Read
- Meditate
- Exercise
- Plan the day
These are all common, but not a necessity for everyone.
I think it is vital to take care of what you can the night before and do as you have planned when you get up.
Here are some examples of what you can do the night before.
- Set the coffee pot
- Lay out your clothes for the day
- Have your workspace ready
Why is all this important? Because there is no one single thing that makes any one human great. It is the grand sum of the small things done over and over to perfection that makes the great ones stand apart. The great ones don’t do things until they can do them right, they do them until you can’t do them wrong.
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