The Foundation Of A Successful You
Picture this, you start work at 9:00. Your alarm goes off at 8:00. You snooze for 15 minutes. When that’s up, you immediately check your phone for texts then scroll on your Instagram to see what’s new (even tho you checked it 7 hours ago). It’s now 8:30, you get out of bed, brush your teeth, wash your face, change, grab a cup of yogurt and are on your way. Here you come, world!
If you’re like, “Kasi, I don’t have to picture anything because you just explained my morning” Baby girl… Come sit right here. We’re gonna have a chat.
There’s a few things I’m passionate about: baking, going for a walk, and my morning routine.
Morning routines are crucial for setting yourself up for success. You’re talking to a girl who used to wake up 30 minutes before work, ate sugar for breakfast, would rarely do my hair or makeup and always felt stressed. Then I had the audacity to ask “why am I so stressed?” ??
During my resilience coaching program they emphasized the importance of a morning routine and it was a homework assignment to create one if we didn’t have one. My first ever morning routine was waking up one hour before work, journaling, writing my three intentions for the day and a quick stretch.
The best thing about morning routines is they are customizable. There is no one size fits all, and that is amazing.
WHY YOU NEED ONE
“You are yours before anyone else’s”. There’s something so precious about spending intentional time with yourself before engaging with the world. The world demands a lot from us, and I picture a morning routine like sitting in a comfortable, peaceful home lit up by the sunshine. I sit in this home for a few moments before allowing the world to engage with me. Before opening my door and stepping into all the noise. (Noise - answering emails/texts/phone calls, checking social media, managing stress of traffic/work/money/etc)
A morning routine is required to stay grounded in who you are and remember where you are going. Comparison is everywhere like the plague. Social media is really good at celebrating wins, but rarely shows the hard work it takes to get there. We see all different personalities, lifestyles, vacation dumps, looks - how can you see people’s lifestyles and not think ‘I wish I had that’? The answer is simple: by staying grounded. How do you stay grounded? Morning routine.
Okay I’m being dramatic. There are other ways to stay grounded, I just really want you to have a solid morning routine because I know the benefits of it and I know how I feel when I skip my morning routine- it throws my whole day off. I’m less patient, I feel flustered, more anxious. A morning routine is the foundation to learning how to stay grounded within yourself to move fearlessly throughout this world.
The beauty of the world is that there is a place for all and when you’re grounded in your own personality and everything else that makes you you, a life that feels light, airy, happy, exciting and fulfilling will be right in front of your face. And then instead of wishing you had someone else’s life, you’ll admire how cool theirs is and that your life is also cool, and uniquely designed for you.
It’s really crazy what a morning routine can do for you.
HOW TO FIND ONE
Okay so basically, this is for you to figure out. Remember how I said morning routines are customizable and there is no one size fits all?
My coaching program drafted a morning routine: journal, intentions for the day, stretch.
The writing intentions for the day didn’t resonate with me, so I left that out. My routine has changed a lot since I’ve tried new things. Here is my current routine:
7:45 wake up
snooze so I can wake up slowly (yes I wake up earlier so I can lay in bed for a minute before getting up)
make bed, brush teeth, wash face
stretch and meditate (sometimes I journal here if I feel like I need it)
mile walk outside (weather permitting. If it’s bad weather, on the treadmill)
9:00 Hello world! Start word
9:30 ish breakfast
Think about what you like to do, what makes you feel safe and loved by yourself or what you think might make you feel good in the mornings. Some people love the aggressive am routine that’s a workout or cold plunge and it works for them. I prefer my morning routines to be slow and quiet. You just have to find what works for you and if you feel like that’s an overwhelming task, test drive my morning routine and see what you like/don’t like and go from there. Even if it feels silly and awkward, the more you do it the more you’ll go ‘okay I like this, I don’t like this. I want to try this before this’ etc, etc. You’ll make it your own.
I highly highly suggest, as a certified resilience coach and also as your friend, to try meditating and breakfast.
Meditating, omg I could talk about for days. The benefits, the growth, the way it brings things up, the feeling I get - truly no other act quite like meditation. I remember when I first started meditating, I felt so silly. I remember opening one eye and looking side to side then laughing and being like ‘what the hell am I doing? This is so weird’ lol.
Meditation is a compass for me. When I act in a way that doesn’t feel true to who I am, I meditate to remind myself who I am and what my values are. When I feel so sad, like I’ll never be healed from heartbreak, meditation reminds me that my feelings are so real and so normal and where I am is perfectly okay. When I feel insecure about myself and unworthy of what I want, I meditate to reassure myself of my strengths and offer compassion to the parts I find harder to love.
Meditation is so powerful and through meditation you’ll find other tools that will help your life. So please, try it out. We all could use the break meditation provides. I love the app Open, my best friend introduced me to the app last year and I will never go back. It is an all in one wellness app from meditations (bc there’s so many different types), breathwork and movement. 30 days free: (Not sponsored. Just literally a die hard fan)
Oi breakfast. Girl, I was raised in a cereal household. Honeycombs, frosted flakes, lucky charms, cinnamon toast crunch, fruity pebbles - come on now! One thing about me is I will devour any bowl of cereal. I’m a picky eater, except when it comes to cereal. My cereal palette is so diverse. There’s no hate here (I loveee raisin bran, KIX, mini wheats, yadadadada)
I recently went to the store and thought ‘you know what.. I’m gonna get me some fruity pebbles’. I woke up the next morning, had four bowls of it. Yeah, and?!
And I literally felt like shit…. :(
Gosh, it’s been forever since I’ve eaten cereal for breakfast. My stomach felt like rocks, I was so bloated and when I went to bed that night I literally couldn’t sleep because of how bad my stomach hurt lmfao. Nevertheless, next time I have cereal for breakfast I will persevere because I still love it.
Since eating whole foods first thing in the morning, I feel so much better AND I’m not bloated which is crazy because I lived in a constant state of bloating (portion control also helped w this). Here’s some breakfasts I’ve tried:
Greek yogurt, frozen fruit, drizzle of agave syrup
Eggs
Steak, eggs, avocado
Avocado toast
Beef patties (ok I didn’t say it was glamorous, I said I’m not bloated)
Chia seed pudding (don’t recommend. Not enough fuel)
Basically, eat something nutritious plz. Give your body the foods it needs to do what it needs to do!
Need I share any more wisdom? Namaste. Go create your morning routine now. Give yourself some love by providing yourself with the space to explore your thoughts and emotions (meditation) and fuel your body with foods that will love you back. Commit to yourself for at least 7 mornings and see how you feel.
Love you a milli!!
