Morning Rituals

#
95
Chris Do
Published
March 25, 2019

What's your morning ritual? I think the deeper part of the question is that we need to form habits that are helpful to us.

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What's your morning ritual?Everyone talks about it,but is it really necessary?Let's talk about this, Maya,bring yourself back online.What do you mean?Everybody talksabout I didn't knowanybody was talking abouttheir morning ritual,and now you're sayingeverybody's talking about it.Well, that's true.I guess when I'm in theentrepreneur forums or readingbooks or just listeningto certain podcasts,everybody's talking aboutthis fancy morning ritualwhere they do the gratefulnessin the book and then they runand then they do thebulletproof coffeeand all these weird things.And it's just neverworked for me.I tried it.I was like, this is so stupid.I don't know why I do this.Yeah, because I really it did.It didn't do anythingspecific for me.I tried the meditation,didn't work.I like hot yoga now.Hot yoga works because that'sgood, but nothing else specificthat they talk about.Just curious if you thinkI have enough context now.I think when people talkabout a morning ritual,they're also asking forthat same life hack.If I only did thesefour things, if I onlydrank bulletproofcoffee, if I onlydid Pilates in themorning, my lifewould be totally different.I think everybodyis looking for that.But when I thinkabout it, I thinkthe deeper partof the question isthis is that we need to formhabits that are helpful to us.And we look at ourlives today and think.I don't know if my habitsare going to create a winner.So we're lookingfor different habitsto model ourselves after.So I'm going to tellyou a couple of thingsand we've talked aboutthis in different groupsor in workshops or something.So bear with me.In the morning, if you havea hard time getting up.That's a signal.The signal is.You don't have a goal that'scompelling you to get outof bed.That's really what that is.So when you set your alarmand you have to, like,hit the snoozebutton 35 times, it'sbecause you don'thave a better reasonto get out of bed thanto stay in the comfortpart, the comfortablepart of your bed.So this is why goal setting isso, so important, because itneeds to inspire you, it needsto stir up your emotions,it needs to do all these things.So when you wakeup like I got, Igot stuff to dobecause I'm excited.If you think about thethings that excite you.You don't have to betold to wake up for that.Do you rememberwhen you were a kidand your mom anddad told you, we'regoing to go toDisneyland in three daysor whatever it's like?Oh, I remember during Christmas.It's like that day couldnot come early enough,and I was all tingly.And weird on the inside,like, Oh my god, I justcan't believe it's almost here.I wonder what sand,it's going to bring me.This is the best day of my life.And it happens.Could you imagine wakingup every single dayfeeling that way, like everymorning was Christmas Eveand you're four years old again?What would that be like?And so then I ask youthis rhetorical question,how many of you guyswho live like that?And I would imagine thenvery few people would say me,like every single day islike Christmas Eve for meand fill in your holiday,I don't really care.Fill in.Whatever your mostfavorite thing to do todayis hair salon day or nailsalon day or whatever it is.I'm going to wow, I'm soexcited to get that back.I just can't wait.So now what we need to do isdesign our life or on a goal.That really compelsus to take action.And a lot of us,unfortunately, don'thave those kind of goalsthat are exciting, yeah,they're kind of good.They're OK, I'm goingto make $100,000 a dayor whatever it is, but those arenot the reasons why you get up.So you have to godeeper and deeper,until you find the thingthat fills you with joy.Now, luckily for me, Ifound things all my lifeto filled me withjoy, so I'm very.I just have thatmomentum built upbecause I'm justexcited to be alive.Now I'm going tosound like a hypocritebecause I've told youall to wake up and startto do the gratitudemindset thing whereyou start thanking people.You write like a love letter orthank you letter in your mindto people so you can fillyourself up with positivity.I don't do that.I don't go back.At the end of theday and I don'tdo what it is I tell youto do and to reflect,what did I do well,what can I do better?I don't do that because I'mkind of doing that all the timein real time, every single day.So hearing about my morningritual may or may not help you,but I think at theend of the day,you need to find a goal thatyou think is worth solvingand that's going to get youout of bed every single dayand light your butt on fire.And it could bea stack of goals.And do that.And then to break that intosmaller, bit-sized pieces,so that momentum willcarry you through.So nobody lovesgoing to the gym,just take really small steps.Until you can become excitedabout it so that you're in it.The hardest part isjust getting started.Momentum will carry youthe rest of the way.All right, so I'm a if Itell you my morning ritual,Meyer will help you.Ire sorry, if I tell you mymorning ritual will help you.Given what you'venow said, no, OK.It's interestingyou said somethingearlier that if you justare fired up towards a goal,then the morning ritual kindof takes care of itself.What you said?OK so I don't want tocheat the question.I don't want to cheat it.So I'm going to tell youa little bit about whatit is that's goingon in my mind that Ithink can be broadly applicableto each and every one of you.Sometimes I'm in bed andI don't want to wake up.Sometimes I don'twant to wake up.I'm like, Chris,you need to sleep.You've only had fouror five hours of sleep.Just stay here.But once my eyes openand my mind starts going,I'm like, OK, you know what?I'm just going to check thesocial feed for a little bit.I budget my time, I'm like,I'm going to just give myself10 minutes to quickly go throughInstagram, YouTube and Twitter,and you know,that's not possible.And then before I knowit's like 24 minutesuntil I'm like, that's it,this is it, I'm done now.I can't go back to sleep.So in a way I trick myself.Now I'm awake whatI'm going to do.And as I'm readingthis, these commentsand responding topeople, of course,my head startsfilling up with ideas.So I think I need to get up.I need a shower, I needto get ready for the daybecause I need toget on my computer.I need to write,I need to tweet,I need to preparesomething because there'sa lot of thoughtsbubbling up inside me.So a lot of times I imagineit feeling like a rubber band,and you keep pullingthat rubber band backwith all the thingsthat you want to do,the things that exciteyou, even if it'sgoing out to have a nice lunchwith friends, whatever it is.And that rubber bandkeeps getting pulled back.It's becomes really taught.And when I'm ready, I let goand I slingshot out of bed.And this is another reasonwhy my wife freaks outbecause she'll be sleeping.I'll just jump out of bed.She can't.Can't you just get outlike a normal person?I'm like, no.When I'm compelled to get outof bed, I'm ready to go, baby.We got to go.I say, look, whatever youfreak goes back to bed.So that to me, I'm like,I'm building it up,I'm building it upand then I'm outof the Runner's blockout of the gate.Boom, I'm running, ok?So I think maybe if that helpsyou try that mental exercise,fill yourself up with somethinguntil you feel so inspired.Like I got to get going now.It's like, whoa, I'mreally excited about doingwhat I need to do today.Versus like, Oh my god,I have so much to do,I can't deal with that.I'm just going to sit here.

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