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4 Step Process To Kickstart Your Morning – Ep. 104
Are you a morning person?
Today we’re going to talk about a four step process to kick start your morning, even if you’re not a morning person. So, let’s get to it!
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- Full Show Notes: https://aimeecerka.com/104
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Wondering What’s Next?
- 14 Day Money Mastery Action Plan – 14 Day Money Mastery Action Plan
Podcast Key Points
0:00 – Episode Overview
1:46 – If You’re Not A Morning Person
5:23 – Gratitude Journaling
7:42 – Quiet Time
8:16 – Visualizing Your Money Goals
9:24 – Having A Routine When You’re Dealing With Kids
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Kickstart Your Morning with These Four Simple Steps
Are you a morning person? If you know me at all, you’ve probably heard me talk about that. I’m not a morning person. But today we’re going to talk about a four step process to kick start your morning, even if you’re not a morning person.
And we need to know this because how you start your day really sets up the tone for the rest of your entire day. And if you currently have a morning routine that you’ve scheduled, it might actually be self sabotaging you and I’m going to tell you why inside the episode, so let’s get to it.
This is the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka, a money confidence coach for female entrepreneurs on the path to six figures. After over 10 years in the personal finance industry and multiple personal financial and medical crisis. I was fed up with the lies that are being shouted from the rooftops by the Gurus and the media said.
I help you simplify, solidify and scale your money. By blending tactile money strategies with mindset work, you can create unstoppable finances. Together, you’ll finally figure out the money thing. So you can make more money in less time without living off of beans and rice, or sacrificing your lifestyle.
Episodes here on the podcast are short and sweet. Being married, having four kids at home, homeschooling being the CEO running the household, I’m kind of busy. And I know you are too. So let’s keep it simple and get to the point. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!
The Morning Struggle
Welcome back to the Your Money, Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka and today we are talking about the four step process that I use to kickstart my morning, even if you’re not a morning person. And like I said, this is super important because the way that you start your morning is the way that like, it sets the tone for your entire day.
Which actually, there’s like one exception to that. I’ll tell you why. I will tell you what that one exception is here in a minute. But let’s me share a story real quick, because you might know I’m not only a morning person, but you hear so many gurus, especially in the personal development, the entrepreneur space, are like, “You got to get up early.” “You got to wake up before your kids. So you can have that time in all those things.”
You’ve heard it right. That doesn’t work for me. And all my goodness, for years. I was sitting there fighting it after I had left my job because I had to get up early when I was in my nine to five. And that was the whole thing like you were supposed to get to get to sleep in.
But then I was trying to get up early because everyone said that I had to get up early and it just was not working. I was miserable. I was cranky. I wasn’t getting work done because I was so exhausted and so many things.
But what I ended up doing that it was just kind of like a “That’s it. I’m done” moment, like I’m gonna quit trying to force this. So I stopped setting an alarm completely. Now I homeschool my children.
So I have that luxury. They’re also young, which was another reason why they’re getting up early wasn’t working. Because when you have young kids that are nursing and in bed with you and you get out of bed, they tend to wake up.
So I could get up earlier and then the kids would just get up earlier with me. And then it would be like the kids that weren’t in bed with me like in their own room, the older ones would still get up when I got up earlier. It was so weird. It was like energetically, they knew I was awake.
So then they got up too but I just had my “That’s it. I’m done” moment. Stop setting an alarm completely. You know what happened? I started waking up earlier than like, even before then I was trying to wake up, it was the craziest thing.
The Importance of Routine over Schedule
But you know why that worked is I removed the pressure, the temptation. And that is where this four step process to kickstart your morning makes all the difference, because it sets you up to for success. And it doesn’t matter the time that you’re getting up, you’re still able to succeed and then you’re not putting extra pressure on yourself, which adds more stress and then it just makes everything go downhill, snowball effect.
And the reason that this makes a difference is it’s a routine, not a schedule. A schedule means like you get up at six o’clock. And that means at 6:15, You do the second step. 6:45, You do the third step, if I can count, seven o’clock you do the fourth step, etc, etc, right?
A routine says this is what happens first, and this is what happens second, and this is what happens third, doesn’t matter. The time that you’re doing it you’re just doing the steps.
Now I do have like a little hack. If you are somebody that like you do have time obligations, like you have to take your kids to a certain point like you’ve taken kids to school or whatever that might be in between. I do have an idea for that. But let’s go through the four step process.
And then I’ll circle back to that part. Okay. I was gonna tell you to remind me, but we’re not live on Zoom. So you can’t remind me. I mean, you can’t after the fact that I forget, but not while I’m recording. Anyways.
Step 1: Gratitude Journaling
Okay, so this is the four step process that I use to help make sure that I’m showing up at my fullest potential. Okay, first thing, gratitude journaling, writing down 10 things that I’m grateful for. This has kind of shifted over the years I have inside the Academy.
I think, this is the only place where this template is at currently. But I have a template was like a gratitude and goals template that I had made in Canva that I used to print out and it was on its own separate clipboard, which I love, because then I would put it in some binder. And I can kind of flick through the things that I was grateful for throughout the year.
But what I found, especially after Natalie, my fourth was born, is like I needed to simplify things. So now my gratitude journaling takes place in my journal. On the left hand side of the page, I put my gratitudes on the right hand top side is like where I’m actually journaling.
And then I guess this is a bonus, because this isn’t part of my morning routine, I put like the celebration things below that, okay, we’re writing down 10 things you’re grateful for. If you can’t write them down, say them out loud, like you don’t have to talk to anybody, but just say them out loud.
If you’re working with me, you’re coaching with me. I would always love to hear what you’re grateful for. This is also something another side note that I have my kids do at dinner each night. We have, they call it what your thank you force. So they have to tell us, depending on the day attitudes, write three to five things that they’re thankful for each day, okay?
Then the Part B of that is writing down part B of our step one with a gratitude journal, okay? Is writing down what you’re focusing on accomplishing today. And this is like where the pro step, this really should be done the night before.
So it’s taking a minute to sit down and write what your intentions are, what you need to accomplish. I would challenge you to have a variety of things on your plate. Because if you have a 10-minute space show up all of a sudden, what can you get done in those 10 minutes. If you’re looking for something to get done, you’re going to lose the 10 minutes.
But if you already have a list of things that need to be accomplished, you can get it done, which frees up more time later for you to have more fun. Okay. But if you didn’t get it done the night before, do it in the morning.
Step 2: Meditation
So okay, let me get through the four steps. Okay. The second one is meditation. There’s a lot out there in Google land. And this doesn’t have to be like a very long, intense thing, like, most of the time, like it’s very short.
Meditation, I have a couple that like I paid for, and it doesn’t. It’s about setting the intention for the day. So if you’re not somebody who wants to meditate, maybe it’s just some quiet time, maybe you’re replacing this like with Bible study time. It’s setting your mind up for where you want to be. Okay.
Step 3: Visualization
The third part is visualization. And we tie this into our daily Money Minute. So you do your daily Money Minute, you do your checking with your bank account, immediately after that you’re doing your visualization.
So whatever the current thing that you’re working towards, is, maybe it’s a new car, maybe it’s a new house, maybe it’s a travel destination. Maybe it’s a funny story of Blackstone, that is something that like now I really would love to have a Blackstone because we got I got to cook on one while we were out of town on vacation.
And the pancakes when I make two batches at home, it takes two hours. And then the Blackstone it took like 10 minutes a lot of time saved. So I don’t know where we would put it but okay, it’s something we’re looking at.
That’s just an example for you. You’re visualizing what you’re working towards. Okay.
Step 4: Personal Development
And then the fourth part, to kickstart your morning is self development, personal development. So maybe you listening to this podcast is your personal development, I definitely do a lot more of that podcast listening now than I do getting time to sit down and read a physical book, but that could work. But spending at least like 15 minutes doing that.
Now. Here’s the key. We had the routine, right? Getting all these things accomplished. But you’re not necessarily waking up and doing this immediately, right? Like you might be brushing your teeth you might be you gotta get dressed, you got to take care of the kids.
But having the routine of these are the things that you’re going through, in an ideal world. Yeah, sure. Get up, get dressed, brush your teeth, go through these four things, and then you’re ready to start today. But I’ve got kids and I know you probably have kids at home do like there’s distractions there.
Flexibility is Key
Even if you don’t have kids, maybe it’s pets. Something might come up in If you just build the routine that you’re just working through the 1, 2, 3, 4, to get these things done, you’re gonna feel better. So if that means like, you get the gratitude journaling done before you have to go and take the kids and drop them off at school, great.
And then you can do the other part, when you’re done just having the routine, you don’t have to think about what’s next. That’s the key part here. We’re not wasting the brain space, I keep a checklist on my phone, for my morning actions.
See if I can pull it up here on YouTube, you can see it still checked off. But like, it’s silly stuff, you know, get dressed, make the bed, my Bible study. Setting up the diffusers that we use. There’s several different things on here. But like it’s just going through making sure these things are done.
Start Small and Expand
But the whole point of it is releasing that mind clutter so that you can focus on the things that you need to so you kickstart your morning by doing the same four things all the time. Even if it’s not necessarily at the same time with the time doesn’t matter. It’s just building the habit and the routine of doing these things. Okay.
I think we got it all right, four step mourning process. And the reason why that worked was with stopping setting the alarm, make sure that I cover this part is because I release the pressure for myself. And when you have like a million things that you’re trying to accomplish and fit into your morning routine, it doesn’t work.
So maybe the idea of doing these four things feels overwhelming. But if you start with one, and get really competent, really comfortable adding that in like habit stacking is another way to phrase this, that you’ve done this and that you’re really comfortable with it. And maybe 2, 3, 4 makes it on your list for like, sometimes during the day you like to get it done.
That’s totally the way exercising is for me right now. Like I would like to do more, even if it’s just more stretching, but it just isn’t happening right now. So I have not added that extra pressure on myself because I don’t feel like it’s the next pressure I need to add on.
There’s a time for the pressure, right. And there’s a time where we can be overachievers and we’re trying to do too much okay. And I think my overachievers you know that I’m talking to you. Alright.
That’s it for now. We talked about the four step process that I use to kickstart our morning. That is a routine, not a schedule, but we’re including our gratitude journaling. We’re including meditation, we’re including visualization, really, we tie that in with our daily mighty minutes, and then a personal development of some kind.
A Final Thought on Personal Development
Quick note for your personal development junkies out there limit yourself. We don’t need to just be consuming training and content all the time. Make sure you’re taking action, as well. That’s what I’ve got for now. We’ll see you next time on the Your Money Your Life podcast.
Special Gift For You
Thank you so much for listening to the Your Money, Your Life podcast, I’ve got a special gift for you for sticking around to the end. And if you’re tired of your finances being a mess, this is for you.
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