Hey friends. I have a question for you. When you look at your life on a day-to-day basis, do you feel like you are thriving?

Or do you feel like you’re just surviving? You’re just getting by and your day. Your schedule owns you instead of you owning your day. Well, if that’s you, this episode is for you. Whether you are a stay at home parent, a homeschooling parent, work at home parent, or you work outside the home, doing this one thing is going to completely transform your day, your week, and in my opinion, your life. So let’s dig into the show.

Before we get started. I just want to give you a little boost of encouragement and remind you to head over to the milspouse mastermind community, our free Facebook community for military spouses who are seeking to live a life of purpose and meaning.

[00:01:59] There we talk about where we get stuck, how we move forward, what we’re struggling with, and encourage each other in the journey of pursuing a life of meaning and purpose as a military spouse. So if you are not already in that group, head over to Facebook, you can look us up milspouse mastermind community, or you can find the link in the show notes below.

[00:02:23] I’m excited to announce that Chrissie Kenaston who was our guest on episode 17 of the show has graciously offered to give away a free copy of her brand new book to our community. What if I Name Her Grace was released in paperback on June 29th and is available in your favorite bookstore. All you have to do to be entered to win is to join our free Facebook community.

[00:02:51] That contest will run through next Monday, July 19th. Midnight Eastern Standard Time. Don’t worry, I’m not holding you to Chamorro standard time that we have here in Guam. You can join our group by heading over to milspousemastermind.com/ community, or check the link in the show notes below.

[00:03:11] And if you are already a part of our community on Facebook, then you have a chance to receive five bonus entries simply by leaving us a review on iTunes. That’s right. You just have to go to iTunes, leave a quick review of the show and then pop in the Facebook group. Let us know that you left us a review.

[00:03:30] I’ve made it even more simple for you to leave a review. All you have to do is go to milspousemastermind.com/show. It will take you directly to the iTunes page. Scroll to the bottom. Leave a review, write your review and then let us know that you’ve left it and you’ll be entered to win. You’ll have five extra bonus entries.

[00:03:50] As I’ve said, reviews on iTunes are the absolute best way for more military spouses to find this show and give it a listen. So please head over now between now and next Monday and leave us a review there. So let’s dig into how to practically own your day and how we can find fulfillment in everyday life.

[00:04:15] I know for so many of us, we find ourselves at the end of the day, feeling like we didn’t really get anything done. The to do list keeps piling up. We can feel exhausted or overwhelmed. We’re still pulled in so many different directions. And sometimes we just can’t seem to get on top of our day, from the moment that our kids wake us up, we feel scrambled.

[00:04:38] And sometimes it feels hard to just get our head on straight and be productive. We find ourselves relying on that cup of coffee, or sometimes reheating that cup of coffee a couple of times, just to try to get going in the morning. Um, and if that wasn’t enough, now that we are in the thick of summer and we’re out of all of our normal rhythms and routines. It can be even more apparent to us that life just feels a little bit crazy.

[00:05:13] And our brains feel a little bit like a squirrel, chasing all the things, trying to get all the things done, and not feeling like we’re on top of our days. So. What do we do about this?

We love this idea of a break from school, a break from normal life. Now, if you don’t have kids who are school age, or you’re working outside the home and you have full-time childcare, you may not notice a big difference come summer time.

[00:05:46] But for many of us who are either stay at home parents, or we’re working from home, you know, sometimes it is a big shift for us. And it kind of exacerbates all of these feelings. Even if we have a consistent routine because of consistent childcare or a consistent job, we can still feel this sense of not really being on top of our day.

[00:06:17] I wonder how many times we feel like it’s just about making it, about getting through the week. Like we’re just along for the ride. So how do we go from just getting by and just surviving to really thriving and living that life of intentionality and purpose?

Well, first I just want to say, I know how you feel because I’ve been there. I remember a couple of months back, I was running errands and I ran into a fellow parent from my kid’s school and I said something along the lines of, oh, how’s your day going? And that parent replied oh, I’m making it.

It brought me back to that time in my life where I felt like from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, life was happening. And all I could do was hang on for dear life and go along for the ride, and make it from thing to thing. To think, get all the things done, take care of all the things and not feel like I was actually loving my life. Not really getting to be present in the moment. Not feeling fulfilled. And trying to figure out what was wrong and what needed to shift.

[00:07:27 True change starts when we workshop our life and say, Hey, I realize something’s not working. What do I feel like is off? And what can I do to make things better?

[00:07:56] So for me, I started looking at my life and saying, Hey, I am committed every hour of the day and something needs to change. And fortunately for our family, we were in a season…my husband was making enough money that I didn’t have to work. And so with a newborn and a toddler I decided to go to my boss and say, Hey, is there a way that I could keep doing what I’m doing or do something similar for the company, but in a part-time capacity instead of a full-time capacity?

[00:08:29] Because I thought, oh, if I’m working less hours, then I will stop feeling pulled in so many different directions. And that helped, but it still wasn’t the answer that I was looking for. There was still something that was keeping me from feeling like I was owning my every day. And so what I did was I started looking around, I started listening to podcasts, reading books, trying to figure out how could I practically own my every day and stay more on top of life so I don’t feel pulled in so many directions.

[00:09:02] And what I noticed on this journey, was that every high performer I studied had one thing in common. They all had a morning routine. They had a plan for how they started their day, a consistent thing that they did. At the first part of the day, when they woke up, what did they do? So I was like, okay, they’re all doing this one thing. Does that even matter? And if so, why?

[00:09:27]  I started experimenting with this idea of a morning routine. Now I totally get it if you are not a morning person, because at one point in my life, I thought that I was not a morning person. I remember my first job out of college. They wanted me to be at work at 8:00 AM, like every normal eight to five job.

[00:09:59] But I remember just thinking, I can’t think at eight o’clock in the morning. Don’t ask me questions before at least 8:30. And now when I look at my life today, that makes me laugh so much because I wake up at 5:00 AM Every morning for my morning routine.

[00:10:21] And while I’m not suggesting that that’s what you need to do, I just want to demonstrate how far I’ve come in the last several years. I imagine that right now, you’re thinking. What in the world is a morning routine? Why do I need one? What does it look like? And are you really going to tell me I need to get up super early? Well, let’s take these questions on at a time.

[00:10:43] What is a morning routine? Well, for starters, it’s the things that you do every day to start your day. And this is the key here. You have to start your day. You have to choose when you’re going to start your day. If you lay in bed until your kids wake you up, you do not have a morning routine. This is the key is getting up before your kids, because when your kids wake you up and they start asking questions right away, that’s when we start feeling scrambled. We haven’t had time to clear our heads and set our intention for the day.

[00:11:25] So it’s getting up before someone else gets you up, before you have to start moving and do the things that you have to do. You get up and set intention for your day. It’s how you begin your day.

Now I’m not saying that this only works if you have kids, because the truth is if you get up every day and go to a job, at some point you will have to wake up, get yourself ready, and get out the door, right?

[00:11:55] Or if you work from home, you know you have a starting point for when you start your work. And if you wait until the last minute to make that happen, you will not have time to set your intention for your day.

Why do you need morning routine? Well, number one, it sets intention for your day. Who do you want to be today? How do you want to show up today? How do you want to react to situations that come up?

[00:12:15] It helps put us in the right frame of mind so that we can deal with of life as it happens. And I’ll get into this more in a minute when I talk about what my morning routine actually looks like.

The second thing I would say is that it helps us be more productive. When we take the time at the beginning of the day to say, okay, what does my day look like? What do I need to get done today? And how am I going to accomplish those things?

Then we can know, okay, I know what’s coming. I know what to expect and I can plan for it. And then I can move forward, instead of just letting things happen.

The third reason I would say is you need a morning routine is because it is a form of self care. When we talk about caring for ourselves, we need to talk about what that looks like. It looks like helping ourselves get healthy… physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. All of that can happen inside of our morning routine. So if we aren’t creating that space in our schedule to care for all of the facets of ourself, then we’re really not taking care of ourself. That’s just another reason why a morning routine can help us out.

[00:13:39] And then the last thing that I will say about why we need a morning routine is that it is a habit that helps us move towards who we want to become. This episode is not all about habits, because there is so much research out there about habits, and how we format habits, and why habits are important.

[00:14:07] But the key thing to remember here is that we need habits because habits are what get us to who we want to be. So let’s say that you have taken the time to look at who you are and who you want to be. And you’ve set some goals based on how you want to grow as a person. We can focus on those goals, but goals are usually about results we want to achieve.

[00:14:35] Systems are about the process that leads us to the results. It’s about making progress towards our goals. And those are what really matter. Those are the things that are actually going to get us to the goal, to who we want to be. And the important thing to focus on are the systems, not the goals. The systems are essentially our habits. the habits that are in our life give us the systems that move us towards the goals, that help us become who we’re meant to be. That help us create the life that we want to have. So the habit is the important part and the morning routine. Is a very important habit to achieving the life that we want.

[00:15:16] What does a morning routine actually look like? Well, I can’t tell you it’s going to be one thing, because number one, it’s going to be different for each person.

[00:15:41] For me personally, it has evolved over time and continues to evolve. I’ll just share with you what my current morning routine looks like and share how it has evolved over the last couple of years. Now, growing up in an evangelical Christian background, I always heard the term quiet time. You need to have a morning quiet time.

[00:16:04] And if you grew up in that kind of background, you’re probably familiar with that term. But if you’re not, it was this idea of quiet time with God in the morning. And often for me, it kind of devolved into more of a checklist. Oh, did I have my quiet time? I didn’t necessarily get anything out of it. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn’t. It was just one of those things that was a check mark on my list.

[00:16:24] But once I really started focusing on the morning routine and saying, what do I want to get out of this time? And how can I do it in a way that’s sustainable for me?

[00:16:46] When I started workshopping my morning routine, I had just gone from working full-time outside the home to working part-time at home and then transitioned to working as a contractor. And so for the first time, I was completely responsible for setting my own hours, my schedule. I had young kids at home that at the time were still little.

[00:17:08] I think my daughter might have been six months old. And then I also had a toddler at the time. And so they would get me up at night. I was tired, but I knew this was something I needed to work on. I needed to make a schedule and a morning routine so that I could get to all of the things that I needed to get done in my day.

[00:17:29] I noticed what wasn’t working in my life. I started by trying to journal a lot in the morning, but I found myself getting so distracted by what needed to happen in a day and what was going to get done. And I could waste so much time having a morning routine or having a quiet time without anything actually happening or without me getting anything out of that time. I started workshopping this.

[00:17:59] The first thing I did was add a gratitude practice. Every morning, I start with three things that I am thankful for. It can be big or small, but I just need to start my morning with three things that I am grateful for. And this one practice alone completely transformed my life and my mindset. And really how I see the world.

[00:18:28] It’s been a process that has ebbed and flowed over the last four years, but I would say, even if you never do any of these other pieces of a morning routine, definitely have a gratitude practice. I’ll probably do an episode in the future just about this one thing, because I feel like it’s so important and it has been so transformative in my life.

[00:18:58] So I started with the gratitude practice and then I realized I had prayer time. I had time reading my Bible and I had time that I needed to spend making a to-do list, because that was the one thing that was completely keeping me distracted. So I created my daily one sheet. I’ve been using this same sheet for about four years now.

[00:19:23] And on the left side of the page starts with my daily three, my gratitude. And then I have my prayers for myself, my family, for those around me. I have my intentions for the day. And then I have my daily to-do list on the right side of the page. If I am focused on praying and I am getting distracted by what I need to do that day, I can just jot down on the right side of the page what I need to be doing, and then get back to the left side.

[00:20:00] Now sometimes I start with the right side, get my list for the day done. And then I can focus on my prayers and my gratitude. That has been a game changer for me, because I stopped getting distracted by everything going on. It gives me one single sheet of paper that allows me to get all my thoughts out, to get focused. And then I’m ready to start my day.

[00:20:23] Now what my morning routine looks like currently. It continues to evolve because I’m trying to figure out the workout component for a while. I had a morning routine that involved my daily one sheet, my daily Bible reading my meditation app, and then a morning workout.

[00:20:48] Now that my husband’s schedule has changed again, we’re alternating working out in the mornings. And so I’m not as consistent with my workout and I’m still trying to work that piece in. But for me, I slowly moved the time that I woke up back a little bit over time as I realized what I needed to get done, to show up as the person I wanted to be each and every day.

[00:21:14] If you had told me several years ago that I would be waking up at 5:00 AM every morning, I probably would have laughed in your face. Because I did not have any desire to wake up that early. But I have realized over the last few years that I’ve been doing this, that it has made such a difference in my life and the lives of my husband and my kids.

[00:21:38] I have everything I need done, so that when my kids wake up, I can focus on them. And if you have young kids who are not consistent in sleeping in, the one thing I will definitely recommend is getting an okay to wake clock. That keeps my kids in their room. They know they’re not supposed to come out of their room until the clock turns green.

[00:22:03] Now, especially with littles, they don’t always understand. Or if you have a newborn or a young toddler, they may not be able to grasp that just yet. There always interruptions in my morning routine. But for the most part, we have been able to establish that my kids don’t come out of their room until 6:30 in the morning because they have never, none of them, ever slept in.

[00:22:26] And in order for me to be able to spend the time in prayer, and in my productivity list, and my gratitude and my meditation and work out, then I need to get up at 5:00 AM. Now, as my kids get older, I may be able to shift my workout time a little bit. I tried for a while doing at-home workouts with my kids and inevitably they would crawl on top of me and I never got a good workout in.

[00:22:53] At least for this season while they are little, I need to get that workout in before they are awake or wait until bedtime. And if I wait until the evening to do my workout, I generally talk myself out of it. So I try to do that workout first thing in the morning.

[00:23:19] Now, I don’t know what your spiritual beliefs and practices are, but I would say that spiritual health is an important part of our health and who we are become. And something that needs to be incorporated in our everyday life. So whatever that looks like for you, I would highly recommend you make that a part of your morning routine. For me, starting with prayer and gratitude gives me that right mindset and that right focus for my day.

[00:23:42] Now, the piece I haven’t really talked about yet is the meditation piece. And I know there are different views people have about meditation. But essentially it’s a formal practice of mindfulness and this practice has also been very transformative in my life. And I’ll tell you why. Because I have a squirrel brain that has so many thoughts going in so many different directions all the time.

[00:24:12] This practice of mindfulness helps me be more grounded and present in the moment. It helps me pray better. It helps me interact with my spouse and my kids better because I’m learning how to focus on the present. And when I first started doing it, I wasn’t sure if it would actually help me. But there is so much research and so many studies about how it helps our mental and emotional health that I decided to give it a try.

[00:24:46] And I didn’t notice the impact so much while I was doing it. But once I stopped doing it, I realized that that squirrel brain was coming back. And so, over the last year, I’ve instituted this practice again. Now to be completely honest, I was doing pretty good with the morning routine until COVID hit.

[00:25:09] And then that whole six months, I totally lost all almost all of my morning routine practices. But I will tell you that is when I was the most stressed is when we were navigating a crazy PCS, selling our house, and I got really, really sick. And I would say that a lot of that comes down to the fact that I wasn’t engaging in my morning routine.

[00:25:36] Now there are a whole lot of other factors that led me down that path of not being healthy at all. But as I have been building my health back up and trying to be more mindful about the health practices and taking care of myself, my physical health, my mental and emotional health, and my spiritual health, I have instituted that morning routine back in.

[00:25:57] I am loving the results that I’m getting. I feel more intentional. I feel more present. I feel more grounded and I feel less stressed. So here is my challenge to you. Head over to the Facebook group. And tell us, do you currently have a morning routine?

[00:26:24] If you do not, then your next step is to start a morning routine. And the number one thing I will tell you to start with is just start your day by listing three things you are thankful for. If you already have a morning routine, take time to think through what that entails, and what you want it to look like. What you want. What elements you want to be a part of that routine. So that you can start your day with intention and purpose.

[00:26:57] It is in these small habits and in the systems that we create for our life, that actually get us to the results that we want. That actually help us create the life we want, and become the people we are meant to be. If we will establish these habits, if we will be intentional with our days and our weeks, then we will begin to see the benefits. To our schedule, to our relationships, to our health and wellbeing, and to our life

[00:27:27]. And let me just share one bonus tip with you. This one thing that I am working on implementing into my morning routine. I’m still not quite there yet, but I know that this is also beneficial. And that is to choose three questions you want to ask every morning to set intention for your day.

[00:27:57] Questions like who do I want to be today? How can I make a difference today? What do I want to feel today? Who can I thank today? What can I be excited about today? What might cause me stress today? And what can I do about that? How can I respond in a positive way? Who can I surprise with a thank you or a moment of appreciation today?

[00:28:26] If you already have a morning routine dialed in, just think about maybe adding this intentionality practice to that morning routine. But if you don’t have one at all, the place to start is just by choosing to wake up, you know, 15, 20 minutes earlier and start with gratitude.

[00:28:57] Let me know if you found this episode helpful. If you need more examples about how to establish a morning routine, or if there’s an area of your morning routine that you’re struggling to start, let me know. Sometimes the morning routine has to start with an evening routine. We go to bed at night so that we can wake up and do the morning routine and start our day with intention.

[00:29:24] I hope you have a fantastic week. If you have not done so head over to our facebook group, say hi. We would love to meet with you and connect with you and help encourage you on your journey. Don’t forget to head over to milspouse,astermind.com/community and join our free Facebook community for a chance to win Chrissie Kenaston’s new book, What If I Name Her Grace?

[00:29:46] Or head over to iTunes and leave us a review on the show between now and next Monday, July 19th. Until next time, may you live filled, fueled and full of joy.