Weekly Motivation: Stick to My Morning Routine

The common saying is that it takes 21 days to form a habit. To me, it definitely takes much longer than that.

Consciously developing habits is new to me and I’m finding my ways slowly.

Since the beginning of 2015, I’ve been making baby steps to build routines in my everyday life. So far I’ve not slept in until 10am like I used to do. I’ve been doing 10 full pushups and 1 minutes plank pose almost every morning. I’ve been reading at least one new book each month.

Each month I’ll have a list of my personal habits goals and review it by the end of the month then make arrangement for next month’s goal accordingly.

This is the 3.5th month of year 2015 and I’ve finally come up with a morning routine that I would like to stick to.

1. Get up at 7:30 am ( with the exception on the days that I’m really ill)

2. Put yoga clothes on and brush teeth

3. Have a glass of warm water. Prepare another glass of warm water with lemon juice.

4. Mentally prepare the To Do list of the day

5. Morning stretch routine:

Sun solute. Head, eyes and shoulder roll

Pushups

Warrior, twist, half pigeon, plough, crow and wheel pose

Plank pose

Ad hoc

6. Listen to TV news. Not that the news are really news. It’s because English is my second language, news readers normally speak clear, standard English for me to improve my accent. Beside, if people chat about the news during the day, at least I know what they are talking about.

7. Have smoothie for breakfast

8. Read aloud for at least 30 minutes. If I have time, do it for one hour. And take note of the words that I didn’t know to build up vocabulary.

I’m hoping by repeating these actions day after day, I will have these habits imprinted in my system. If this morning routine is interrupted by job or travel requirements, be mentally prepared and come back to the routine as soon as I’m able to.