Getting a Morning Routine in Place + a Book Recommendation + Podcast #46

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Listen to the Podcast:

A few weeks ago we started reading through a book together in the Book Club in my Chat Community. The book is called Hello Mornings by Kat Lee. I can’t say enough good things about this book and I am only on chapter 4!

I thought on this podcast today I would share a bit about what makes this book so amazing and some of the things I have learned from it so far. You will want to go grab yourself a copy of Hello Mornings yourself and read it. Can’t recommend it enough!

Hello Mornings is all about your morning routine, but it takes a whole different approach than what I have seen in other books and resources. Kat Lee suggests that you are start with a 3-minute morning routine, where you take one minute to do three different things.

God – Plan – Move

These three things are GOD (read and meditate on a verse in the Bible), PLAN (look over your calendar and plan your day) and MOVE (one minute of exercise)

Here is a quote from the book:

“The heart behind God, Plan, Move is to create an on-ramp for our God time to infiltrate the rest of our day.”

And here is another great quote:

“Our God time is like the engine that moves us, our Plan time is like the frame and handlebars that steer us where God leads, and our Move time like the tires that allow us to progress easily.”

So keep that in mind as we move on to talk about the morning routine.

Start Small – 3-Minute Morning Routine

When I first read this in the Hello Mornings book, I thought “Wait. You can’t get anything done in just 3 minutes. My morning routine needs to have much more in it than that.” But then I remember all my big plans for my morning routine in the past and how that went! I tried to do too much before a habit was in place and I failed. So I decided to keep reading and see what this was all about.

Here are a few lessons I have learned so far that have really been helping me change my thinking about my morning routine.

Starting Small Removes Excuses

I think for most of us, our number one excuse for not doing a morning routine is that we don’t have enough time. Well, when you start out with a 3-minute morning routine, you really can’t use that excuse. Starting out really small removes that excuse for you and makes it totally doable.

Starting Small Helps You Create Habits

As I said before, in the past when I have tried to get a morning routine going where I had my quiet time in the Word, and some exercise time, I planned too much and ended up getting overwhelmed and stopped. I couldn’t ever get any momentum going.

When you start small (3 minutes), it gives you a routine to do that is not overwhelming and very doable. You touch on the three areas of importance every morning and allows you start making that time a habit. It gives you a foundation to build upon. Each day as you do that 3-minute morning routine, you are working at building habits that will serve you well the rest of your life.

Quote from the book:

“A three-minute goal may not bring applause, but it will bring results.”

Once it becomes a habit, you can build on that and add more time or different activities. But when days come when we don’t have as much time or we aren’t feeling well, we can revert back to that original 3-minute routine and keep that habit going without feeling like we have failed. We still accomplished something and it gives us the motivation to keep going.

Starting Small Makes You Look at Your “Why”

This was something that I hadn’t really thought of before. But the choices we make now will affect our future. So when we are working at building habits and starting small in our morning routine, we need to think about our why. Why do I need to read my Bible very day? Why do I need to plan my day well? Why do I need to get my body moving?

In Hello Mornings, Kat talks about how we need to think about the future and look at the bigger picture. For example, I need to read my Bible every day not just so that I can check it off my list and feel good about that, but so that I can get to know Jesus more and be instructed and guided by His Word daily. Another example with exercise, I don’t just need to exercise so I can lose 5 pounds this week, but I need to exercise so that my body will be healthy for years to come.

The small decisions and habits we create now will not only serve some sort of short term goal we may have, but it will affect the rest of our life! Just think about that!

Apply This Concept in Other Areas of Your Life

As you get your morning routine in place, you can think about applying this concept in other areas of your life. What are some areas of your life that you need to work on? What big projects do you want to complete but are totally overwhelming to you? How can you start small and get a habit in place first, then build on that over time?