CREATING A MORNING ROUTINE

One area of leadership that is often overlooked is the concept of “balance.” By balance I am referring to an idea, a concept, or a place where we as school leaders have a sense of harmony or stability between all facets of our lives. The official definition given by “The American Century Dictionary” refers to balance as “stability of body or mind.” It is listed as a noun. As a school leader, I always viewed “balance” as a destination, someplace I was constantly striving to get to.

In my personal study of highly successful leaders from various organizations within education, business, politics, and entrepreneurship, I discovered common characteristics that nearly all possessed. One of these characteristics involved working smarter not just harder. As a building level principal the idea of “smarter work” and not just “harder or more work” resonated with me. Within this concept I discovered certain lifestyle choices that highly successful leaders consciously and deliberately made in an effort to work smarter and achieve the ever-elusive balance in their lives.

One such lifestyle choice I found especially intriguing focused on the idea of creating and maintaining a morning ritual; however, a morning routine was foreign to me. As a wife, mother of three children, and highly committed school building leader, mornings were often a bit chaotic to say the least. Sleep was a luxury. I spent considerable time researching, reading, and trying to determine why so many highly successful leaders made mention of or prioritized these two areas of their lives and were convinced that a focus on these was critical to their success.

Creating and following a morning routine is one of the most common characteristics I discovered when researching what highly effective leaders do.  How you spend your time in the morning does not really matter per se – reading, meditation, exercise, yoga, goal setting – what matters is that you establish a routine built on habits designed to help you focus on your role as a leader and incorporate self-care.  These two areas are essential in helping you create balance in both your personal and professional life.  Starting your day with intentionality, with purpose, in a manner designed to bring you focus and wellness sets the tone for your entire day. 

If you examine your current situation you will most likely discover that you DO have a morning routine; you DO have habitual things that you engage in or that consume your time every morning.  My question to you is this: Do your current routines lay a foundation for a highly successful day or are they more of an afterthought amidst the chaos of each frantic morning?  Consider also, what differentiates great work days in your life from others? When you identify certain characteristics or activities that occur on those great work days, how can you ensure those things happen every day?  You do so by developing them into daily routines.  Aristotle said, “We are what we habitually do”.  Who we are and what we become are directly related to our daily habits.  So, be intentional about developing morning habits into a routine that supports the “who” you wish to become.

First and foremost, identify what you feel is important to include in your morning routine.  As mentioned previously, the “what” is not as important as the “when” and the commitment to the “when.”   Most morning routines I found included some kind of stretching, exercise and/or yoga, meditation and/or reading, goal setting, reflection, and time focused on setting expectations and the tone for the day.  I personally include time dedicated to eating a healthy breakfast because I recognized I often failed to take care of myself and eat well, especially when life got “extra crazy.”  I may only have a smoothie or perhaps peanut butter toast with fruit but I deliberately factor that time into my morning routine and am intentional about ensuring I start my day by taking care of my physical self before I attempt to run what I affectionately called the “leadership marathon” for that day.  You can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of YOU first!

Next, decide how much time you will spend on each component of your desired morning routine.

Finally, determine what you can do in advance to help increase the probability that you will implement your morning routine with fidelity.  For example, if you identified exercise or stretching as an essential part of your morning routine lay out your workout clothes, sneakers and whatever else you need the night before to save time.  This also helps eliminate excuses in the morning!  Place your alarm clock (or cell phone if that’s what you use) across the room not next to your bed requiring you to physically get out of bed in the morning to shut it off.  This prohibits you from simply smacking the snooze button, rolling over, and going back to sleep.  On a side note – keeping your cell phone away from you when you sleep, especially away from your head is important. It can interfere with your sleep cycles.

I built into my daily morning routine the time I spent commuting each morning.  I often had a 20-30 minute commute.  Rather than turning on the radio and listening to the same pop songs or commercials, I used this time to mentally prioritize or prepare for my day.  Now, I fully recognize that as principal more often than not any mental plan for the day would be completely trashed by 9:00AM!  I know we cannot predict which parent will walk into our office at what time or how many of our students will melt down or do something that just makes you scratch your head in wonder.  Regardless, I felt more in control and more settled when I had a plan for each day, even if I had to modify and adjust my plan several times throughout the day.  By establishing and sticking to a morning routine I felt (and still do) that I was beginning my day with discipline, purpose, and clarity.  A commitment to my own personal development and wellness through the creation and implementation of a morning routine has proven to be life changing for me.  I cannot imagine going back to my old ways – frantic mornings void of purpose and full of chaos; not a very success-minded way to start each day.

Be sure to check out my next post as we discuss the importance of sleep.