how to create a sustainable morning routine

Establishing a morning routine doesn't have to be a strict checklist with red-tape. Lots of incredible YouTubers and influencers are posting their 5am or 6am wake up videos, and their mornings look perfect. The lighting is on point, videography is amazing, and they’re just on top of everything.

I hate to be contrarian, but 5am wake ups aren’t for everyone. Some people are in fact morning people, but need a little more sleep. Some people thrive when the sky’s dark and half the world are in bed, sound asleep. Others function better in the afternoon. Perhaps a 7am, 8am or even a 9am wake up works wonders for you.

If you function best later in the day, a slower, later start to the day may be more beneficial.

1) Find your groove

Rather than feeling like we need to subscribe to social media’s trends and wake up at 5am to drink lemon water and workout every single morning, we need to figure out what actually works for us and serves us.

For some of us, waking up at 6am leaves us feeling super groggy, hungry and perhaps even cranky throughout the day. Waking up early just for the sake of saying you did isn’t great if it costs you in other areas of your life. Like your productivity and mood.

For others of us, waking up at 6am is a great thing because it gives us a little more time before work to have our coffee, get ready and have a little more margin before we head out the door. As opposed to rushing to work, looking and feeling like a hot mess.

At the end of the day, it’s not the “end all-be all” to have a perfectly curated routine we follow immaculately every day based on what YouTubers and Influencers are posting. It’s about finding a good rhythm. One that’s sustainable, enjoyable and flexible.

We don’t need to strictly follow someone else’s blueprint to feel accomplished. The best morning routines are the ones that aren’t so “military” yet give us a good outline / guide of what makes us feel great. Giving ourselves the flexibility to switch things up if we need to is a big part of keeping things sustainable too (smile).

2) mix it up

I’m not sure about you guys, but I get really sick of things quickly.

E.g. I go to the gym 4 days a week for a few weeks. Then I hate the gym. Not because the gym's not great — I just didn’t give myself the variety that I need. When I start feeling stale, I opt to go for a walk or do a YouTube workout at home. Movement and health is the goal at the end of the day, not ticking off how much gym time I could squeeze out in a week.

Another example is the food that I eat. I eat pasta for a week then I hate pasta for a month. After a break, I meal prep pasta for a week again (smile). All this to say that giving ourselves a little more flexibility a variety of options can make things more sustainable.

The same goes for morning routines too. Find your staples, then give yourself the leeway to be flexible with it.

If you know that journalling, coffee and morning movement serve you well before work, that’s great. Why don’t you start with a coffee at home with your journal some days. And on other days, make your coffee in a keepcup to take with you on the walk, and journal halfway through before you walk back home.

You can switch up the type of movement too.

3) listen to your body

As a woman — my body and energy levels feel incredibly different at different points in my cycle, so giving myself a lot of flexibility in the morning does wonders for my energy, and also my mood. I like to keep things really simple. Because simple is sustainable.

Natural light and fresh air on our skin is wonderful. When I’m feeling energetic and ready to roll — I go out for a walk, or a swim. Some mornings (like this morning as I write this post) — I pull the curtains back and get some beautiful natural light on my skin and fresh air into my lungs through opening the window.

I love the word movement as opposed to exericse. This is very personal, as I used to have an unhealthy relationship with my body where exercise was a form of punishment.

As I’ve grown to accept my body and respect myself — I’m learning that movement is a wonderful form of self-care. Especially in the mornings. Moving my body doesn’t need to look like a 6am gym class or a 5am 10km run. I list both these things because that’s what I lived by back in the day. I was incredibly strict, you could see that it wouldn’t have been sustainable.

Today, I move my body in the form of light swimming, light walks, and stretching. It doesn’t have to look strenuous — and it can be strenuous too. You know your body. You know your limits.

3) grounding

Stepping outside and being in nature always has a grounding effect on me. Some mornings, I step outside right after my morning coffee to feel connected and fresh. Other mornings, I feel groggy and need to spend a little more time inside.

Sometimes I journal on the couch, and other times I actually find inspiration on my phone or on YouTube.

I know there’s been a lot of research and talk about not exposing ourselves to blue light first thing in the morning. But there have been time I’ve felt quite low energy, and YouTube guided meditations, cat videos and other short forms of media have helped me prepare mentally and emotionally to face the day.

For me, grounding means reconnecting. I can do this on my way to the car, actively thinking of people and things to be grateful for. I can do this as I listen to a great podcast about something I’m passionate about, learning about, or even just an entertaining podcast that I can enjoy a laugh with. I can reconnect as I go for a short swim, or sip on my morning coffee.

Whatever it looks like, including one thing every morning that helps me rebuild my mind-body connection has been important for me.

If you clicked on this blog post hoping for a specific step by step guide to curate your morning, sorry I didn’t provide that for you! I wanted to write this post to bring to light that everyone is different. Everyone functions optimally at different times of the day.

We don’t need to make our morning routine “trendy” or “perfect” — we need to make it grounding, flexible and sustainable. Some days, we just feel slow, and it’s okay not to do a 60 minute HIIT workout before the sun rises (smile).

Listen to your body, see what feels good for you, create a flexible blueprint, and give it a go for a week. Switch things up as you need, and voila!

Your very own, personalised, enjoyable, human morning routine.

Hope this helps!

Lots of love, Chloe x