This is a follow up to my Morning Ritual – Start Your Day Productive.  This post will conclude my morning ritual trial.  In this post I will summarize my findings about implementing a morning ritual, the good, the bad and the ugly

I have already discussed many of the benefits of implementing a morning ritual in my day 2 post.  So it certainly is a good habit that I’d recommend anyone try implementing.  The bad news is that it takes a lot of trial and error, and discipline to implement.

Just like implementing any other healthy habits, there will be days where you totally blow it and wont feel like doing your morning ritual.  I skipped my morning ritual on day 3.  What stinks is that on day 4 it was even harder for me to get back on track.

All in all this was a great experiment.  If you have anything to share about morning rituals please leave a comment

This is a follow up to my Morning Ritual – Start Your Day Productive.  While getting up in the morning and jumping into my morning ritual right away can be a bit challenging, I’m really enjoying the experience.

I find that when I first wake up, I have the tendency to get distracted.  Whether I want to check my email, reply to some text messages on my phone or read the news.  These are many of the way I used to start my day in the past.

However once I push myself to get going on my morning ritual, and especially start the physical activity portion of it, the rest takes care of itself.

I’m also finding that it’s a bit easier with some preparation the night before.  If you are planning on taking a walk in the morning, it will help tremendously if you prepare the night before.  Lay out your walking clothing and shoes.  Maybe find your water bottle, and your music player.  This way when you first wake up, everything you need to start your morning ritual is right there and you have no excuse to skip out on it or be distracted.

Some Benefits of the Morning Ritual:

• Getting your physical activity or exercise out of the way first thing in the morning.  This is probably the biggest benefit.  It sets you up for a healthy active day, leaves you feeling energized and ready to take on whatever comes your way.
• Starting the day in a Positive Mindset.  Doing your physical activity and eating a healthy breakfast as part of your morning ritual gets you in a positive mindset.  If later on in the day negativity or laziness tries to sneak in, you will most probably ignore it.  That positive and healthy momentum that you build in the morning tends to stay with you all day.

Some Morning Ritual Issues to Watch our for:

• Perfectionism.  This will certainly make implementing a morning ritual very difficult.  Things will come up.  Maybe you are planning on doing a morning walk, you wake up and it’s raining heavily outside.  If you are a bit of a perfectionist and get angry about this, you will probably just give up on your morning ritual.  Instead be flexible, do your best, try an alternate psychical activity at home, or even skip the physical activity portion of your morning ritual for that day.  Alternate physical activities could include cleaning your house, doing sit-ups, doing push-ups and so on.
• Waking Up Earlier.  You might have to wake up a little earlier than usual to do your morning ritual.  Waking up earlier can be tough.  An easy way to do it is to wake up earlier slowly and gradually.  Maybe wake up 15 minutes earlier everyday this week.  And then next week wake up 30 minutes earlier, and so on.

Your Morning Ritual is simply what you do every morning when you first wake up.  For most of us this is rushing out of bed, and trying to get to work on time.

I’ve read in my many personal development sources about the importance of a morning ritual.  This is a ritual that you come up with to start your day off.  Most sources claim that a morning ritual boosts up your productivity tremendously throughout the day.

While you are free to include anything you want in your morning ritual, some common elements are:

• Physical activity, some kind of exercise like walking, yoga or even going to the gym
• A healthy breakfast (many health guru’s claim that this motivates you to eat healthy the rest of the day)
• A shower or other grooming, cleanliness activities

I decided to give the morning ritual a serious try, and wanted to keep everyone updated on my progress.  I will be trying it for 5 days and posting everyday about my results.  Today was day 1, and here is my morning ritual:

• Drink 0.5 Liter of Water (might add protein powder) – Many claim that this leaves your skin and body feeling healthy after the dehydration that happens during sleep.
• Physical Activity for 30 Minutes.  This could be a walk, a run, or some weight lifting.
• Shower
• Eat a Healthy Breakfast
• Review my Goals & Visualizations & Plan Goals for the Day

In my experiment I will be checking if this really does increase my productivity, and if it’s worth the effort.

Since today was day 1, I did notice the following:

• I woke up feeling a bit lazy, however after the physical activity portion of my morning ritual I was feeling great and ready to tack another day
• I did get a lot more work done than usual
• My head has been a bit clearer, and I have been feeling a bit more energetic

To stay up to date on my morning ritual progress, and findings make sure to subscribe to my rss feed.

Also if you are interested in trying the morning ritual yourself for 5 days and reporting your results, please leave a comment below stating your interest.  I will contact you at the email address you use when submitting the comment.