We all have habits that we do without even thinking about them. Getting up at the same time each day, brushing our teeth, drinking tea/coffee, squeezing our partners bum whenever they walk past! We’re creatures of habit and somethings are just so ingrained, we don’t even realise they are habits.

Something you read a lot about in business is the importance of morning rituals. There’s things like the “5am club” and the “power hour” but what if you are just not into waking up that early. The idea of getting up 3 hours earlier makes you feel sick and you need a full 8 hours sleep, and you have no idea how on earth people can go to sleep by 10pm at night!

Don’t get me wrong, these techniques definitely work for some people, and if you have pre-school kids, then it makes sense to try and get up before they do so you can blast some of your to-do list before the little treasures start causing chaos for you.

Maybe you’ve tried joining the 5am club and just ended up incredibly pissed off and tired, or angry at yourself for not being able to get up early, the cosy bedness and the body heat of your lover just too good to give up when you’re half asleep.

Does this mean you’ve got a 0% chance of running a successful business? Of course it doesn’t! You just have to make the right decisions for you and that includes setting your day up right with some powerful morning rituals that will have you pumped up for the day, feeling good and ready to face any challenges that come your way.

I’m definitely not a morning person, and I’ve always found getting out of bed challenging, but I usually wake up around 8am. My alarm on my phone is connected to a Spotify playlist that has songs that relate to my Core Desired Feelings (shout out to Danielle La Porte!) so as soon as I wake up, I’m reminded about how I want to feel. 

Ok I’m going to get really real here….

I often wake up with a sense of dread, a panic about what I have to do that day and the expectations that others have of me. Anxiety will jump into bed with me real quick if I let it. So that’s why it’s important that I have strategies in place to help me kick it into touch.

Recently, I’ve added a new habit to my wake-up routine. I’ve been reading The Artist’s Way to help me strengthen my relationship to my creativity and boost my confidence in my writing, outside of what I do for work. One of the key elements of The Artist’s Way is completing your Morning Pages, every day, first thing, no matter what. 

Each morning, I’ll make myself a cuppa and then get back into bed with a cuppa and write my three pages of A4. They can be about anything, it’s free writing so whatever you need to get out of your head you can. I’ve found that it’s really helped me deal with that to-do list panic. And it’s proving to me that I can write, whatever my mood is, and I’m so excited to see my whole notepad full of my words, which will happen in just a couple of weeks! 

Like many women I know, I’ve had a complicated relationship with my body in the past. Disordered eating at high school, heavy drinking at university created a slut/slob dynamic in my head, where I would either feel like the sexiest mofo on the planet, or like the fattest brute in a miniskirt… I’ve had times where I’ve been shamed for having too much back fat and I’ve felt embarrassed when people have commented on my “skinny wrists”.

For me, having a naked dance (and I do it in front of the mirror as well) is a way to confirm that my body is absolutely fine the way it is. That I don’t need the approval of others to appreciate my own body. It’s not to win any symmetry prizes that’s for sure, but symmetry is overrated anyway! Show me lopsided tits, one leg shorter than the other, that weird little finger that bends just a little bit too far back.. There’s so much beauty in what we might consider flaws.

My feet step and jump and spin, my arms wave, my shoulders roll, my boobs jiggle and swing, I see the cellulite on my thighs and butt and it’s all good, because this is mine. I love what I have.

Dance lowers stress and raises levels of happy hormones like serotonin and dopamine. And because dancing boosts your heart rate, it increases blood flow throughout the body, including the brain. Which I’m pretty sure means dancing makes you smarter! I feel grateful for my body and although my individual body parts may not be “perfect” they are still fabulous. Together they make up this gorgeous package of fabulosity, yeah this one RIGHT HERE!

The next part of my ritual is getting outside, no matter the weather. If it’s cold or raining, I might do this before the shower and naked dance, so the hot water can warm me up again.  I’m lucky enough to have a garden, which I love being out in, noticing what’s going on out there.

Sometimes, I go out to hang the washing on the line, pinging any dew off the line first. (this was something I loved to do as a kid too!) and I look at the grass for signs of the neighbourhood badger. (He likes to dig holes in the lawn to look for worms and bugs!) The other day Mr Badge had made loads of holes in the grass and a spider had put webs in every single one! It looked crazy! And it wasn’t something I had ever seen before. It’s amazing what we can notice when we really look.

I planted flower seeds in the summer so I’ve really enjoyed watching them grow from nothing into a full on flower mayhem which the bees and butterflies have been enjoying. Dean’s been getting a run down on how many bees were in the flowers each morning. In case you’re interested the maximum amount of bees in the flowers I’ve seen at one time was 6, considering it was Sept before they flowered I thought this was pretty good! 

So that’s my morning rituals, how about you? What do you do in the mornings to get yourself set for the day? I’d love to know if you decide to try any of my suggestions!