5 ways to supercharge your morning (without waking up at 5am) 🙌

I’ve gone through so many different iterations of a morning routine trying to make it as efficient and effective as possible.

What I’ve learned over the years is that my morning routine can’t be about packing as much in as possible or waking up at 5am because after a few days, I just stop doing it completely. The effort level is too high and building consistency is too hard.

Instead, I’ve found that I need to prioritize morning habits that balance two factors in equal measure:

👉 They have high return on investment (ROI).

👉 They are easy enough to do long term.

Here are my 5 morning routine habits that actually work AND are easy enough to be sustainable:

1️⃣ Wait at least 30 minutes after you wake up to look at your phone.

This is one of the biggest game changers for a morning routine that we have. When we wake up and give ourselves a giant hit of dopamine by checking our notifications, how can the rest of our day live up to that high? How will you be motivated to do anything else in your morning routine if you begin your day by lying comfortably in bed checking social media? There is nothing on your phone that can’t wait an extra 30 minutes.

2️⃣ Do something challenging.

Rather than doing something easy like reaching for your phone, encourage yourself to do something challenging. For me, this is doing a 20 minute meditation right when I wake up because everything in my brain tells me to hurry up and get the day started, but if I force myself to meditate it recalibrates what the rest of my day feels like. The more uncomfortable situations we’re willing to put ourselves in like avoiding our phone or meditating before coffee, the better equipped we are to do challenging tasks throughout the day. Your “challenging thing” doesn’t have to be meditating and it doesn’t have to be 20 minutes—find what works for you.

3️⃣ Make a ritual and reward yourself.

The morning routine doesn’t need to be all bad! Once I finish my meditation, I make my favorite coffee and sit down to read for another 20 minutes. Reading in the morning is another habit that is challenging for me to accomplish, but stacking it with morning coffee motivates me to get through a chapter and feel accomplished afterward.

4️⃣ Get moving.

Number 4 is optional because I find it to be extremely polarizing - either it’s a game-changer or it just doesn’t work for you. This habit is movement. Some people feel a huge benefit by getting out of bed and going immediately into push ups, air squats or some simple movement to get the blood flowing. For myself, this is so mentally challenging that it can destroy my entire morning routine. I’d rather have a “pretty good” routine that I can maintain than a “perfect” routine that I can only do for two weeks, so number 4 isn’t on my list. However, I believe this habit is worth a shot to see if it works for you!

5️⃣ Keep a schedule.

This one is a bit cheap because it has nothing to do with the morning routine at all. Number 5 is to go to bed at the same time every night. So much of our motivation for the morning comes from what we do the night before, and research shows that having a consistent bed and wake up time is one of the best ways to get quality sleep. What happens when we get quality sleep? We’re more motivated to do hard things. Going to bed at a regular time means waking up with more energy to 1) stay away from the phone for 30 minutes, 2) do something challenging right when you wake up like meditate, 3) make a ritual and reward like coffee and reading, and 4) maybe even energize your body with some light exercise. Quality sleep makes everything easier.

Quality sleep makes everything easier.

The key is that everyone’s morning routine should look a little different. It’s not about doing my same meditation practice or drinking coffee or reading a book, it’s about breaking down your behaviors into a flow that prioritizes these things:

✅ Avoiding fast dopamine hits right when you wake up

✅ Doing something that is challenging/painful to establish baseline dopamine for the day

✅ Creating ritual & reward so you’re motivated to keep doing your routine with positive reinforcement

If you include some variation of these three things AND you can maintain it long term, you’re on the right track 🙌