Morning routine for optimists 

That’s why I get up early 

Your morning routine is very important for getting your day off to a good start and ensuring that it continues well. I don’t like rules. But then, who does? Any partial or long-term restrictions go against my enormous desire for freedom. Even those that I impose on myself. At the same time, I realize that they are necessary. If I want to achieve my goals, I first have to make rules and then be able to stick to them. I will write down the rules I have made for my breakfast so that I can start my day optimistically.

Morning routine

Without an alarm clock, I wake up at 6 a.m. on my own. (I don’t understand how this is possible either. 🙂 ) As soon as I open my eyes, I start the day with a big stretch (I think I learned this from my dog, who always did the same thing after a good night’s sleep). Stretching is actually very good for your muscles and bones. It’s pleasant and healthy, so it’s the first joyful activity of the day. While stretching, I think about how grateful I am for my life. For having a job, a home, a loving family, great friends, and enjoyable hobbies. So I play a gratitude list in my head. This list is not on SoundCloud and cannot be downloaded from Spotify. Everyone has to create this list for themselves.

For a coffee lover like me, morning coffee is naturally the first gastronomic pleasure of the day. I usually sip it while snuggled back in bed. You can’t just gulp it down! It has to be taken drop by drop, like an infusion. That’s how it breathes life into you. While sipping my coffee, I take out my laptop and read. This is when I can tackle the texts and tasks that I didn’t have time for the day before. If I wrote a blog post the day before, I reread it in the morning with a clear head. I usually find a lot of mistakes in it and come up with new ideas for what else I could write. But I don’t spend hours on this task. After coffee, I have to have breakfast in half an hour.

Diet breakfast

Breakfast is very important for me to start my day off right. While American celebrities can’t imagine their mornings without green smoothies, I can’t imagine mine without chocolate porridge or a nice sandwich. For years, I ate chocolate porridge every morning. Nowadays, I only have it once or twice a week, and on other days I start my day with a sandwich made from homemade bread rolls.

My breakfast of oats, which I pour almond milk over and mix with high-cocoa cocoa powder, a pinch of cinnamon, and birch sugar, is a treat that I need to start my day off right. The fiber in it supports metabolic processes, the fat content of cocoa provides energy, cinnamon is a tiny fat burner, and almond milk supposedly contains calcium (but I wouldn’t be so sure about that).

After breakfast, I take my vitamins. In alphabetical order: C, D, magnesium, omega 3, and of course grapefruit seed extract, which is a real elixir during the virus season.

Planning

After breakfast, I think about my daily tasks. I take out my diary and a piece of paper. I check my calendar to see what tasks are scheduled and think about what I need to do that day. I make a list of these on the piece of paper. Then I mark them with numbers in order of importance so that at the end of the day I can enjoy checking off every item (of course, this rarely happens, because usually unplanned things get squeezed into my list that I can’t say no to, but fortunately one of my strong positive qualities is flexibility).

All these routine activities help me start the day optimistically, because I fill myself with positive thoughts and experiences early in the morning. It is important for me not to have to rush, so I am willing to get up earlier. A healthy breakfast nourishes my body, and organizing my thoughts nourishes my soul. I think it’s a good way to start the day. I hope many of you start your day in a similar way.