Hey, Driver…

My suggestion for you and your week ahead is to see how the following morning routine can help you determine a strong and healthy, out of the blahs and humdrums, clear of feeling anxious or down sort of day(s)… We are all guilty of  waking up, grabbing our phones, scrolling through this app and that app, hitting snooze and falling back to some cheapened version of sleep only to wake after a series of eight minute imposter naps, even foggier than we were before. We then wobble our sleepy selves to the bathroom, glance at our face in the mirror which we meet with a multitude of subconscious judgments, albeit some of those judgments are rather front and center conscious level, only to lug our exhausted selves to the kitchen to push “start” on the coffee maker, and that’s only if we were organized enough the night before to set up such a luxury for the morning. Come on, man…you are the driver of this ship. You can drive much better than this. Step 1:  Be aware that YOU are the driver.  You are not the recipient of your life, you are the maker of your life, the curator of your mindset. Decide that now. Believe that now. This mindset changes everything. Step 2: Set your bedroom up as the restful space it needs to be to support you as you sleep. Clear your bedroom of work, kids’ toys, dirty dishes.  Remove the dirty clothes to the laundry room. Have your phone charger across the room so that your phone is not next to you while you sleep. Make your bed each morning so it is the respite it needs to be each night. Step 3: Before you fall off to sleep, make sure you have had no screen time for the last 45 minutes, if not longer. Have a journal of some sort accessible and write a list of things for which you’re grateful. Seriously.  This list will have you a bit warmer and fuzzier than the minutes before you wrote the list. Drift off to sleep.  If you wake in the night, do not grab your phone to pass the time.  Grab a journal instead and jot down what’s on your mind. Step 4: Give your snooze button the week off. For real. When you wake, do not push snooze on your alarm.  Likely you’re using your phone alarm anyway, which should be across the room on its charger.  Climb out of bed and cross the room to turn it off and find your way to another journal located somewhere  other than your bedroom. I am a believer in having a small collection of journals peppered throughout the home.  I live by myself, so this is likely easier than if you have others who you don’t necessarily want to see your journals.  This is normal, trust me, we all value our privacy.  With that, teach others with whom you live, to value your privacy, just as you will value their’s.  Sit with your morning journal and map out how you will experience the day. THIS IS THE BIG DOG of determining the outcome of your day, that’s right, simply decide. A strong strategy in deciding the outcome of your day is selecting supportive verbiage, therefore, a strong mindset, a total game changer. Here are some examples:

I will enter my day with “first day energy” (remember your first day on the job? How focused you were, how curious and interested you were to meet others and to learn the ropes?).

I will use a lens of compassion towards others, as they are just as human as I am. They, too, likely looked in the mirror this morning and judged themselves.

I will pay attention to the details today. I will focus on being a good listener.

I will experience deadlines as opportunities for me to shine.

I will acknowledge that (most) deadlines are pliable.

I will find my beauty with every glance in the mirror.

Note that these statements aren’t things like:

I will have a GOOD day.  I will be happy, damnit. Everything will be wonderful today. My life is one amazingly beautiful rainbow.

While those are awesome sentiments, they set us up to “fail” because it is highly likely that SOMEthing challenging will happen in your day, that someone will be an ass, that keys will get misplaced, that milk will get spilled, but it’s how we RESPOND to these annoyances that make or break us. And how we respond is a decision to be made in advance… and noted in our morning journals. Godspeed, dear ones. You’ve got this. In wellness, Beth Clardy Lewis Founder at Vervewell Founder and Maker at LongLiveLively.org Author: Stop Talking About Your Childhood (self help for a strong adulthood) To schedule 1:1 sessions with Beth, click here

---