Harnessing the Power of Mornings

 female hands with coffee cup and victory sign sticking out from the blanket at home or hotel

Last time, we discussed the power of time chunking in order to reach your goals. Today, we’ll talk about the power of mornings. Let me begin by saying that I am not a natural morning person. Unlike my hubby, who easily arises without an alarm each day to work out before heading off to work, I pretty much always need an alarm (and am not sending it loving thoughts when it goes off each day). For many years, I was a self-professed night owl but now find that after a long day of work, exercise, dog walking, and kid activities, all my brain can handle at the end of the day is a good Netflix show with my hubby. I often hear this same sentiment from my coaching clients so know that I’m not alone. From firsthand experience, I also know that harnessing the power of mornings doesn’t come as naturally to some as for others. This will hopefully give you the motivation you need to try getting up a little earlier so you can use the magic of those early morning hours before the rest of the world awakens.

Ways you can use early morning time:

1) Start your day with a win. Some people like to start their day off with exercise (one of my career coaching clients walks before work at 4a each morning, come rain or shine). Personally, you couldn’t pay me to work out at 4a but I do make my bed first thing upon awakening so as to get that psychological win. The goal is to start off the day having accomplished something. (Note: small wins are still wins so make it easy on yourself and set yourself up to succeed).

2) Self-care. Whether you meditate, journal, go for a walk or sit outside with a hot cup of coffee, if you start out the day doing something for yourself, it makes it easier to stay grounded when the chaos of the day starts, the kids wake up, work notifications start flooding your phone, etc. You feel more centered and ready to handle your day when you put the oxygen mask on yourself first.

3) Set an intention for the day. This is an easy or quick way to set the tone for the day. It takes a minute and you can do it while you’re still sitting in bed if you want or you can wait until you’re sipping your favorite morning beverage. Simple take a few deep, cleansing breaths and think about your day and what you would like to intend before the sun goes down. You could set an intention that a work presentation goes smoothly, or simply that you will stay in the present moment and listen more than you talk that day.

4) Get quality work time in. There is magic in the time before the actual “workday” begins. Some of my career coaching clients tell me they have so many meetings and tasks throughout the day that they just don’t have time for bigger project planning or strategic thinking. Schedule a block of time before the first meeting of the day (give yourself 30-60 minutes of time) and devote it to the bigger picture things you haven’t had time for. (Note:don’t check work email until after you’ve accomplished your task or you will get sucked into the email rabbit hole and will waste that time).

5) Make art. Many of my life-coaching and career-coaching clients have a creative side and often find that they don’t have time to devote to their art. The early mornings are a great time to carve out dedicated time for painting, writing, etc. This is one of the big ways I use my mornings as I’ve written several novels this way and writing is so fun for me that it’s one of my main motivators for getting up early in the morning. And yes, your brain gets in the habit of being creative then—in fact, I’ve found that I’m able to write more freely when I’m a little tired because my internal editor is still napping so I get more done. (Note: if you have small children in the house, it’s probably not the time for practicing your latest tuba composition so musicians may need to take that into account)

Tips to ensure successful mornings:

1) Get adequate sleep. Go to bed at a reasonable time the night before to ensure adequate quality sleep. While some may thrive on 6 hours of sleep, others need between 7-8 hours per night to feel well-rested. Try using a meditation to help you fall asleep faster and go into deeper stages of sleep where the quality magic happens in your body.

2) Program your coffee or tea maker the night before. I don’t know about you but it’s way easier for me to wake up with the aroma of fresh brewed coffee in the air. A perk of my hubby being a morning person is he gets up and brews the coffee so that a hot cup of coffee is waiting next to my bedside when I wake up each morning (yes, I’m spoiled).

3) Have a goal for the morning. If you have a picture in mind beforehand of what you desire your morning to look like, it will be easier to get up with that goal in mind. For some of my clients, it’s exercise. For others, it’s having quiet reflection time to themselves with coffee and journaling before their household wakes up. For others, it’s working on a project or work task, or making art, or meditating. You may have different goals depending on the day. Whatever your thing is, declare it the night before and it makes it easier when that alarm goes off in the morning.

BONUS: Read The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. I love this book and recommend it to many of my clients. It’s a quick, easy read but also easy to implement. You can pick and choose what works for you and use that to help you design the morning of your dreams.  

To Sum Up:

How you start your day impacts how the rest of your day goes. If you hit the snooze button multiple times and then frantically rush around trying to get to work or get the kids off to school on time, you are starting your day in chaos. You get to choose. Choose to take power back over your mornings and start the day feeling great. Once you experience the impact of designing your ideal mornings, you’ll never look back.

Want to work with Dr. Kristi and design your dream life? Dr. Kristi works with clients all over the world thanks to the magic of the internet. Sign up for a free 20-minute consultation to see if coaching is a good fit for you! Contact drkristi@prosperitycoachingandconsulting.com to schedule today.

Harnessing The Power of Time Chunking To Achieve Goals

Man creating schedule on digital calendar

General Goal Setting

One of the main aspects of coaching involves clarifying goals and then breaking those goals down into small, actions steps. Goals can often feel so big and overwhelming that you don’t know where to start … so you don’t do anything at all (action paralysis). Once the goals are broken down into much smaller steps, it becomes manageable and you’re much more likely to succeed when you just focus on “the next step” rather than the huge goal.

The power of small, consistent steps over time has been proven time and time again. In the financial realm, simply investing once a month allows the magic of compound interest to do its thing over the years. Exercising just several times per week yields enormous health benefits in the long term and lowers your risk for many undesired conditions. On the personal front, reading a bedtime story to your child each night or a making time for a date night each week with a significant other can prove immeasurable in terms of the quality of your relationships with your loved ones.  

You can check out my previous post on Mastering Daily Goals (from my 4-Part Goal-Setting Series) for tips and tricks that I teach to my career-coaching and life-coaching clients about how to maximize their time. However, sometimes we can lose motivation doing something day in and day out—it’s why auto-investing for retirement or exercising with a friend are so successful. Every goal does better with a little boost that makes the goal easier to accomplish.

This is where time chunking can make a big difference. Many people have daily to-do lists involving multiple goals but it can often feel like the more you cross off, the more things you’re adding to the list. You don’t always feel like you’re making progress in each area. So, the key isn’t just to break down goals into smaller steps; it’s also to break them down into more efficient time blocks.

Why you sometimes need a different type of goal-setting:

Many people set goals at the beginning of a year but a year is a long time. It’s difficult to sustain motivation for 12 months. Additionally, some goals aren’t long-term and are more time dependent or specific. It’s much easier to sustain energy toward a goal for a week, a month, or even a quarter. Three-month “sprints” toward goals are popular for a reason (I tend to write my fiction novels in 12-week sprints) and it’s why I offer several 12-week coaching packages to my life and career-coaching clients. The momentum tends to be stronger during shorter periods of time and you can accomplish a ton when you are laser-focused and excited.

What exactly is time chunking? Time chunking simply involves condensing several action items toward one specific goal into a “chunk” of time. So, rather than do tasks scattered throughout the day or week toward multiple goals, you schedule a larger block of time where you tackle 3-4 action items toward one desired goal. You dive deep into tasks related to that one goal and therefore make faster progress in that area. You are more focused and ultimately more productive.

How is that different than regular goal-setting? Say you have an overall goal of improving your health and fitness for the year. Rather than setting an overall goal of exercising three times per week for the next year (doesn’t that just sound long and boring?), you create a sprint goal such as your own personal Health & Wellness Month where you dedicate a chunk of time three mornings per week where you exercise, meditate for 5 minutes, and journal. Track your progress on a chart or planner to ensure success (Note: feel free to email me if you want a free tracking sheet you can customize). Yes, it may involve getting up a little earlier three mornings per week but again, you’re only committing to it for a month. You will notice a much bigger difference in one month by doing time chunking.

Why it Works? As mentioned earlier, you are dedicating a block of time to something and can make more progress faster by staying focused on that one goal. If you have your own business, you may set aside a weekly block of time for marketing or social media. You may have another time for writing blog posts or going over your business plan. Many of my clients swear by setting aside weekly or monthly chunks of time for strategic planning—that big-picture planning we often lose when we get caught up in day-to-day tasks. Finally, by making it a time-limited goal, you’re setting yourself up to succeed at it … and that feeling creates more motivation to tackle something else. You can then change things up and tackle a different goal the next week or month.

Make It Fun

It’s always easier to stay motivated when something is fun. Create a theme week or month around your goal and name it something creative or humorous. One of my clients had been putting off a lot of financial tasks that he had to do because they involved tedious things such as finding multiple documents and doing paperwork. He decided to create a Financial Freedom theme week, where he addressed multiple financial tasks each day in chunks of time after work, and even met with a financial planner at the end of it all (and subsequently found out he could retire much earlier than he’d thought!) That one week made a huge difference in his life. He told me he wished he’d done it years ago.

Use time-chunking to address your biggest desires. Been meaning to update your resume and cover letter because you’re ready to move on? Have a Take This Job & Shove It week. Need more work/life balance? Have a Find My Inner Zen month. Is your basement in desperate need of decluttering? Enjoy The Purge week. Need more quality time with your partner? Make it a Love, Lust, and Chocolate month. You get the idea. The key is then breaking your theme down into daily or weekly tasks that will allow you to accomplish your goals.

Time-Chunking Challenge

Think of a theme week around a goal you have in any area of your life. Then, apply time-chunking and schedule several blocks of time for the week (actually put in in your calendar!) where you get specific and list several tasks you will accomplish during each time. See how you feel at the end of the week and email me to let me know how it went!  

Want to work with Dr. Kristi on life or career goals? Email drkristi@prosperitycoachingandconsulting.com to schedule a free 20-minute consultation today.