Developing a Morning or Evening Routine: how to get started
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Having a morning or evening routine is seen as the holy grail of self-care. Yet, for many of us, the thought of building in even more activity into our already packed day is daunting, to say the least. However, it’s precisely because we are busy that we need self-care!
Before I go any further though, let me be clear; self-care-related activities should be things that energise you, that make you feel good, and well, cared for. Self-care activities are NOT things you feel you ‘should’ be doing, or anything chore-like.
And why is self-care important?
As well as helping you feel good, and restoring your energy, self-care also assists with you feeling calm, clear, and confident. When you look after your own needs, which is what self-care is all about, you bring the best of yourself to all situations. This in turn boosts your sense of well-being, clarity of thought, and self-confidence.
One of the best ways to build in self-care (either getting started, or more) IS to develop a morning or evening routine. And whilst I now have a great morning and evening routine, it hasn’t always been this way.
Today I want to share with you a little about how you can gradually, and in a way that aligns with you and your preferences, build a daily self-care routine to support you feel good and energised.
Start small
The first tip is to start small. Like all habits, whether they be eating healthily, exercising, or any other productivity-related habits, starting small is the way to go.
And when it comes to selecting a self-care activity, choose one that feels easy, fun, and right for YOU.
When identifying self-care habits with my clients, one chose to start the day with quiet reading. That was his small step. Another client loves a candlelit bath 3 to 4 times a week and embraced that as her self-care. Another client enjoys online gaming as downtime and found spending 30 minutes gaming helped him reset and restore his energy.
What constitutes self-care is a personal choice.
For me, I started with a gratitude journal. I promised myself I would write just three things in my gratitude journal at the end of every day, before bed. By making it really simple – only three things! - I made it doable. I used an existing empty notebook I had lying around and placed it with a nice pen next to my side of the bed.
That was the first small step.
Then each night before I turned the light off, I saw the journal and jotted down just three things I was grateful for that day. At first, I didn’t even bother writing them in sentences. Literally three words on numbered lines. This was the simplest and easiest way for me to get started with a daily self-care habit.
For you, your self-care simple starter step might be quite different. Perhaps you love coffee, but have been rushing your morning cup? In which case a simple self-care routine would be to allow yourself five more minutes to truly enjoy and luxuriate in the smell, taste, and sensation of consuming your morning beverage.
Alternatively, the best self-care care for you may feel like moving your body. Simply doing a couple of downward dog yoga stretches upon waking might be your first simple step to a new self-care daily habit.
2. Build consistency
Once you have identified your simple starter step to daily self-care, continue to do it. Now, this sounds relatively straightforward but is actually where it gets hard. It’s pretty easy to do a new activity for a couple of days. Yet it is far more challenging to continue to do it for many weeks.
But, this is where you are building a habit.
And with self-care habits, the key is to keep doing them. Although not every single self-care item you have decided upon will be appropriate to do every single day.
However, your key daily habits or activities should be things that you both enjoy doing AND are suitable to do every day. As a bonus, if when you do them every day you actually feel energised and good in yourself – they are the activities to build into a daily habit. After all, that is the point of self-care – to enhance our well-being.
To assist you with building consistency, my suggestion is to undertake your self-care activity at a similar time every day.
As in the example above, I completed my gratitude journal every night before bed. It took about a month to build this into a consistent habit. And now, many years later, I find it is hard to go to sleep if I haven’t written in my gratitude journal.
3. Add to it
Once you have established your starter step and have built a regular daily practice, the fun really begins! This is where you can then select an additional one or two self-care habits that you would like to add to your daily practice.
For best results, when starting out it is recommended to add your new habit either side of your existing habit. This is using the strategy of pairing (Gretchen Rubin talks about this in her book Better than Before).
So for example, if you want to build in some meditation, you might do that before you do your yoga stretches.
Or similarly, if you have existing habits around an evening routine (like my gratitude journal), you may wish to build in some free journaling before you complete your usual habits, like washing your face, or reading a book.
Alternatively, if you had chosen to savour your morning coffee, your next self-care habit might be to add in 5 minutes of quiet reflection whilst your coffee is brewing.
4. Experiment and customise
Over time, as you slowly add activities to your daily self-care routine that nourish, energise, and restore your sense of equilibrium, you will no doubt experiment and customise your daily self-care practices. This is both normal and ideal.
What suits you in one season of your life may not suit you in another.
For example, early morning yoga as the sun rises maybe wonderful in summer and be truly nurturing for your body and soul. But come winter the sun may be rising too late, and trying to align your yoga time with sunrise may result in feeling rushed or late for work, the opposite of the benefits in summer!
An example from my own daily self-care habits; I knew the benefits of meditation and wanted to add them into my daily routine. I attempted to pair meditation with my gratitude journal, in the evening before bed. I persevered for some months, but it just didn’t work. When I switched to meditating in the morning, however, everything shifted! Now my morning routine includes meditation, which I love, and my evening routine is simple reflection and journaling.
5. Get support
This one perhaps should be higher up the list, because the key to being able to maintain a daily self-care routine or habit is to have the support of others who are in your household or life. Particularly if you are a partner or parent, explaining the benefits of why the self-care habits are important to you and how they assist you to fill your own cup, can be very useful!
Personally, I found explaining that my self-care habits ensure I am a more present, patient, and fun partner and parent meant my family was completely on board! It helped that they actually felt the benefits – the days when I completed my morning or evening routine, I was happier, more patient and more engaged, and ready to be fully present with the kids. Because of this, they are very supportive of knowing that is my time, and they do their best to support me to have self-care time every day.
Therefore, I recommend you have a quick chat with those you live with to get them on board with your new plan. In addition to them supporting you, they can also hold you accountable if that is something you need. After all, the vast majority of us will be more likely to complete activities if we know someone else is expecting us to do so.
If building habits is hard for you, getting one of your family members to hold you accountable can be a great way to make sure you actually build that worthwhile habit.
When getting started, support can be in the form of external prompts or tools. For example, journal prompts can support you get started with gratitude journaling, or by downloading a meditation app (or two!) so you can practice meditating with a guide or timer. My daily journal prompts are FREE to download and offer more than 25 different prompts for morning and evening use – perfect to get you started with a daily journaling self-care habit.
Finally, working with a coach (that’s me!) is another way to get support to build your daily self-care habits. Many of my clients say they would like to be more present, feel calm, confident, and clear about their life, but are too busy. Building in some self-care every day helps them feel more grounded, centered, and yes, calm, confident, and clear!
All my clients, whether career, business, and/or life coaching, benefit from building their self-care muscle. If you’d like to do the same, book your complimentary consult, and together we can determine if coaching is right for you.
