A Good Morning Routine Creates Momentum
What you do in the mornings sets the tone for the entire day.
The Law of Momentum, or Newton’s Second Law, states that the rate of change of momentum of an object is proportional to the force acting upon it. In other words, the larger the force acting upon the object, the faster the object’s momentum will increase. Another law related to this is that momentum of an object is determined by the force acting upon it over a time period. In other words, the longer a force acts upon an object, the greater the object’s momentum.
Now the question is this: how does this relate to a good morning routine?
Most people just go by life without having a good, structured, purposeful schedule. A lot of what people do is not based on logical routine, but base on chaotic emotion. The reason being is it is exhausting to think and it is exhausting to do things we don’t like. People would prefer to give in to pleasure rather than do what is beneficial. People are stuck in the short term gratification rather than the long term benefits.
This fact of human nature cannot be anymore obvious than in the mornings of 99% of the population. 99% of the population have a very unstructured morning, not really performing their morning tasks with purpose or urgency. As a result, their day is not executed with purpose (Disclaimer: I made up that statistic).
Only the top 1% of people have an excellent morning schedule that they use to generate momentum for the entire day. Note that even if you have an excellent morning, you cannot be content and have an average day. Doing so will mean you are back with the rest of the 99% of people. And of course, you don’t want that. You want to excel like a true 1%er.
There is a method to the madness of generating momentum for your morning, and living out the day like a true high performer. Here are some keys one should consider to generate momentum for the day from the morning:
1. Start Your Day With A Win
They call it the snowball effect. If you start with a small win, then more wins will accumulate if you keep moving forward with your day. However, it all starts with a small win in the morning.
How to get a small win in the morning? Well, you could start by waking up. There’s that.
When you are awake, decide what to do after rising. However, make sure it is small to start things. It could be making your bed. It could be praying. It could be brushing your teeth. Get that small win in and get the ball rolling.
To have a 1% morning, it must start with a win. Why do you think entrepreneurs wake up at 5am and either exercise or perform their most intense creative work before the sun is even up?
Begin the day with a win by rising and waking up at the set time of your alarm and not hitting snooze or turning off your alarm and limping back to bed. You must fight the urge to fall back onto the pillow and doze off. This takes discipline and willpower, however waking up and commencing your day is the very first win you must obtain.
After that small win, it is up to you what you do. You already have that bit of momentum, and as a result, your body has a small hot of dopamine. Gather another small win by maybe making your bed or saying your morning prayers. As you progress throughout your morning by completing more and more tasks, the wins get bigger and bigger, until you have reached the goal of a 1% day. That is the whole idea of the snowball effect working in your mornings.
This all starts with a small win to generate momentum.
2. Have A Plan
When you make a plan, you create an obligation to yourself that you must follow through on. If you are truly aiming to be a 1%er with a 1% morning, you need to know what to do and how you will execute it.
No momentum can be generated if your mornings are without purpose, and your mornings cannot follow your purpose properly without a constructed plan.
This follows the idea of the small win. Each successive step of your plan you fulfil, you gain another win. A good morning plan gives you routine and consistency. Consistency is a key principle all 1%ers have in their mornings. They can see consistent progress in their endeavours if they follow a structured plan.
A high performer does not just have a plan for one morning. They have a plan for one morning, and the morning after, and the morning after. They plan for each successive morning, because all top performers have an overarching plan for their life.
Make sure the plan for the morning is as detailed as reasonably practical. If you will workout every morning, what is your focus? Strength? Speed? Stamina? and what exercises will you perform? What personal records are you aiming to surpass? These are all 1%er variables that are accounted for.
How will you progress each successive morning? If you are reading books in the morning, what is your plan on progressing through this activity? Will it be you read 10 pages one morning, then 12 pages? 15 pages? If you do not feel like you will be able to perform the task you have designated for that morning, what is your contingency? If you cannot exercise due to injury, what is the contingency? Will you do lighter stretches? Will you do some creative work? Work on a side hustle? Meditate? Meal prep?
Momentum is generated through progression. Hence, your planning process must take into account how you will progress.
Proper planning prevents poor performance. So plan your 1% morning ahead of time.
3. Bite The Bullet
Starting is the hardest part of anything. When you are pushing a sled down a hill, the hardest part is the initial push to get the sled to move. Once it starts moving, the momentum generated by gravity downhill moves the sled forward.
So what does ‘Bite the Bullet’ mean? It means suck it up and do the hard stuff first. The hardest task in any morning is actually waking up. If you are a 99%er, chances are you hit snooze when your alarm goes off, or you don’t even set an alarm but rather wake up when your body chooses to wake up.
A 1%er does not sleep in and waste their morning. They complete the most difficult tasks of the day, because they know that completing the most difficult tasks first thing in the morning makes the rest of their day that much easier.
That is why if a 1% needs to hit a hard workout, they jump onto it immediately after they wake up. If a 1%er needs to work on editing videos for their business blog, they are on the laptop the moment they wake up. If a 1% is aiming to take a cold shower, they do not delay.
The hardest part of developing any high-performing habit is starting. Every high performer knows that once you have started, continuing the habit gets progressively easier.
Why do you think it is so hard to wake up at 5am when you first attempt to do so, but after successfully waking up at that time after maybe a year, it just becomes habit? Why is it that after that habit is established, you have more capability to establish an ever better and more difficult habit?
After you bite the bullet of making your bed, how about cleaning your room? What other difficult tasks can you complete once you learn how to bite the bullet and just do something?
To have a high performing morning, you need to start. An object with irresistible momentum began their journey standing still, with great effort to begin the move. The hardest part of your journey to the top 1% is the beginning.
To have a 1% morning, it all starts by starting.
To have an excellent morning routine of a true 1% performer, you need momentum. The process is simple, but not always easy to follow. However, with persistence, patience and the right attitude, any high-performing morning routine is possible.
I feel very strongly that a good morning routine is required to be your best self. Which is why I recommend checking out and becoming a student in my Skillshare course “Creating a High Performance Morning Routine”. It will teach you strategies on creating a high performing morning routine, while incorporating the concepts outlined here in this piece. Hope I see you there!
