In my Deep Sleep Bootcamp, I get my students to create and maintain a morning routine for the first hour of their day.
This first hour is an investment in you and your life. When you plant the right seeds at this time, your harvest will be good.
Look at routine as a set of tasks that you do almost automatically without consciously engaging your mind. A routine becomes a habit.
What does a captain of a jumbo jet do when he boards the aircraft before a flight?
He carries out a routine check to ensure that he has everything he needs to take this aircraft safely from the originating airport to the destination airport.
This is deeply encoded in his subconscious mind and he checks every parameter he needs to check as per his training and experience.
This routine is essential for a safe and uneventful flight. Hundreds of passengers' lives are at stake as well as the cargo.
The routine he does ensures that they will all arrive safely to their destination.
Your daily routine can be likened to the routine check that a captain does to ensure that you are staying the course that you have set for your life.
Your first hour is one where you spend time with yourself only, no one else.
Give yourself the time and space to commune with your subconscious self and your superconscious self.
The subconscious is the vast power that rests within you, that records everything that has happened to you from when you were in your mother’s womb to the present moment. It knows all.
The superconscious is your higher self that connects to the Creator. You could call it your soul. It is timeless and boundless.
When you give yourself the time and space to ponder, think, connect and build your life, you will be able to create the life of your dreams. Don’t jump out of bed and into your busy day. Wake up with one hour to spare, only for yourself. Schedule this into your daily routine. It is the most important appointment of the day. You are meeting yourself and your Creator. Nothing else is more important than this. So what does this first hour look like?
You wake up, without an alarm. That means you went to bed earlier than usual so you could get this hour for yourself.
5 am is a good time for this. When was the last time you were up at 5 am?
Many of my students had not seen 5 am in their adult life. A few of them go to bed between 1 am and 5 am. And wake up between 8 am and 1 pm. If they are below 25 years old, they may not have yet seen the havoc that it does to their mental and physical health. But those who are older and who have suffered this schedule for over 5 years have experienced the torture of not getting adequate sleep and at the right times.
Getting them to wake up at 5 am is a herculean task. But not impossible. Once they have learned the damage this schedule is doing to their inner being, they shift their schedule to accommodate sleep at the right time.
Within a few days or weeks, they are able to bring their sleep time down to 11 pm or even 10 pm. When they taste the health that they get when they sleep by 10 pm and wake up by 5 am without an alarm, their day starts blooming into a beautiful landscape where they are able to attract outcomes that they struggled to get with their earlier schedule.
Remember the captain of the jumbo jet. A degree change in his course would mean landing way outside the intended destination.
One degree change in your life, towards the life of your choice, would bring about the desired result when you give it enough time.
Wake up 15 or 30 mins earlier every day till you reach your desired waking hour.
So what should you do in the first hour after waking up? Meditation helps you to still your mind, connect with your inner self, and connect with your Creator. If you have never done meditation before, it may sound very difficult. But if you look back in your life, you have mastered a lot of skills that looked difficult before you started it. You are doing many difficult things daily and you make many of them look easy too. Difficult does not mean impossible. What is difficult is having an unhealthy body or an unhealthy mind. Don’t let them become unhealthy. Your morning routine can revive and rejuvenate your body and mind.
Spending time with yourself in stillness, just watching your breath, watching the thoughts drift away like little clouds on a clear sky, listening to your heartbeat, feeling the air whoosh out of you with every exhalation, feeling the presence of your Creator within and without you, can be a very elevating and energising experience.
Once you have done this for 30 mins or at least 15 mins, you can stretch your body and test its limits so that it can serve you powerfully through the day. You can run, do yoga or calisthenics, swim, cycle, dance or move your body to an extent where it feels alive and invigorated.
The first hour of the morning is for you to stretch and test your body, mind, emotions and spirit.
Write down your purpose. Look at your life goals, Today’s To Do list, your bucket list and whatever inspires you to bring the best of yourself to the day.
Prepare your mind to focus on the most important things for yourself that day.
Prepare your body to support and energise you for the day’s activities.
Prepare your emotions to be balanced and supportive through the day.
And connect your spirit with the Creator and your subconcious so you are in alignment the full day.
Wish you productive and happy days ahead!