start the day.

You may remember at the end of 2018 when I shared about my morning routine on the blog.

Although I knew how important a morning routine was, it wasn't until I read The Power of Habit last year that I learned how beautifully automatic mornings could become.

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg enlightens his readers about the habit loop.

1. Cue
2. Routine
3. Reward

In any of our daily routines, the habit loop is present.

An example of this might be pulling into the driveway and automatically walking to the mailbox every single day after work.

Another example might be reaching for your house keys to unlock the door as you walk to the house when you get home.

​​These sequences of events are automatic. 

You don't even think about them. 

There's practically no thought necessary to get the mail from the mailbox or unlock your house.

Did you know that humans are wired to make a specific amount of decisions each day?

We each have a certain decision-making capacity and we often use a lot of our decisions on meaningless activities.

(Sidenote: This is often why people make poor food choices late at night. They've hit their decision quota for the day, so they're unable to effectively decide "no ice cream" is the correct option.)

By creating healthy habits in our morning routines (and in other areas of our lives), we create automatic sequences and cut out decisions.

Make your morning routine a habit.

Here is my morning routine:

• Wake up
• Make the bed
• Put on the workout clothes that I laid out the night before
• Workout
• Start the coffee pot
• Shower & get ready for the day
• Make my coffee
• Bible Study/Prayer Time
• Get the kids up and ready

Now...in all honesty, over the last few months, my third and fourth steps have gone away.

I injured my hip while training for a half-marathon back in the fall and I wasn't able to workout for several months.

Now I'm healthy again and will need to re-train myself to include that working out habit in the mornings.  For now, it's a daily decision.

The beauty of the habit cue is that we have the power to change our habits.

Last summer, I started experimented with habit loops.

When my feet hit the floor every morning, I would turn around and make the bed.

Within two minutes of my alarm going off, I have already accomplished something and now every time I walk by the bedroom through the day, I will remember that accomplishment.  

As part of my bedtime routine, I've laid out my workout clothes and my clothes for the day.

Once the bed is made, I put on my workout clothes and head outside to run, to the basement to the treadmill, or to the living room to workout with a video.

It is automatic and once those clothes & tennis shoes are on, it sure is easier to get that movement taken care of first thing in the morning instead of having to decide to fit it in later in the evening.

After my workout, I start the coffee pot as I walk to the shower.

When I'm out of the shower and ready for the day, I make coffee and do my Bible study.

Cue (feet hit the floor)
Routine (make the bed)
Reward (feeling of accomplishment by 5:02 a.m.)

Cue (bed is made)
Routine (put on my workout clothes & workout)
Reward (healthy mindset for the rest of the day)

Cue (workout is finished)
Routine (start the coffee & shower)
Reward (kickstart my day with movement, Jesus, and coffee!)

It is SO AUTOMATIC.  I don't ever miss a Bible study anymore (or coffee!).

By the time the girls get up and around, I've made the bed, had 30 minutes of activity, and have done my quiet time with Jesus. 

And the beauty of it is that I didn't have to DECIDE to do any of these things.

The habit is there.

The reward from one habit loop becomes the cue for the next habit loop.

My mornings at home run like this now and I cannot even believe I lived for so long without understanding how habits work.

I hope you'll consider developing a morning routine over the next few weeks.  

Take some time to really think about the habit loops that you find yourself in the first part of your day.

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Headed out to church this morning. What a beautiful, autumn morning it was. #skagway #thesevenexperiment #adrianchristianchurch #countrysunrise

A post shared by Hannah Newkirk (@farmhouse654) on Oct 13, 2019 at 4:45pm PDT

Enjoying my mornings at the farmhouse,
Hannah