Romanticize Your Mornings: 6 Tiny Rituals That Will Make You Feel Like a Different Woman

So for most of my adult life, my morning routine consisted of waking up at 7 a.m., splashing water on my face, getting my kids up and ready for school, and making breakfast and lunches for everybody, braiding my daughter's hair, and then there was a mad dash to school hoping to not be late.

There was nothing peaceful about my mornings, and I really didn't look forward to them, which sucked because I have always been a morning person.

I always have the most energy and I am in the best mood the first half of the day.

And I have been that way my entire life.

So I knew that I was doing something wrong.

I was finally able to change this routine when I got divorced and moved into my own place six years ago.

And not to be dramatic, but creating a morning routine around my goals and my needs has changed my life.

So let's start here because I think this is the part that people tend to just skip past.

The way you start your morning isn't just the first part of the day.

It's more like setting the tone for the whole day.

If you started rushed, stressed, and already feeling behind, because you're on your phone already responding to other people before you've had a moment to check in with yourself, that's the energy that you're bringing into everything else during the day.

It shows up in the meetings.

It shows up in the way you talk to people that you love.

You're playing catch up before you've even had breakfast.

And here's what I think we get backwards about this.

We treat the mornings like it's just logistics.

We get up, we get out the door, whatever gets you moving fastest.

But your nervous system doesn't actually know the difference between efficient and frantic.

It just knows whether it woke up calm or whether it woke up already on the run.

And however it wakes up tends to be how it stays for hours.

I'm not saying a slow morning fixes everything.

It doesn't erase a hard week or a hard year or whatever actually is going on in life.

But I've noticed, for me, that even on the weeks where things feel heavier or my body's just not cooperating the way that I want it to, the mornings where I gave myself even five extra minutes to center myself are before the day took over, that those days felt different.

They weren't perfect.

They were just a bit steadier, like I was ready to meet the day instead of it just slamming into me, if that makes sense.