Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
Abraham Lincoln
Becoming a morning person is one of the best decisions I’ve ever taken. Since I started waking up at 6 am, my life change drastically. Now, I have so much time to spend with myself in the mornings (time that I wouldn’t have if I wake up late).
However, when we try to become a morning person, we must avoid bad habits because they won’t allow us to make progress. In this article, I want to share 11 bad habits you MUST not do in the mornings if you want to work on yourself, on your personal growth or accomplish some new goals.
11 Bad Habits You Must Not Do in The Mornings
Most of the bad habits are things that we do unconsciously because they seem to be normal for us. As we do them in a daily basis, we don’t notice the damage that they can cause to our life.
Hope you can avoid these 11 bad habits so you can have a better routine.
Waking up late
I know that it’s a bit weird to that waking up late is a bad habit. However, waking up in a hurry every single day won’t give you some space to work on yourself.
I started waking up at 6 am. because I wanted to have time for myself. I used to wake up and get up at 7 or 7:30 am, and then I had any time for doing my activities.
Now, I wake up at 6 am. Only one hour before than I used to. And I can do new things like working out for 30 minutes, practicing yoga, planning my day, and setting my intentions.
You might also like to know how to stay focused while working from home.
Checking your phone right after waking up
We don’t want to start our morning checking social media, emails, or bad news. If we use our cellphone as soon as we wake up, we’ll start comparing our life to others on social media; we’ll read emails about work that we don’t have to read yet because it’s too early; we’ll be worried about bad news.
Avoid your cellphone for at least one hour. We don’t need it, and we should even dedicate that time to do something that help us to feel better, and more inspired.
Staying in bed when you already woke up
I learned the 5-minute rule. If you wake up, you have 5 minutes to stay in bed until you get up to move your body and mind. It works for me!
Motivation is not always there, so consistency is my best friend. I wake up early because I want to work out, so my 5-minute rule must be: ‘I stay in bed just 5 minutes more, but then I have to move my booty and get out of my bed.’
Staying in bed will only increase your desire to get back to sleep. And laziness is not our best friend, girl!
Keeping bed unmade
Another bad habit that will send us right to our bed. Two things can happen if we don’t make our bed as soon as we wake up.
- We might get back to bed.
- We felt that our entire house is untidy and dirty.
It’s like a visual effect. We see the bed unmade and everything is out of place. Right? So, we should avoid these types of feelings in the morning because we need to feel relaxed and connected to ourselves, not worried.
Having coffee as your first drink
The first drink that we all must have is water. Our body loses so much water during the night, so we normally wake up a bit dehydrated. Drinking caffeine is not a good habit, and our body won’t like that.
Our entire body is water, so we must drink water before anything else.
You can keep a bottle right next to your bed, so the first thing that you’ll see is your water bottle.
Starting your day with complaints
The purpose of having a great morning is not feeling stressed or angry. Therefore, what happen if we start our day complaining about certain things? We’ll create a weird atmosphere and end up feeling negative emotions.
Don’t focus your attention on bad things.
Not moving your body
You’re body was in the same two or three positions all night, which means that in the mornings, we need to move it or simply stretch it.
From practicing yoga or pilates to working out or going for a walk. Any activity that helps you to move your body works.
Not letting the sun in
The sun helps us to soothe melatonin production, increase the output of serotonin, and clear the sensation of feeling groggy. The morning sunlight has some kind of magic that we should receive. Not letting the sun in is the worst habit that we can avoid in just a minute.
Tomorrow morning, remember to open the curtains right after you get up.
Hitting the snooze button
You deserve having a good sleep every single night. You deserve sleeping.
However, hitting the snooze bottom is not healthy. You press the snooze bottom, try to sleep, but then the alarm starts sounding once again. It’s impossible to have a good sleep in that ‘5 minutes more’.
Therefore, instead of hitting the snooze bottom, wake up, just open your eyes, and spend those 5 minutes more trying to wake up your brain and body. Apply the 5-minute rule to everything if you want. But just 5 minutes.
Not planning your day
Starting your day without intentions and to-do lists is the worst thing that you can do. Unless, the day that you decided to start without a plan or a to-do list is your free day.
Planning your activities will help you to organize your time, feel more relaxed during the day, and be aware of the free time that you have.
You can start small. Just write down the things that you must do (priority 0), then the things you have to do (priority 1), and the things that you want to do (priority 2).
Find your most productive hour of the day to do the most complex or difficult things.
Not having breakfast
Food is our fuel.
We need to eat to stay active and to be able to move and think properly.
Skipping breakfasts is not an option. So, if you do that right now, try to change the bad habit by eating at least something light in the morning.
Conclusion
Bad habits damage our possibilities to accomplish our goals. Those habits won’t help us to grow or to be a better version of ourselves. I recommend avoiding them or switching to healthy habits that you can implement right away into your life.