According to this article, we each can expect to have roughly 25,000 mornings in our adult lives.
What does yours look like? Are you happy with your routine?
I think one of the hardest parts of being a mother to an infant is getting inspired to make grand, sweeping plans and then facing the reality that it may not be the best moment in life to rely on predictability. One has to remind herself: routine will come (on strongly) soon enough.
But having a new little person around, being home and taking some time to just sit quietly nursing or dangling a jingly toy, has a tendency to inspire thinking more broadly… about the big picture. How should I be getting my exercise? How should I establish better eating habits? Am I spending my working hours efficiently? Am I doing the work I want to be doing? Am I making the best choices for both/all of us?
I keep thinking about the chapter in The Power of Habit that says we are most open to changing our habits at life’s big (disruptive) moments—like a move, a birth, a death, etc. So here we are, a new baby, two kids, and it seems like the hardest time of all to consciously establish good habits! I don’t want to overgeneralize, but I think this is at that crux that most new parents find most challenging: balancing their day’s ambitions against their desire to relish parenthood and being there for their children.
In fact, it was sort of a lightbulb moment when I realized that any time I felt frustrated by something Hudson was doing was usually a moment when I was trying to multitask, when we had competing interests. The more time I can spend just following his lead and rolling along, the happier. (Not to say he shouldn’t have to learn to face disappointment, but…)
I have a friend who, like Jack Lalanne, gets up before the sun to get in her 5am workout and a shower, and enjoy an hour of quiet, before her children wake up. I tried it, actually. I signed up for the 5am class and made it to 10 or so sessions before deciding it just couldn’t work for me. 6am? Maybe. But 5am? Nope. But sometimes I think about it when I feel like I need more time in the day, or am wishing for a new morning routine.
In any case, I’m feeling inspired by this article’s eight suggestions for a better morning routine. I love the idea of not looking at my phone or opening my email until noon (at least in theory) because I really do believe that multi-tasking is a terrible time-killer. But for the moment, multi-tasking is the name of the newborn game…
Maybe next month. And that’s okay, too.
What’s your routine?
P.S. Happiness secrets (And thank you to Shoko, for sharing this article with me.)
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