A few years ago, I woke up at 11:47 AM. I had gone to bed at 2, telling myself I’d get up at 7 to “take control of the day.”
Instead, I blew through alarms, skipped breakfast, and found myself staring into a cold coffee cup at noon, already feeling behind.
That wasn’t new; it was happening a lot. I kept making plans I couldn’t stick to and then beating myself up when they didn’t work.
That’s when it hit me: the problem wasn’t my willpower. It was the way I kept designing routines that weren’t meant for the kind of life I actually live.
Small Wins Are the Only Way In
Forget the perfect schedule. The best routines start like this: stupidly small, unglamorous, and borderline too easy.
For me, it began with two steps: get out of bed when the alarm rings, and drink a full glass of water. That was it.
No journaling, no workout, no mental prep for the day. Just two things I could finish in under three minutes.
I did that for a week. It was the first time I felt like I had a routine that didn’t instantly fall apart. It worked because it didn’t rely on morning motivation, which, let’s be honest, barely exists.
If It’s Not Yours, It Won’t Last
At one point, I had a morning routine copied from three YouTube videos and a podcast episode.
It included meditation, stretching, reading nonfiction, writing three pages in a journal, and preparing a “mindful” breakfast. Know what it felt like? Homework. No matter how often I heard that those habits were good for me, they didn’t fit me.
What finally stuck was a version that felt personal. I write in the mornings because that’s when my thoughts are clearest.
I take short walks because I think better when I’m moving. I listen to music that gets my brain going. No lectures. Just what works.
Rigidity Is a Good Way to Fail
My routine used to fall apart every time life got messy. Overslept? Missed a step? Day ruined. It was all or nothing.
I’d miss one part of it and spiral. That’s what happens when you treat your routine like a fragile tower: take out one piece and the whole thing collapses.
Now, I treat it more like a playlist. There’s a full version and a short version. On low-energy days, I keep it bare: wake up, wash face, make coffee, stretch.
That’s enough. The point is not to perform productivity. It’s to feel like I’m steering my day, not reacting to it.
Take Decision-Making Off the Table
Mornings suck when they start with ten tiny choices: what to wear, what to eat, what to do first. I used to lose twenty minutes deciding what notebook to write in. No joke.
Now I prep the basics the night before. I set my clothes out, queue up a playlist, and put my coffee stuff where I can’t miss it.
That five-minute setup doesn’t require effort; it removes effort. You shouldn’t be relying on willpower at 6:45 AM.
Set the stage ahead of time so you can just move through it without thinking too much.
Don’t Build a Fantasy Routine
There’s a version of you that lives on Pinterest boards and vision journals. They wake up early, glow from within, and never check their phone first thing.
And then there’s the version of you who has a life—real stress, imperfect sleep, texts at midnight, and mornings that sometimes start slow.
Your routine needs to be built for that person. It should be something you can actually live through, not something you constantly fail at and then feel bad about.
It should work even on the worst Tuesday of the month. If it only works on perfect days, it’s useless.
What’s Actually Worth Protecting
The real value of a morning routine isn’t that it makes you “productive.”
It’s that it gives you something solid before the noise of the day shows up. It reminds you who you are before emails, messages, deadlines, errands, and other people’s priorities start shouting for your time.
Mine gives me 45 quiet minutes to write, walk, and just exist without reacting to anything. That’s not fancy. That’s survival.
When I skip it for too long, everything feels harder. When I stick with it—even just the smallest version—life has a little more room to breathe.
Final Thought
I used to think I needed to fix my mornings so I could become some upgraded version of myself. But that idea never helped.
What worked was this: I stopped treating my routine like a ladder to climb and started treating it like a floor to stand on.
You don’t need to become a morning person. You don’t need to win the day or “set the tone.” You just need a rhythm that makes the day a little easier to carry.
The rest can follow. If it makes your life better more often than not, it’s already working.