I did a little research and, according to "the experts," here are honest-to-goodness real recommendations of the things you should accomplish before 9 a.m.:
Wake up anywhere between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m.
NEVER, EVER hit snooze, only people wasting their life away hit snooze
Workout at home
Go to the gym
Do yoga
Or run three miles
OR start with a mobility workout and then do a second workout of plyometrics
Empty the dishwasher
Do your morning skincare routine
Complete your daily gratitude journal
Then, if your faith is a priority, the Bible or pray
Then complete your morning pages, if you subscribe to The Artist's Way
Then read for 25 minutes from a book that enriches your mind
Or make a homemade smoothie with raw vegetables and fruits and vitamins
Drink 32 ounces of water
Review your emails and answer anything outstanding
Make your plan for the day
But also don't think about work at all, that's your time
Give yourself a pep talk
Do something that brings you joy, like reading a book
Listen to a podcast while sitting under a light therapy lamp
Take a hot shower
No, scratch that, take a cold shower
No, no wait – sit in an ice bath for no more than 15 minutes
Complete a visualization for manifestation
Go on a trail hike and watch the sun rise
Make your bed
Don't check your social media
Go forest bathing
Don't forget your kids! Make them a balanced breakfast and a lunch for school!
Also, have you meal prepped? Might want to pop that roast in the slow cooker before you leave for your morning commute or move to your home office for the day.
Now, once you complete this to do list, you can start your day!
OK, to be fair no one suggested you should do all of these things before you hit 9 a.m. — and don't get me wrong there are a lot of good ideas on this list. But as we start this new year, with many of us eyeing personal growth and improvement as part of our roadmap going into 2024 (myself included), we need to have a conversation about how out of hand the idea of The Perfect Morning Routine ☀️ has become.
There are so many "absolutely essential" recommendations out there for what we're all supposed to be doing each morning as go-getters who want more out of life than the status quo, it almost feels like we need an extra 24 hours before the sun rises to do everything we're supposed to do.
So, where is the line between a healthy morning routine and a morning routine that is toxic and unrealistic? And how do you make the right choices for your own morning routine?
Questions We Discuss
Respectively, what are our current relationships with the idea of a morning routine?
What do our mornings currently look like, and how do we wish they would change? How have our morning routines evolved and adapted over time?
What are the good, the bad, and the ugly reasons the growth mindset crowd is so freakin' obsessed with the idea of the perfect morning routine?
What are the most toxic morning routine recommendations we've seen, and how can you tell the difference between a healthy morning routine idea and one that is toxic?
How should folks with a growth mindset go about constructing their own morning routine? How can someone know what advice to follow and what advice to ignore?
Key Takeaways
Morning routines should be personalized and sustainable, rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach. You need to be mindful and purposeful in your choices.
The obsession with optimizing morning routines can lead to unrealistic expectations and increased stress.
Designing a morning routine that aligns with personal goals and values is more important than following popular recommendations.
Morning routines should focus on intentionality, flexibility, and setting oneself up for success.
Consistency and prioritization are key in creating a morning routine that works for individual needs and lifestyles. Clean and organized spaces can have a significant impact on the quality of morning routines.
When constructing a morning routine, it is important to personalize it based on individual needs, preferences, and goals.
Approach mornings with intention and focus on simplicity and sustainability to create a nurturing and adaptable routine.
“Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them.” — Unknown
“Meditate five minutes each morning and see it wake up your entire life.” ― Waylon H. Lewis
“Your energy in the morning is a clean slate, and you get a chance each day to build it up the way you want.” ― Mridula Singh
“There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing. It’s not a matter of time; it’s a matter of desire.” – Nina Yau
“Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.” – Richard Whately
“New morning, new moment of miracles.” – Lailah Gifty Akita
“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius
Chapters
I did a little research and, according to "the experts," here are honest-to-goodness real recommendations of the things you should accomplish before 9 a.m.:
Wake up anywhere between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m.
NEVER, EVER hit snooze, only people wasting their life away hit snooze
Workout at home
Go to the gym
Do yoga
Or run three miles
OR start with a mobility workout and then do a second workout of plyometrics
Empty the dishwasher
Do your morning skincare routine
Complete your daily gratitude journal
Then, if your faith is a priority, the Bible or pray
Then complete your morning pages, if you subscribe to The Artist's Way
Then read for 25 minutes from a book that enriches your mind
Or make a homemade smoothie with raw vegetables and fruits and vitamins
Drink 32 ounces of water
Review your emails and answer anything outstanding
Make your plan for the day
But also don't think about work at all, that's your time
Give yourself a pep talk
Do something that brings you joy, like reading a book
Listen to a podcast while sitting under a light therapy lamp
Take a hot shower
No, scratch that, take a cold shower
No, no wait – sit in an ice bath for no more than 15 minutes
Complete a visualization for manifestation
Go on a trail hike and watch the sun rise
Make your bed
Don't check your social media
Go forest bathing
Don't forget your kids! Make them a balanced breakfast and a lunch for school!
Also, have you meal prepped? Might want to pop that roast in the slow cooker before you leave for your morning commute or move to your home office for the day.
Now, once you complete this to do list, you can start your day!
OK, to be fair no one suggested you should do all of these things before you hit 9 a.m. — and don't get me wrong there are a lot of good ideas on this list. But as we start this new year, with many of us eyeing personal growth and improvement as part of our roadmap going into 2024 (myself included), we need to have a conversation about how out of hand the idea of The Perfect Morning Routine ☀️ has become.
There are so many "absolutely essential" recommendations out there for what we're all supposed to be doing each morning as go-getters who want more out of life than the status quo, it almost feels like we need an extra 24 hours before the sun rises to do everything we're supposed to do.
So, where is the line between a healthy morning routine and a morning routine that is toxic and unrealistic? And how do you make the right choices for your own morning routine?
Questions We Discuss
Respectively, what are our current relationships with the idea of a morning routine?
What do our mornings currently look like, and how do we wish they would change? How have our morning routines evolved and adapted over time?
What are the good, the bad, and the ugly reasons the growth mindset crowd is so freakin' obsessed with the idea of the perfect morning routine?
What are the most toxic morning routine recommendations we've seen, and how can you tell the difference between a healthy morning routine idea and one that is toxic?
How should folks with a growth mindset go about constructing their own morning routine? How can someone know what advice to follow and what advice to ignore?
Key Takeaways
Morning routines should be personalized and sustainable, rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach. You need to be mindful and purposeful in your choices.
The obsession with optimizing morning routines can lead to unrealistic expectations and increased stress.
Designing a morning routine that aligns with personal goals and values is more important than following popular recommendations.
Morning routines should focus on intentionality, flexibility, and setting oneself up for success.
Consistency and prioritization are key in creating a morning routine that works for individual needs and lifestyles. Clean and organized spaces can have a significant impact on the quality of morning routines.
When constructing a morning routine, it is important to personalize it based on individual needs, preferences, and goals.
Approach mornings with intention and focus on simplicity and sustainability to create a nurturing and adaptable routine.
“Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them.” — Unknown
“Meditate five minutes each morning and see it wake up your entire life.” ― Waylon H. Lewis
“Your energy in the morning is a clean slate, and you get a chance each day to build it up the way you want.” ― Mridula Singh
“There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing. It’s not a matter of time; it’s a matter of desire.” – Nina Yau
“Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.” – Richard Whately
“New morning, new moment of miracles.” – Lailah Gifty Akita
“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius
Creators & Guests
Host
George B. Thomas
A catalyst for growth!
Host
Liz Moorehead
Content therapist and speaker.
What is Beyond Your Default?
What Is Beyond Your Default? "Everyone keeps telling me I should be happy, but I'm not." “I feel stuck.” “I have a calling, but where do I start?"
Right now, you have a choice. You can continue living within your default norms, playing it safe, clocking in and out every day, and scraping by to achieve what's supposed to make you happy hopefully. Or you can choose to accept the challenge of living beyond your default. Stop wishing to live your "best life” and start living your best life. Success leaves clues. And they're waiting for you to discover them.
George B. Thomas:
What I really worry about is, like, this false sense of productivity based on what you did in the first hour, 30 minutes, hour and a half of your day. Just because you're winning the morning doesn't mean you're done. Like, you can't check out. Like, you still have to have productivity in what I'll call, not that your morning routine isn't the real world, but you have to put me in coach. Like, now let me go be productive based on what I've set up as my morning routine.
George B. Thomas:
And frankly, Liz, burnout. Like, at the beginning of this podcast, I said I broke my brain and broke my body. I burned myself out just doing way too much, trying to have it way too optimized, trying to have it way too much of a all the other successful entrepreneurs do these 20 7 things, why shouldn't I? I wanna be like no. I don't.
George B. Thomas:
I wanna be like me.
Liz Moorehead:
Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. I'm your host, Liz Morehead. And as always, I am joined by the one and only George b Thomas, our last recording of 2023. I know this is coming out after New Year's, but how does it feel?
George B. Thomas:
Man, what a year. First of all, a lot of gratitude, positivity, unseen or unknown growth that if I look back right now at the 2 or 3 mornings that I've had in 2023, Pretty freaking spectacular.
Liz Moorehead:
I do have a follow-up question for you because for the for our listeners, our last episode was talking about the weirdness at least in part of this in between week between Christmas and New Year's and the pressure we often artificially put on ourselves going into the New Year. How's that going for you?
George B. Thomas:
I actually don't really feel a ton of pressure, and more excitement, more anticipation, more looking for the opportunities that are going to arise, knowing what to say yes to, what to say no to. That's actually a big thing that's on my brain over 2024. Because when way more is possible than one ever thought, your diligence of being a master of yes, no, or later becomes really important. But this week has actually been a really good week. I haven't had a ton of meetings.
George B. Thomas:
I've been able to just do some work. I've been able to actually just watch some videos, do some learning. And so what's crazy is I wouldn't even call this week for me peaceful, which historically was not truth at all.
Liz Moorehead:
Good news. You have 3 hours worth of meetings with me later today, so I'm here to ruin that part. You're welcome. You are welcome. Gotta keep
George B. Thomas:
you honest. Very much.
Liz Moorehead:
I keep you honest. Gotta keep you humble.
George B. Thomas:
Yes. Absolutely. And we gotta get stuff done. Right? Because there is a new year.
George B. Thomas:
There is a new us. There is a bunch of stuff that is happening, which, again, excitement, anticipation, opportunity. Those are words that I'm leaning into and striving for for the next 365 days of 2024.
Liz Moorehead:
This is where I get really excited about what we're talking about today because leading into a new year or, quite frankly, anytime someone who is interested in personal or professional growth or growth across both of those areas. We're talking about health. We're talking about wellness. We're talking about good habit building. Let's talk about the fact that James Clear's Atomic Habits is probably about to be millions of people's big number one read or reread in the coming months.
Liz Moorehead:
It happens every single year, and it's a great book. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love it. What's interesting, however, is the idea of the perfect morning routine. This is something that is mythologized to a legendary status that is almost toxic.
Liz Moorehead:
Yeah. But the reason why we wanna talk about this is that, like I said, those individuals who are interested in personal growth, likely those of you who are listening, I guarantee you've had a thought to yourself of, maybe I should Google morning routines to see how I can optimize my day. Because how you start your day is how you live your day in many cases. So I wanna open today's episode. I did a little research, and according to, quote, unquote, the experts, here are honest to goodness, real recommendations of absolutely essential things you should accomplish before 9 AM.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. I might be here a minute.
Liz Moorehead:
I might be here a minute. Wake up anywhere between 4 AM and 6 AM. Never ever hit snooze. Only people wasting their life hit snooze. Work out at home or go to the gym or do yoga or run 3 miles or start with the mobility workout and then do a second workout of proliometrics later.
Liz Moorehead:
Empty the dishwasher, do your morning skincare routine, complete your daily gratitude journal. Then if it suits you, read the bible or pray. Or if you subscribe to The Artist's Way, complete your morning pages. 3 pages, handwritten, front and back stream of consciousness. Then read for 25 minutes from a book that enriches your mind.
Liz Moorehead:
Meditate. Do positive affirmations in the mirror. Eat a well rounded home cooked breakfast, or, actually, don't eat anything because you're intermittent fasting. Or make a homemade smoothie with raw vegetables and whole food vitamins and fruits and veggies and yum, and then don't forget to drink 32 ounces of water. Then review your emails for work and answer anything outstanding.
Liz Moorehead:
Actually, scratch that. Don't do any work at all, that's your time. Then give yourself a pep talk. Then do something that brings you joy. Once again, maybe it's reading a book, maybe some abstract beat poetry.
Liz Moorehead:
Who knows? Listen to a podcast while sitting under a light therapy link. Take a hot shower. No. Scratch that.
Liz Moorehead:
Take a cold shower. No. Wait. Wait. Sit in an ice bath for no more than 15 minutes.
Liz Moorehead:
There you go, kids. Now complete a visualization for manifestation. Sun rise. Make your bed. Don't check your social media.
Liz Moorehead:
Go forest bathing. And don't forget your kids if you've got them. Make them a balanced breakfast too and a lunch for school. Oh, are you meal prepped? You might wanna pop that roast in the slow cooker before you leave for the office.
George B. Thomas:
Let's be honest. The day is over.
Liz Moorehead:
The day is I am ready for a nap.
George B. Thomas:
We might have to just take a nap and then come back and do the podcast because I'm stressed out and tired just after you reading that list of things. Here's a couple of things I have to unpack. You're screwed. You drank 32 ounces of water and nowhere on that list did you give yourself time to go to the bathroom. Take a potty break in there.
George B. Thomas:
And then did I hear you say because I was like, maybe I heard it wrong. Did I hear you say forest bathing? Forest bathing
Liz Moorehead:
is an actual thing where basically you just go out and hang out with the trees in the woods.
George B. Thomas:
I'm a big fan of sitting at the trunk of a tree, but to bathe in the forest, I'm like, what the god's name?
Liz Moorehead:
Not literal bathing. It's just a it's a cute little term for something, but I'm like, okay. I had to Google it myself too. So don't worry.
George B. Thomas:
So let's get rid of the stress though. So, like, independently, none of those things are potentially bad things. But the problem is that mere mortal humans will Google. They'll get the list of things, even if it's not all of those things, and they'll say, this is what I need to apply to my life, which right there from the get go is fundamentally broken mindset. The wrong way to actually do what you need to do.
George B. Thomas:
Now we're not saying that there isn't a reason to have a morning routine. I love a morning routine and will have a morning routine in 2024 that is different than the routine that I've had thus far, but it will not consist of forest bathing. And I will allow myself to have time to use the potty every now and then. But here's the thing. There are people out there creating content, creating YouTube videos for views, not because they're trying to create the most optimized morning routine for you, but the most optimized morning routine that gets the most views of everybody that's trying to do a morning routine.
George B. Thomas:
Now, hopefully, you realize how that fundamentally is going to get you at the doorstep of the wrong house for what you need for growth for your journey to the life that you're trying to create.
Liz Moorehead:
Now I am gonna acknowledge the irony that we are also content creators creating content about morning routines, but in our defense
George B. Thomas:
I'm gonna be completely transparent and honest. I am not gonna sell a $20,000 course for a $1,000 special day discount. I don't give 2 squats about the amount of views or listens that this gets from a we're gonna monetize it and get paid because listen, so far, this joker ain't monetized. I'm just saying. We're just creating it and putting it out into the world because we love you.
George B. Thomas:
We've gone through some stuff, and we realize it's gonna be refreshing to have this conversation and realize I'm not trying to sell you my morning routine. I don't need you to do any of the things that I'm gonna say that I wanna do.
Liz Moorehead:
That's the thing. There are so many absolutely essential recommendations out there for what we're all supposed to be doing each morning as, quote, unquote go getters who want more out of life than the status quo. Okay. So do I need an extra 24 hours before the sun rises? Because I'm exhausted.
Liz Moorehead:
So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Where is that line between a healthy morning routine and a morning routine that is toxic and unrealistic? And how do we make the right choices for ourselves, for our own morning routine? I'm very excited to dig into this very selfishly, I might add, because morning routine is definitely something that I had an interesting relationship with over the years, but let's start with you. So you and I both joke about our own struggles with the morning when we're thinking about doing this episode.
Liz Moorehead:
So let's talk about it. What is the relationship you currently have with your own morning routine?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. So, Liz, I've had a love hate relationship with morning routines, to be honest with you. I have had none of them where I just like to stay in bed for a really long time. I've had the most probably insane versions of them where I broke my brain and probably my body at the same time. But all that to say through the love hate relationship of growing through this, I have a routine.
George B. Thomas:
I have a routine. Right? Getting there was a little bit difficult because I kept trying to plug in some guru's version of the maximum morning routine. Be warned. If you get the ultimate, the maximum, if we're using words like that, nothing against the humans because the humans might be good humans, and that routine might work for them or part of what they actually use of the routine that they're selling air quotes online might work for them.
George B. Thomas:
Nothing against them. They're smart, amazing humans. Most of them even have things that are backed by science, which, by the way, first warning sign of any routine that you might be picking up or pieces of a routine that you might be picking up. If it's backed by science, my suggestion to you would to be watch out. Because if we're going from this from the growth mindset, from the trying to optimize the human, we have to realize that we are very complex beings, and understanding the dopamine and serotonin and what sunlight does and what vitamins do and what the amount of right sleep gets you at the end of the day.
George B. Thomas:
Like, basing a lot of the routine on that, What causes joy and happiness in the brain and what are quick wins that you can get? But here's the thing. Most people, morning routines look something like they pick 1, they plug it in, it might work for a little bit, and then the battle begins. Right? It's the way of doing this.
George B. Thomas:
It's like trying to run Apple iOS on an Android device. It's just not gonna work. Your morning routine needs to be customized to you, to your individual needs. The morning routine is about winning the morning so you can win the day, and you leaned into that at the very beginning, Liz. But the morning will set you up for how you feel about the day moving forward.
George B. Thomas:
Literally, this is why I look in the mirror in the one of the first things I do is say, today is gonna be a good day. Today is gonna be a good day. Today is gonna be a good day. And I talk to myself about what we're gonna achieve. The morning routine is about knowing yourself enough to know what is going to get you into your peak state.
George B. Thomas:
Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know if I can say you or your more in the first 12 minutes of this, but your morning routine shouldn't. What it shouldn't do is it shouldn't stress you out. It shouldn't be what Liz read out. It shouldn't be a list of I got to or I must, anyway. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
But I won't go back
George B. Thomas:
to you guys. Down for a second because I I get pretty intense with this.
Liz Moorehead:
You do get pretty intense with this kind of stuff, and you also are so helpful that you neglected to really talk about yourself. I love you, George. I love you so much, and I love how you lead with love, and you're always here to help. But let's go back to you for a moment. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
Have you gone hardcore with rigid routines in the past? What is the gap you currently have between where you are with your morning routine and where you wanna go? Talk to me about your journey with this.
George B. Thomas:
I would say that I have been regimented, but not in a negative way. When I look at my routine where it's at right now, which I'm sure we'll talk about, like, at a deeper level, one might consider it quite simplistic, which is why I'm sitting here and can actually be able to say in 2024, I wanna add to it because I've been living a simplistic morning routine long enough that I'm ready for it to grow. Here's the thing, though, that I wanna put into this point. Even when you think you don't have a routine, you have a routine. It's just not intentional, and I want that to be a word or a theme that you plug into your brain for the rest of this podcast episode is this idea of living life with intention, waking up in the morning with intention.
George B. Thomas:
Because my initial answer when I saw this question, Liz, was like, I had no morning routine, kind of. And then I actually started to think about, listen. I do the same ish every morning. I just don't call it a routine, but it's a routine. And I've also had those moments where I alluded to at the beginning of this episode where I was super regimented, and it was like, you had to drink this shake by this time and walk this many steps and the and read this and have 7 HubSpot certifications within the next 3 days.
George B. Thomas:
It's just getting stressed about it. So what I will say is I've gone hardcore, but now it's about flexibility. It's about making it sustainable. Consistent, maybe, is even another word. This idea of what I had to realize is morning routines, I was making the same mistake as I would if I would go to the gym.
George B. Thomas:
Right? Back in the day when I'd go to the gym, New Year's resolution. I'm going to lose weight and start to work out. And I would go to the gym, and I would hammer the weights hard, and I would basically kill my body. And my body would be like, I can't even move.
George B. Thomas:
I can't move. What have you done to me? I would do the same thing with my morning routines where I would try to go from, like, a morning routine 0 to Hulk Rick and Hogan of morning routines himself, and my brain would be like, what are you doing? I can't even like, what are you doing to me? We have to ease into this if you haven't considered yourself having a morning routine.
George B. Thomas:
Or if you're, like, on the treadmill and you're like, yeah. My morning routine is freaking stressing me out, back off. I had to realize that. And so, again, right now as we talk, very simple morning routine, but ready to add to that.
Liz Moorehead:
I love what you said there about the fact that whether we go after it with intentionality
George B. Thomas:
you didn't know, but I've been waiting to ask that question. When we get to that question, I'm gonna be like, so what does your morning look like? So, hopefully, you're prepared for that.
Liz Moorehead:
I am prepared for that because it's interesting how much it's changed. I won't tell you just yet what my morning routine is right now. But what I will tell you is at start of this year, I actually had one of those very early birdie morning routines. Like, I was up at 4:30, 5 o'clock. I would do morning tape pages, a deep meditation.
Liz Moorehead:
Like, I was really cagey about my morning routine. And then after the separation and the divorce and I moved out, it could that all completely went away. What was fascinating about that is that I realized the reason that I had the morning routine that I did was not necessarily due to enrichment reasons, but it was the one time of the morning where no one could get to me. I was in complete peace mode. I was in my office.
Liz Moorehead:
There was no one with me. I was just completely hiding, quite frankly, from the realities of what was happening and and the breakdowns that were occurring. And then over the summer, the morning routine that ended up being the one that I needed, even though it felt horrible in the moment, is quite frankly, I slept a lot. I suffered from hypersomnia, which is a common byproduct of, like, when you're dealing with depressive episodes and things like that. And so it was my morning routine was get up, grunt, look in mirror.
Liz Moorehead:
I tried to express gratitude, but I kept saying the same three things every morning. I am grateful for the sun. I'm grateful for this toilet. I am grateful for it. Like, so I'm like, you know what?
Liz Moorehead:
I'm just gonna move on. But I think that's the thing. If you don't choose the morning routine, we'll choose you. And I don't necessarily always think that's a bad thing. I think sometimes we try to overstructure and over control different parts of our lives.
Liz Moorehead:
Let's talk about this a little bit. There is this obsession within the growth mindset crowd of the idea of the perfect morning routine, like what you were talking about, right, optimizing our mornings within an inch of our lives. And I'd be curious, let's talk about why you think that is. Not just the good reasons, but I think there's some not so good reasons hidden in there too.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. So I think there are good and bad reasons. I think, really, the idea of so here's the thing. When we think about optimizing our routine, I think there's 2 things that we have to talk about before we dive into the good and bad here. I think that when I hear the word optimized morning routine, I think of time is precious.
George B. Thomas:
And we definitely live in an age where time is precious, but I would be careful with that because sometimes I think and this is something that my brain is working on right now. I think sometimes we tell our stories around time, and maybe sometimes they're not real. And we might have more time than we think, but we're telling ourselves the story that it's at a minimum, and it's a premium, and so we need to do this thing. So I think about this kind of optimized version. Time is of a premium, and then I also think about when we're trying to optimize it, it's like the natural sensor Pareto's principle.
George B. Thomas:
What's 20% that I can do to get me to where I wanna go instead of needing to do the 100% of some of the stuff that I might think is, like, non necessary or fluff? And that's the optimized side of this. But the why side of this is, listen, do I even think about having an optimized morning routine? I wanna live a life that is intentional. I'm I might feel like the listeners might feel like I'm tired of being tossed here and there by the waves of life.
George B. Thomas:
Right? I need it to be intentional. I need to be in a boat. I need to be able to cut through the waves. I wanna be able to perform at peak performance.
George B. Thomas:
I have clients or a boss or a wife or a husband or a group of friends or whoever it is for you that I wanna show up as my best. I wanna be at peak performance when I show up to do things. I feel like, honestly, this morning routine and an optimized morning routine is a major part of this conversation we have around designing our life. And you used the word control, but I would say not control in the normal negative sense, but control in the sense of how do I wanna put this? Because I want people control in the sense of regulating, not in the corrosive, sense of of control.
George B. Thomas:
Right? So I think that's a piece of it. So now if we go into why is the growth mindset crowd so freaking obsessed with the idea of this morning routine or ritual and, like, the goods and bads. I think that good things that come out of this, Liz, when we put our mind to the measurement of creating a morning routine and what it could equal for us. I think, 1, the recent growth mindset folks are are doing this is, one, we're trying to optimize our brain.
George B. Thomas:
We have come to the realization that there are chemicals that can be induced whether it be with sunlight or other stimuli that help us learn easier, faster, that help us retain information longer. So we're literally trying to optimize the central system of in the cranium of this body that we're navigating around on the planet. And I think past optimizing the brain, we're in the realization or we're realizing a couple of things about ourself, and that's why we're plugging in different pieces of this morning routine. Why need to be more organized. Start by making your bed, joker.
George B. Thomas:
Like, why do you leave your bed a mess the entire day? No judgment, by the way, if you don't make your bed. I make mine every morning, have to. Ever since I was in the military, if that I can't walk out of the room, that has to be made. Just throwing that out there.
George B. Thomas:
But you're realizing, like, maybe I wanna be a little bit more spiritual. Maybe I wanna be a little bit more healthy. And so these realizations and a morning routine is a way for you to plug them in and make them a priority. It's part of also designing the future that you're trying to design. You become what you think of.
George B. Thomas:
You become the actions that you take. And so every morning, if you're designing that morning routine, you're literally designing who you're gonna be and how you're gonna show up based on if your routine pays attention to that in the future. But I also think there's, like, enjoying life. Right? At this point, growth mindsets, if we're optimizing the brain, we're realizing things that we need to plug in, we're designing this future.
George B. Thomas:
We're enjoying life. So part of our morning routine might be based on the fact of I need to get my heart rate up more. I need to make sure I'm paying attention to my blood pressure. I need to make sure I lose 30 or £40 because we're trying to extend the length of time which we can actually enjoy the places and spaces that we've been able to put ourselves into from being a growth mindset type of human being. And then I'll go back to the word that I dropped earlier.
George B. Thomas:
I think a lot of this is regulating, controlling the seas of the day, the waves, the tsunami of tech and digital, the tsunami of everybody else's needs and expectations, the tsunamis that are waiting to just drowns your boat. Again, if I think about the good things, it's optimizing, it's realizing, it's designing, it's enjoying, it's regulating the things of your life. Now the where this gets bad is I sent a video listeners to Liz. We're gonna make sure it's in the show notes, but it's the epitome of holy crap. What the flip is this?
George B. Thomas:
Where this goes bad is when it's this thing that creates a lack of flexibility. When it's a morning routine that creates increased stress. When it's like something that actually reduces the creativity of your brain to dream and to customize what is best for you. A morning routine that actually makes you or not even on purpose, but just neglect of the other important aspects of your life. Listen.
George B. Thomas:
If we did everything on that original list that Liz read out, it would never see my family. My clients would fire me.
Liz Moorehead:
George, I wouldn't be able to talk to them. Together. Yeah. You would be able to are you showing up for this meeting? And I would say, I'm still in my cold bath.
George B. Thomas:
I'm still what was? I'm still forest bathing. And what I really worry about is, like, this false sense of productivity based on what you did in the first hour, 30 minutes, hour and a half of your day. Just because you're winning the morning doesn't mean you're done. Like, you can't check out.
George B. Thomas:
Like, you still have to have productivity in what I'll call not that your morning routine isn't the real world, but you have to put me in coach. Like, now let me go be productive based on what I've set up as my morning routine. And frankly, Liz, burnout. Like, at the beginning of this podcast, I said I broke my brain and broke my body. I burned myself out just doing way too much, trying to have it way too optimized, trying to have it way too much of a all the other successful entrepreneurs do these 27 things.
George B. Thomas:
Why shouldn't I? I wanna be like no. I don't. I wanna be like me. So how about I have my morning routine?
George B. Thomas:
I want you to be like you. So how about moving forward in 2024? You design your morning routine.
Liz Moorehead:
I think you said something really important there that people need to keep in mind is that the morning routine is not success personified. A good morning routine is meant to set you up for success. It is meant to tee you up for the rest of the day. Now what's interesting is you started to dabble in this a little bit, but I'd like to get a little bit more clarity on your thoughts here. Do you think most morning routine recommendations are realistic or unrealistic?
George B. Thomas:
Most of them are unrealistic.
Liz Moorehead:
Why do you say that?
George B. Thomas:
Because if you look at them so first of all, I'll give an example. One of the ones that I actually really enjoy and somebody that I'm becoming quickly fascinated with is Andrew Huberman.
Liz Moorehead:
A neuroscientist.
George B. Thomas:
Yep. Oh my god. But eve but you have to realize you're not Andrew Huberman. And so even to say I'm gonna pick up the best of what I might call the best is still, for most mere mortal humans, unrealistic because you'll quickly realize that you're trying to put 10 gallons of stuff in a 5 gallon bucket. And, again, that's been, like, a theme that we've been talking about, but you're trying to go from 0 to a 1000 miles an hour.
George B. Thomas:
You're it's so hard. I'm gonna do this for 30 days and see how it goes. Okay. We're now we're just trashing out consistency. This has to be something that can stick.
George B. Thomas:
It has to be sticky. It has to be, like, the long haul. And so most of these, when you grab them and try to plug them in, they just become unrealistic. Now I will tell you this. When I listen to people like Tim Ferris or Jocko or Andrew Huberman, I pick, oh, that feels right.
George B. Thomas:
That sounds good. I could use some more sun. I probably should hydrate more. Hey. I should tell my wife and kids to stop making fun of me.
George B. Thomas:
I'm getting plenty of sleep. Right. There's pieces and parts that you can put into this. But just off the shelf, my word is unrealist for most humans.
Liz Moorehead:
Ideally, what does your morning routine look like?
George B. Thomas:
I loved this question because it forced me to actually build out. I was like, what if? What's possible? If I was to create a truly simplistic, be able to be consistent routine for me that hit on all the things that were important for me, what would that look like? Which, by the way, as soon as I share mine, Liz, I'm coming at you.
George B. Thomas:
I'm a be like, Liz, what does yours look like? So here's the thing. This journey was fun because I started with the fact I personally I don't care when you wake up, but I personally I wake up at 5 15. K? I draw the line.
George B. Thomas:
I'm not doing no 4 o'clock, 4:30. You'll hear Jocko talk about 4, 4:30. Nope. Nope, homie. This guy has to get some sleep.
George B. Thomas:
5:15, I can live with, though. So I wake up at 5:15, and so the journey started with me saying, how much am I worth? How much time am I willing to invest in myself in the morning to then do the rest of the day in the way that it needs to be done? And I said, you know what? I'll give myself an hour and a half to 2 hours.
George B. Thomas:
So when I started to build this out, I was under the mindset of if I woke up at 5:15 and had till 7:15 to do a morning routine before I hit my office at, let's say, 7:15, 7:30 to do work and to help humans, what would that look like? And so, obviously, I have to wake up. That's part of my routine. But when I say wake up, it's I wanna wake up, I wanna make my bed, and I wanna do, like, small chores. Like, for me, small chores, I fold the towels.
George B. Thomas:
That's one of my duties around the house is the dryer is drying the towels at night. In the morning, I wake up. I grab them. I fold them. By the way, while I'm folding the towels, I'm listening to K LOVE 2 1,000 because I just love the beat, the rhythm, the words of that kind of music.
George B. Thomas:
Right? So it's just waking up, doing small chores, getting some lights turned on, and the eyes acclimated to being awake. Then I don't necessarily do this right now. I do have a bottle of water on my nightstand right now. But in 2024, what I would love to do is do, like, hydration and spiritual time.
George B. Thomas:
Now here's the thing. There's some hidden context to that and if you get it, but hydrate meaning a bottled water, and I really wanna dive into this idea of some salts or some, like, actual stuff in the water to, like, give me a little in the day. But the reason for me that I'm saying hydration and spiritual time is because I wanna hydrate with water, but I also wanna hydrate my life with the living water. Alright. That's as deep as I'll go with that.
George B. Thomas:
Now after that, what I wanna do is I wanna spend some time with mindful meditation. So that's about 10 to 15 minutes. Different than spiritual time because during spiritual time, it might be reading the Bible. It might be praying. It might be doing a devotion, but that's when I'm drinking the water, and I'm doing that.
George B. Thomas:
Meditation is I have Headspace app. I wanna listen to Headspace for about 10 to 15 minutes, breathing exercises, getting myself just okay. Affirmations would be during this time. Right? Just quieting down.
George B. Thomas:
After that, I wanna spend 20 to 30 minutes physical activity. For me, this is gonna be going outside and getting a walk. The reason I'm gonna go outside and get a walk is because by the time I get to this, the sun should be up. And I now I'm gonna get sunlight in my eyes. I'm gonna get sunlight on my skin.
George B. Thomas:
And if you listen to Andrew Huberman and a lot of other folks, sunlight is, like, a very powerful thing for us as humans, but also the movement of the physical exercise. After that, I wanna come back, and I wanna do 15 to 30 minutes, probably 30 minutes of personal development. By the way, while I'm on the walk, I'm gonna be listening to an audiobook. But I've given myself to come back, and if there's something that I wanna learn, HubSpot Academy video, a YouTube video, new tech that I'm trying to learn around AI, whatever, I wanna give myself that time for personal development. Imagine what I could learn 30 minutes a day for 365 days.
George B. Thomas:
Imagine what you could learn, which is 30 minutes intentional 30 minutes a day for personal development. Then and by the way, this is butt backwards from the way it is now. I would go take a shower. After my shower, I would eat a healthy breakfast. And then after I eat my breakfast, I would plan and prioritize my day.
George B. Thomas:
Couple things that aren't in here right now, planning and prioritizing my day is there, meaning I use ClickUp for tasks that need to be done. My life is run pretty much by my calendar, but it's not, like, to the level in which I wanna do where it's, like, what are the 4 things today that have to be done and doing those first and then doing the rest of the stuff that can be done after that? So you can tell a couple of these are because it's about being more intentional in certain areas of my life, but it's really designed out to be this, like, holistic micro chunks of growth consistent. And by the way, I'm gonna say over the next 365 days, but when I look at this, I go, no. This to me feels like the routine that will be the foundation for me for the rest of my life.
George B. Thomas:
Will I add time? Will I add things? Maybe. But this is a great foundation that is simple and can be consistent, and I can allot that time for without feeling guilty about the morning routine. So, Liz, now I'm super curious.
George B. Thomas:
Liz's morning routine.
Liz Moorehead:
Why don't we start with what it is currently? Yeah. So one of the things that I realized, as I said earlier, I I've lived 2 different extremes of my morning routines this year. 1 was self preservation, and 1 was a state of healing. I now see, it was the path I had to walk.
Liz Moorehead:
When I think about the morning routine that I have both developed with intention and also has developed organically on its own, if I look at theme and how I wanna feel in the morning, I want to wake up in the morning and not feel like my life is living me. That's really the goal for me is that regardless as to whether got a good night sleep, hopefully, I did, like, I don't wanna feel like I wake up and the moment I open my eyes, I'm already behind or already failing. That is a big mindset for me that I really need to have. So my morning routine actually begins the night before. So as soon as I get home, this new little routine I've developed, which was not something that I was trying to do intentionally, but I've always heard that your morning routine is gonna be dependent on what your night routine is.
Liz Moorehead:
So before bed, when I'm exhausted, I had this, like, list of things that I needed to do, and I just didn't wanna do it, and I was tired, and I would just go to bed. So what I've noticed is that as soon as I walk in the door when I get home from the office, I'll go home. I will change. And then while I'm there, I'll just take 2 seconds, and I'll do what's called habit stacking, which is something from James Clear's Atomic Habits, where you just stack things that you already do, but but stack them together because it makes more sense from an efficiency perspective. So for example, instead of getting undressed and putting things away when I get home and then setting out my clothes for the next day as 2 separate things, I do that together.
Liz Moorehead:
I do a quick change. I toss the clothes that I wanna wear on a chair. So I'm like, okay. Now I don't have to think about that in the morning. I'll do a little bit of tidying up.
Liz Moorehead:
If I have to get my laundry together, I'll get my laundry together. Basically, by the time I come when the as soon as I walk in the door and I get home from work, I take 15 to 20 minutes and just get everything set up so I can immediately get up the next morning and just walk out the door. So when I wake up in the morning, I have an approximate wake up time. It quite frankly depends. Is this a morning where I am going to be recording at 7:45, or is this a morning where my day doesn't start until 9?
Liz Moorehead:
Those are 2 different mornings, but they have it it's approximate. I'll wake up probably I'll give myself about 90 minutes or so. I'll wake up. I will take a shower. I will make my bed Liz wasn't in the military, so we're just gonna move on from that.
Liz Moorehead:
I will say 3 things I'm grateful for, but I don't have some sort of, like, beautiful, aesthetically pleasing morning practice. This morning, quite frankly, I said the 3 things I was grateful for while I was going to the bathroom. And I was sitting there. I'm like, I am grateful for my tenacity. I am grateful for friends like George.
Liz Moorehead:
I am grateful for this home, and then flush. Like, that was my morning. Then after that, I make my little breakfast. So this morning, it was a little vegan breakfast burrito, and it was delicious. I listened to NPR at first.
Liz Moorehead:
I start getting ready for the day. I do my hair. I basically have created a morning routine where I feel like I have space to breathe. What is interesting, however, is that I used to do the thing where I was like, how can I optimize myself for peak or form as a growing individual? Like, the morning pages, the this, the that, the meditating.
Liz Moorehead:
What I actually did instead was I said, these are the habits I want to complete daily. So there are a few things that I do. Right? Like, I meditate. I do duolingo.
Liz Moorehead:
I'm currently learning German because after years of ignoring the fact that I can't rule my r's, I finally accepted that I can't. I've given up on Italian. We've now moved to German. It's super fun. So, yeah, daily reading, daily meditation, I go on a daily walk, duolingo, and I go to gym.
Liz Moorehead:
Those are, like, the nourishing my mind and body things that I like to do every day. And my life got a heck of a lot easier when I realized the best way to optimize my morning routine is not to insist that every single good habit I do only exists in the morning. I actually sprinkle them in throughout the day. So I usually do my reading right after our first meeting together because you and I usually have some sort of meeting in the morning, and I will take 20 minutes. There's a chair back there, and I will go sit, and I will read.
Liz Moorehead:
And then I will because that will allow me to contact switch. So my work really requires me to do a lot of deep work, which makes it really hard mentally for me to hard switch to a next task. So some of these are, like, really good transitional things that allow me to do that. So then I have a couple hours where I have some website pages I need to crank out. Then after that, I'm gonna go on a little walk.
Liz Moorehead:
I'm gonna get my head back together, allow myself to pull myself out of that deep work project, and then usually, I end my day by doing my language learning and my meditation. Now what I would like to switch and what I would like to experiment with is that I've noticed my meditation is the thing I enjoy doing, but it's the practice I am very much checking the box on. And I'm wondering how much more benefit I will see from that if I move that to something I start my day with rather than something I shoehorn in somewhere just to say that I'm meditating. Yeah. So that's really where I'm looking to have my ideal morning routine.
Liz Moorehead:
My ideal morning routine looks actually pretty close to what I have right now, but mostly because one of the things I'm really focusing on it in this current chapter of my life is I have a tendency to be the person who looks to other people to say, yes, you're checking the box. Yes. You're doing life right. And so what is healthy for me right now is to say, what is a good morning feel like? And I'm like, I just wanna feel like I'm not already behind.
Liz Moorehead:
That's all I want. And what I've noticed is I've given myself that gentleness, my my heart and my mind and my body started telling me what belonged in the morning. I also will tell you how clean your space is will dictate how good your morning is. Because if you can't find anything, you will never feel organized. You will wake up disordered.
Liz Moorehead:
And I have a thing where it's if I have a messy head, I can see it in my space around me. So I've gotten pretty. That's why I started habit stacking around, like, tidying up and getting stuff ready for the following morning.
George B. Thomas:
There's so many good pieces that first of all, that last piece you leaned into, total podcast episode, females in cleanliness and men in actual not it needing to be spotless. Go do some YouTube searches on that one. I don't know if we'll make it an episode or not, but I stumbled across that maybe, like, a week or 2 ago and was like, this is why I don't care about dusting or if there's 5 pieces of paper out of place and why it's always getting fixed and done around me. But, anyway, I digress. Here's the thing.
George B. Thomas:
Liz, there's a couple things that you said in that section. 1, I would want the listeners to be careful anytime you're making any type of routine, whether it be morning routine, daily routine, and you feel like you're checking a box because you have to check a box, it might not be the right thing for you to actually have in your routine or, like you stated, it might be in the wrong place of your routine. Like, maybe it's a little bit of a heavier mental lift, and so it should be at the beginning instead of the end. But watch out for anytime you feel like, oh, I've got to check this box. I must do that, or else I'm gonna be a complete failure for the entire day.
George B. Thomas:
The other thing that you said that was interesting is, like, I you said I'm the type of person that I need somebody to tell me that I'm doing alright in life, that I'm checking the boxes in life. But then a few seconds later, you then said, but I've realized, and you used the word my. Right? Listen. Nobody's here to tell you that you're doing amazing in life.
George B. Thomas:
This goes back to the I've said it on the podcast before. Nobody's coming to save you. It's not really anybody's job to have and, again, I'm talking adults, not children. I'm not diving into the parent and child relationship, but it's really nobody's job to, you're doing a great job. We have to build that into ourselves.
George B. Thomas:
We have to have the self metrics of I killed it today even though, you know what, I had to put Duolingo on the shelf for a day because it was just a day, but dang gone, we killed it. I'm killing it. We have to have that inside of us, but the couple pieces in there that I just wanted to unpack where my brain went as I heard you saying them.
Liz Moorehead:
It's interesting how you responded to that because the idea of I'm doing things because I have to check the box. I would say, yes. I agree with you, but with asterisk because one of the things that has been really powerful for me is this idea. And this is coming from a book that you and I are both reading together, and we're doing a little internal book club, which is called The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. He is an incredible modern scholar on stoicism.
Liz Moorehead:
He's he wrote the daily stoic and the daily stoic journal. Ego is the enemy, discipline is destiny, etcetera, etcetera. But one of the things that shows up as a theme in the ops the obstacle is the way is this idea of motion before emotion. Meaning, we will often talk ourselves out of doing the things that we need to do just because we don't feel like doing it or our perceptions of a situation will talk us out of it. So, yes, I agree.
Liz Moorehead:
I think, for example, apps like Duolingo can make you feel like a freaking failure because you broke your streak, but then it obfuscates the fact that you literally, out of the last 90 days, practiced German for 89 days. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:
And
Liz Moorehead:
you'll get stuck on that one day because the streak is broken. I completely agree with you on that. And I think there are moments where it's, you know what? I need I deserve a day of rest. Yes.
Liz Moorehead:
But for example, yesterday, I did not want to go to the gym, but it is about discipline. And so I went to the gym, and I was like, I know I don't feel motivated to go right now, to go do the thing I need to do. But if I wait to feel like doing anything in my life, I'm gonna wait to feel motivated to write 2,000 plus words on compound interest strategies. Like, I will be waiting forever. I will be waiting until I am 87, and even then, what am I gonna do?
Liz Moorehead:
Because I won't be able to type. Right?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
So I think there is that line, that healthy line that we all need to find of what is the difference between things that we do because we are disciplined and times that we give ourselves space to breathe because we're human beings who don't have to be perfect all the freaking time.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
I would say the other thing too, just to clarify that idea of when I used to look at others to tell me I was doing a good job, it was really because I wanted to feel like a sense of belonging because I was looking outside of myself for the fundamental belief in myself that I was a good and worthy human. So I will often say that if you were looking outside of yourself to say, I am checking the box in these ways, I don't wanna be overly prescriptive about where you are on your journey, but often, at least in my experience, that comes down to the idea of who told you weren't worth it already just as you are right now in this form. Yeah. Okay.
George B. Thomas:
And hang on. I wanna double click on that. If you heard what Liz just said and you're like, amen, sister, go listen to episode 17 of the podcast. That's all I'm gonna say. Just go listen to episode 17, cultivating a home from within to create the home we seek without.
George B. Thomas:
There will be some nuggets that help you if you were just, like, amen, sister, preach.
Liz Moorehead:
That's the next episode after this. I love it. Alright. We've talked about our morning routines, but we've talked about our thoughts on the whole morning routine industrial complex. How should folks go about constructing their own morning routines?
Liz Moorehead:
How do you choose what advice to listen to and what advice to ignore?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. So I think there's one, there's constructing the thing, and then there's the advice to ignore. So first of all, Liz, have you ever had one of those moments where moments in life just made sense? You you, like, you you get to a point and you're like, oh, that's why we did this because it was preparing me for this moment right here.
Liz Moorehead:
Like, how for Vin Diesel, Boiler Room led to triple x, which led to Fast and Furious, and now here
George B. Thomas:
we are. Exactly. Exactly. You get me. I'm just gonna throw that out there right
Liz Moorehead:
now.
George B. Thomas:
That it's quite a great example in the moment. When I think of constructing because I have leaned into it's gotta be customized for you. When I think about constructing your own morning routine, 1, you need to know yourself. You need to know yourself,
Liz Moorehead:
by the way, episode 10 of this podcast.
George B. Thomas:
You need to know what you're trying to achieve,
Liz Moorehead:
by the way, episode 21 of this podcast.
George B. Thomas:
You have to be kind to yourself when you're constructing this bad boy so that you don't burn yourself out, by the way, episode 5. It has to be created for the long haul versus get it fast, by the way, episode 7. And you have to own your routine once you construct it, by the way, episode 16. Literally, as I was, like, thinking about the pieces and parts of how I would construct a great morning routine, as I was constructing my 2024 and beyond routine, I was paying attention to those things as I did it and realizing, oh my gosh. We've created content about every piece of what people need to be thinking about.
George B. Thomas:
And so, literally, you could go and listen to those episodes, find the base of that tree again, and start to construct what your morning routine will be. Now to get to your original question of what advice should we ignore, listen, and we've dripped this along the way. If it's the most optimized, if it's the hack of the century, if it's the nonscientific based, if it's somebody who is using it to lead into a $1,000 course, if it feels wrong, if it doesn't feel like it fits in your life. Listen. We're all humans.
George B. Thomas:
We have good BS meters. And when you're going through the research of what are the things that I could do, what are the things that I should do, and what are the things that I must do to create the most amazing morning routine to set me up for future success in the day and future success in the future, I'm gonna ask you to just turn that BS meter up just 2 or 3 notches. Just 2 or 3 notches. Give it a little bit more. That's what you ignore.
George B. Thomas:
Anytime your radar goes off, nope. We have to be very careful of other people's agendas when creating our masterpiece for our mornings.
Liz Moorehead:
I love the way you just ended that there with creating the masterpiece for your mornings. My process for that for developing my own morning routine and deciding what advice to listen to and ignore was pretty simple. I already alluded to it already. Like, I just sat down and said, by the end of the day, I wanna say that I have committed and, quote, unquote, checked off, whatever, these habits. I already ran through them, reading, meditating, duolingo, going for my walk, going to the gym.
Liz Moorehead:
Then there are other little things too. Right? Like, I do take whole food vitamins in the morning, and I drink a ton of water, and there are a bunch of other things that I do. But I did do research, and I think that's an important thing to go out there and do. You know, I think it's important for people to go out there and do the research.
Liz Moorehead:
Because I know we've talked a lot today about how there's, like, a ton of, like, very aggressive research out there, and there is. But I think it is important for people to go out there and look at what is available to them, but only after you really decide what you want your goal of your morning. Because I think the fear I have for folks is that some of the stuff that's out there is written in such a way where it's if you aren't a cold bath dunking, forest bathing, light lamp, raw food organic 4 AM er, you're never gonna be a success. Like, you've already failed before you've hit your first meeting. That's real life.
Liz Moorehead:
And also, I think the thing we need to remember is that many of these bazillionaires who sit down with these interviewers and talk about their brilliant morning routines can do so from a place of deep privilege because they have bought their way to having an excess amount of time. I guarantee you, these people were not shotgunning raw vegetable wheat grass smoothies and doing 18 hours of meditation before they started their day when they were beginning their business out of their garage. Let's be realistic here. Come on. So when I think about what advice to ignore, look to people who you aspire to be, but remember the context in which they are living, and the choices, and things that they have available to them.
Liz Moorehead:
Because people of great wealth and privilege, and many of them have earned it, I'm not shaming them here, one of the things that wealthy people always try to buy more of is time. So they often have more of it. They have more flexibility and freedom because they can delegate the administrative tasks that we all have to manage within our own lives as mere mortals. So don't fault yourself. Like, there's that mug that says Beyonce also has 24 hours in a day.
Liz Moorehead:
Yeah. Beyonce also has staff. And don't get me wrong. I love Beyonce, but she has staff. Do you know what I used to have?
Liz Moorehead:
A cat who considered me staff. That's where we're at.
George B. Thomas:
It's funny. I love that if you're not if you're not in the forest bathing, you're a failure in life. I I love that you did, like, that whole trip, but then also I really wanna pull apart this piece of context to where they are at in life, and who they are, and where they're at on their journey. What's funny is, Liz, when you said that, I was, like, what would make a really dope interview is to get somebody like Jocko or Tim Ferris or Andrew Huberman and ask them, okay. We're gonna take a a 15 year journey, and I want you to explain your morning rituals now and do 5 years before that and 5 years before that and 5 years before that and literally have a context of a linear growth path to who they became, to what was important and what they did in those morning moments, I feel like that would shed light in a completely different way than the narrative that is being told online right now about these kind of morning routines.
Liz Moorehead:
Oh, completely agree. Just take a look at the 3 very different morning routines I walked you through this year because I went through a significant amount of life change. Like, I think there is something to be said for whether we're talking about morning routines or a different type of habit structure. The morning routines that you start with are not always necessarily the morning routines that you grow with, and that's okay. And they're going to evolve over time, and you have to also adapt to the seasons of life that you're in.
Liz Moorehead:
Let's say, for example, you have some baller morning routine, and then all of a sudden you have your first kid. Guess what, cupcake? That kid now runs your
George B. Thomas:
Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
And it's okay that your morning routine is a little trashed. Why? Because if you just had a kid and you tell me you're still running 13 miles a day, doing a cold bath, then forest bathing, but then also journaling and doing all these things, and you just have a kid. Where is the child?
George B. Thomas:
In a pack and play.
Liz Moorehead:
Where is the child?
George B. Thomas:
In the crib. Hello. You have a baby.
Liz Moorehead:
We're doing our first official challenge today, George. Are you ready?
George B. Thomas:
This was exciting when I saw him.
Liz Moorehead:
So in January, you and I are both going to commit to integrating 1, only 1. One new morning routine. I know you can't because you never you you don't follow directions on this podcast, and you don't follow directions on the other podcast. I just wanna be very clear about that. I respect you, George.
Liz Moorehead:
My god. So here's what I'm gonna tell you. So we're each committing to doing one morning that you are going to test and report back on to our audience in February. Yeah. Now, George, I knew you were gonna pick more than 1.
Liz Moorehead:
I'm not a lunatic, but you need to tell me which is the one that's the nonnegotiable. You have to pick 1 to rule them all.
George B. Thomas:
I'm not
Liz Moorehead:
saying you don't report back on all 3. Yep.
George B. Thomas:
But it's only 2. It's only 2.
Liz Moorehead:
K. Not all 3. Alright. So what are you doing, George? What are you doing in January?
George B. Thomas:
So yeah. It was difficult, Liz. I always have difficulty with the one thing. So for me, it came down to 2, though. And it was only 2, and those 2 were very easy to be like, this is what I would say, and this is what I wanna focus on.
George B. Thomas:
1 is hydration and spiritual time. 10 to 15 minutes every morning, drinking some water, devotion, prayer, bible. K. Solid. Gotta gotta start adding that more to my life.
George B. Thomas:
Been super blessed, need to take some time to put back into that. The second one is physical activity. 20 to 30 minutes. I'm leaning on the 30 minute side of going for a walk in the morning. If I had a failure over the last year and a half or 18 months or whatever, however you wanna frame it, is the lack of continual exercise that I once was doing that helped me lose about 79 pounds and once stopped doing it because other things became priority.
George B. Thomas:
Listen. You can find what once was lost. I'm just gonna throw that out there. And so getting in that exercise, that physical activity for me in the morning is gonna be really important. So if I can only pick one of those, the one that I'm gonna report back on because I feel like it's the one that I need more accountability on than the other one, which, yes, what I'm saying listeners is you are now my accountability buddies is the physical activity.
George B. Thomas:
Being able to come back and say, I walked for 30 minutes every morning since the day that we set the challenge down is important to me, or being able to say that maybe I even walked a little bit longer or more, or what actually doing that 30 minutes in the morning, what happens because I did that. So that's the one I'll pick is physical activity, 20 to 30 minutes in the morning. That's my challenge piece. Liz, what about you?
Liz Moorehead:
So I've already mentioned mine. Wait. Just to confirm. So the we have a couple in there, but the one that we are gonna be reporting back on when you and I record on February 5th, which means it's gonna be dropping that week.
George B. Thomas:
You've got the date. Jeez.
Liz Moorehead:
Oh, yeah. Because I'm literally about to make a calendar invite so neither of us forget. So we can't get to this we can't get to the end of our challenge where life happened and boo hoo to us.
George B. Thomas:
Oh, we're not gonna be able to skirt this one?
Liz Moorehead:
No. We will not be Tokyo drifting our way out of this. No. We will not happen.
George B. Thomas:
Okay. Good. I know. Awesome. Whoo.
George B. Thomas:
Let's go.
Liz Moorehead:
But just to confirm, the one that you really wanna report on is your walking and the physical activity.
George B. Thomas:
Physical activity. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
Mine, I already mentioned, and it's gonna sound simple, but I'm really going to be measuring it from the perspective of only my doing it, but how it impacts my discipline around my morning routine and also my mindset going into it. And that is meditating in the morning for 10 minutes instead of just doing it willy nilly throughout the day. And I used to be someone who did, like, daily set of 15 to 20 minutes. I've even done 30. And I've noticed now I'm down till 5 minutes sprawled out in bed because I'm like, crap.
Liz Moorehead:
Before I start binging Gilmore Girls again, I better get that in because I won't do it. So I'm very interested to see across those different areas what happens. I picked 10 minutes intentionally because it's a manageable time that doesn't force me to completely restructure my morning routine or how much time I take. It does force me to be disciplined and mess around with it. So I'm gonna be a good human and say this begins on January 2nd because January 1st, I have plans on being a potato.
Liz Moorehead:
That is my plan. That is my plan for the day. I am going to be a human potato who is functionally illiterate, and it's going to be amazing.
George B. Thomas:
I'll be a
Liz Moorehead:
sweet potato. No.
George B. Thomas:
I'll be a sweet potato. I love you some sweet potatoes, isn't it? Sweet potato pies, sweet potato fries. Anyway
Liz Moorehead:
Speaking of sweet potatoes, flawless segue right
George B. Thomas:
there. Segue.
Liz Moorehead:
Just kidding. So finally, we're having this conversation today because even with all the toxic stuff, this mornings matter, and we firmly believe that here. How we start our days matters. So with that in mind, if you could leave our listeners with one way they can rethink their mornings going into 2024, what would it be and why?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. There you go with that one way stuff again. Listen. To me, what comes to mind is one single major word that I would pull out of this episode, and that is the word intention. Being intentional with your morning helps you live a life of intention.
George B. Thomas:
And as we move into 2024, rethinking our mornings to embrace mindful flexibility can transform them from this, and we've talked about it, rigid set of tasks that I have to check off into a nurturing, adaptable practice that can truly enhance my daily life, your daily life. I want you to think about personalization over prescription. Instead of strictly following a popular or prescribed routine, and we've named some names, customize your morning to fit fit your unique needs, preferences, and the lifestyle that you're living and where you're living it right now. Like, we've talked about how change is gonna happen in life. So what does it look like for you?
George B. Thomas:
This personalization of your morning routine will ensure that your routine resonates with you and support your specific goals, which this is where I sneak in the second thing because if it is that, you can focus on it being simplistic and sustainable. Listen. I'm gonna tell you, aim for simplicity in your morning routines. A sustainable straightforward routine is more likely to be maintained us and I've dealt with and that's burnout. And remember, the journey to a life beyond your default is not a sprint.
George B. Thomas:
A life beyond your default is not a sprint. It's a marathon of magnificent mornings. So be intentional with each and every one of that's what I would say you do as you start to craft those magical morning routines. And, of course, I'll end this with, let us know what's your challenge. Email us.
George B. Thomas:
Hit us up on social. Send a carrier pigeon. But inquiring minds wanna know.
