She sat at her kitchen table, a thin stream of smoke from the cigarette between her thin fingers snaking up into the air over her head. It was roughly 7 a.m. My mom and I had swung by before taking me to school, something we did often. This was early for my grandma. She’d barely say a word as she sat and smoked.
She wasn’t ignoring us, nor was she unhappy to see us. She was waking up.
Back then, I thought it was age. She was in her 70s. But now, in my mid-40s, I understand that this is just how we are. I now need at least 30 minutes in complete silence (minus the cigarette) to fully wake up, to face the day, even when it’s a day I’m excited to face.
It’s probably incorrect to say it’s not age. Twenty years ago, I was up at 5 a.m. and teaching group exercise classes by 5:30. I’ve never been one to jump out of bed, but I was physically capable of doing that back then. I’m not physically capable of doing that now no matter how much kale you feed me or sleep you allow me.
I had a morning routine back then. It was also a routine I was paid to keep up. But it did develop a habit. In my early 30s, when I had an hour + commute to work, I’d wake at 4:30 a.m. to get in a workout in my living room.
Again, I was capable of that then. I’m not capable of that now. It’s also completely okay if you are not capable of it either. Despite every fitness guru alive telling us that it’s mind over matter (effectively reinforcing that it is our fault we can’t exercise at 5 a.m.), it may in fact be impossible to do for some of us.
If you are in perimenopause or menopause and you get what I call the 2 a.m. wake-ups like I do, you know what I mean. There’s no stop-screentime, bedtime ritual, meditation, or deep breathing cocktail that can solve that. Actually, I thought there was. It worked for a while, then it stopped working. And I’ve stopped telling myself that it’s my fault. You should, too.
These days, I adore slow mornings. Sitting, sipping coffee or tea, and thinking about what it is I want to do first. Sometimes it is a workout, sometimes it’s getting straight to my client work, and sometimes it’s journaling.
What I enjoy most is that I get to pick what that thing is.
A few years ago, when I was really digging into the online business world, I felt extreme pressure to have a morning routine. It tried so hard, even through the uncertainty of lockdowns. It was stretching and meditation for a while. Morning pages or journaling for a bit. Then reading was a front-runner for a while.
But nothing stuck. I grew bored of my morning routine as I do of most repetitive things in my life. None of them were giving me the day full of productivity that everyone raved about.
My fault again, right? I just couldn’t stick with the diet.
But what if not having a morning routine is your routine?
It’s true that routines work for a lot of people. I just think we should stop using these kinds of things to make people feel that a lack of one is robbing them of success.
I enjoy structure such as setting aside time to write, meditate, or get some exercise. But I don’t believe these have to be done at the same time every day or in the same way every session to provide the structure we need to be our best selves. It may work out that a similar schedule every day is right for you, but give yourself some grace. Maybe you need to do it in the morning one day and at night the next.
I enjoy the act of writing Morning Pages, but sometimes in the morning, I want to get straight to work. I can’t say that doing them in the evening, when I’m inspired, versus the morning makes me any less productive that day.
These are a few things to consider if you feel the pressure to have a morning routine or if, like me, you’ve felt as though you are failing and falling behind if you don’t have one.
Grounded in self-discipline. Much like diets, morning routines are about discipline. You have to be structured, follow the rules, be consistent so that you can reap the reward: a focused day that is extremely productive. If you miss your morning routine, you’ve failed. A shitty, disorganized day is about to ensue. Everything is off.
It hints at self-fulfilling prophecy to me. I don’t believe we should give this much power to a set of regular activities.
Ignores the freedoms we have as adults. The absolute best thing about graduating from college for me was that I could now have my own schedule. Do what I wanted. Then I had that feeling again when I left my office job and began working remotely which led to freelancing and starting my business. For some of us, that might mean a repetitive set of activities each morning. For others, we might enjoy doing whatever we feel like doing in the moment. Both are okay.
Not everyone has control over their routine. If you have kids and you’re reading this, you might be laughing at this point. Morning routine? Ha! You likely have little control over what happens each morning. The same goes for anyone who is a caregiver for someone or something else - a parent, an aging pet. When I was caring for senior dogs for four years straight, I fought like mad to have a morning routine because it was what I was supposed to do. Looking back I really wish I would have just let all that go and been in the moment. It got me nowhere.
Doesn’t allow for life to happen. I’m a firm believer that even if you have a routine, it needs to be broken from time to time. Maybe while you travel or on a holiday. If breaking a morning routine makes you uneasy, like you’ll lose control, like you have to get back to it for everything to be right with the world, I don’t know, I just feel like that’s unhealthy.
Encourages labels. Maybe I’m writing all this because I’m tired of labeling everything. If we have things we do every morning, can we not just let these be the things we do every morning and not label them as a morning routine? Labeling is an act of creating something that should be desired. You don’t have a morning routine? Oh, you must get one. You have to have one to be successful, organized, productive…fill in the word you choose here.
If you take a deeper look at things, you probably do have routine things you do every day. Maybe my routine could be waking at 2 a.m. each morning to allow my mind to race about scary things that could happen or every mistake I’ve ever made. My body would love that. Just kidding. But I have a hot drink every morning, usually coffee, sometimes tea. I sit for a minute (or 30) to wake up. I walk out on my back patio to see what has bloomed.
These are little things that bring me joy. Not disciplined things I force on myself. While I don’t encourage beginning the day with a cigarette, I do think we should take a lesson from my grandma here and take a minute to wake up each day. Then do a little something that brings joy to start the day.
Do you sing the praises of a morning routine or are you over it?