“We open at 5:30 am. Start your day off right.”

It sounds like a great invitation in the morning. Who doesn’t want to start their day off right.

Until you realize it’s an invitations from McDonald’s.

I don’t know many people who start their day at McDonald’s saying they started their day off right.

What does it mean to start your day off right? 

Is it going to McDonald’s? 

I think it happens way before you go anywhere.

Your day is full, or has the opportunity to be full. The morning can either help propel you into your day or be an obstacle to get it started well.

Let me get this out there, just because your morning doesn’t start out well doesn’t mean you can’t have a good day. You do get to make that choice.

And no, it doesn’t depend on which side of the bed you get up on.

It’s bigger than that.

Here are some ideas for you to get your morning started out right.

Go to bed.

There’s a Hebrew saying that says, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Its because you can’t just sleep off a bad day by itself. I’ve found more often than not, that the attitude I go to sleep with is the attitude I wake up with. A great way to start your day off right is to close out the previous day well. What you do going to bed, and when you go to bed, can help or hinder your morning routine.

Do your best to close out the projects you’re working on, or get to a good milestone before the next day. If possible, live at peace with the person your frustrated with. Don’t carry that into your next day.

Tomorrow has enough worries of its own. Don’t carry extra baggage.

Mindset.

How you go to bed is just as important as how you wake up. Take inventory this week, what is your first thought when you wake up in the morning? Your mindset affects your attitude the rest of the day. When waking up, if you feel like you’re already a failure because you hit the snooze button, or slept past your alarm, you’re going to be battling that the rest of your day. Or, you can wake up with the mindset of anticipation and eagerness to experience the day.

Each day has infinite opportunities awaiting each of us.

Sometimes the only difference between those of us who seize those opportunities and those of us who don’t is our mindset. If you need to build a new mindset in the morning, try this: write a positive wake up thought on a sticky note and put it on your side table.

That might be all you need to start your day off right.

Set your future self up for success.

I got this from Jon Acuff. If you knew something your future self was going to do, and you could help make it easier for them, wouldn’t you do it?

Let’s talk about changing the bed sheets for example. I know I’m going to change the bed sheets, I also know I need to put on clean sheets before going to bed. If I have an extra set of sheets, I can take off the dirty pair and put on the clean—that sets my future self up for success. How do I know? Because whenever I don’t put on the clean right away and I come into my bedroom at night, I’m never excited to make the bed. I’m ready for bed, not to make the bed.

What do I do?

Every morning I know I’m going to make a pour over coffee. So every night I put out my cup (if its not in the dishwasher), coffee filter, ground coffee container, pour over holder and fill my hot water heater for the morning. Now, when I wake up and I walk into the kitchen, I’m so grateful for my past self for doing all that work. Instead of doing all the work, I get to make myself a cup of coffee.

Gratitude

Check this out. Going to bed every night is the greatest risk you take every day.

You know why?

When you go to sleep for 7-8 hours, you are trusting that everything in your house is safe. How much trust you must have in order to sleep every night. Then when you wake up? You realize, hey, everything is okay.

And you can be grateful for that.

When we wake up with gratitude, we’ve reminded our brains that we’re in a safe environment and we’re going to be okay. If you can wake up in a safe environment tomorrow, try waking with gratitude.

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What do you think? Would driving over to McDonald’s be your right way to wake up tomorrow? Probably not.

Every day is an opportunity ready for you to explore and grow. 

Get ready. 

Here we go.

Good morning.

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