KWIK BRAIN
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May 19, 2017
My Morning Routine (How to Jumpstart Your Brain & Day)
If knowledge is power, learning is your superpower.
Jim Kwik
How can you jumpstart your brain and day for greater productivity and peace of mind? I'm often asked what my morning routine is. Inthis episode, I reveal the answer.
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Show Notes
How can you jumpstart your brain and day for greater productivity and peace of mind? I believe if you can win your morning, you can win your day. Creating routines in the morning and evening helps me insulate myself from decision fatigue.
You can only create a finite number of good decisions each day. Setting up habits early in the day creates positive momentum and a vision and direction for my day. I don't always do all of these, but here are some ideas for you.
My Ideal Morning Routine
Recall Your Dreams
- Episode 14 is all about the power of dreams to transform your life.
- Some of the greatest breakthroughs in history came in dreams.
- When you dream, your subconscious mind processes solutions to problems you work on in the daytime, but most people forget them.
Make the Bed
- Making your bed is a success habit.
- How you do anything is how you do everything.
- Making your bed well teaches you how to do everything else well – that’s why it’s required in the military.
- When you return at the end of the day, you come back to success.
Drink Water and Take Supplements
- Water is important because most of us are very dehydrated at night.
- I take my supplements and probiotics.
- Your gut is your second brain. You have an incredible amount of nerve cells in your gut, so make sure they’re fed.
Breathe
- Breathing techniques fully oxygenate your body and your brain.
- Try box breathing, alpha breathing, or the Wim Hof method.
Meditate
- I meditate for 15 – 20 minutes because mindfulness is so important.
- I want to have a clear mind as I enter the day.
- Try the Headspace app or the Muse device.
Move
- I move for 1 – 2 minutes so I can get into my body.
- I do intense movements like calisthenics, jumping jacks, crunches, or burpees.
- I exercise later in the afternoon, but this movement gets my heart rate moving.
Take A Cold Shower
- Cold therapy works for me and helps to reset my nervous system.
Nourish Your Brain
- My favorite tea is a combination of gotu kola, ginkgo, lion’s mane, MCT oil and other gems.
- This concoction stimulates my brain and increases my focus throughout the day.
Journal
- I’ve been journaling since college.
- Many geniuses – like Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison – write journals.
- Studies have found that many geniuses journal. But do they journal because they’re geniuses, or does the process of journaling and reflection make them geniuses?
- I prefer to handwrite my journals since studies say handwriting is better than typing.
Create A To-Do List, A To-Be List, and A To-Feel List
- My to-do list: I pick 3 personal and 3 professional goals to complete for the day.
- My friend Clay Hebert calls it a “champagne moment.” What can I accomplish that will make me feel like I crushed it at the end of the day?
- My to-feel list: A lot of who we are is our states and emotions.
- I don’t want to feel a certain way by accident but by design.
- I decide how I want to feel so I can design my day that way: to feel loved, to feel curious, to feel bewilderment, to feel connected, to feel gratitude.
- My to-be list:
- Who do I want to be today – a good partner? A good friend? A good leader? A good teacher? A good coach?
- We’re not human doings. We’re not human beings.
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Read
- I read for about 20-30 minutes.
- If you schedule the time, you can read one book a week just by reading 30 minutes a day.
Make A Brain Smoothie
- Most of the ingredients come from my top 10 brain foods – green leafy vegetables, water, blueberries, avocado, and more.
Do Brain Training
- I do certain exercises that I teach in my Kwik Learning programs.
- I want to jumpstart my brain in the morning.
Start With Your Most Difficult, Important Task
- You can’t manage your time as much as you can manage your priorities.
- Priorities used to be a singular word. Now everyone has multiple priorities.
- In the morning, I have the most nervous system energy so I like to take on the biggest thing on my list.
- Usually, the thing I don’t want to do is the thing I should do that will make everything else easier.
- If you have trouble, refer to the Kwik Brain 010: How to Stop Procrastinating.
Why I Manage the First Hour of My Day:
- Usually, the first hour of your day is the hour you can influence the most.
- If you need help adding these, listen to Kwik Brain 015: How to Create New Habits.
- This conversation is all about self-love and self-care.
- Self-love and self-care are not selfish.
- You can’t be good for somebody unless you’re being good to yourself.
- Set up your morning so you can win – and then you can check your phone and email in a resilient state. But you start the day with momentum and having already checked off some important items on your list.
- Come back and celebrate at the end of your day.
What's Next?
My Morning Routine (How to Jumpstart Your Brain & Day)
My Morning Routine (How to Jumpstart Your Brain & Day)
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