Rituals Eat Goals for Breakfast

I’m not going to set annual personal goals this year.

I’m working on my morning rituals instead.

How many people set a goal in January that they’ve forgotten by April? Humans typically have 90 day cycles of focus before things get…fuzzy. Hence why quarters have 3 months.

But it’s the daily journey, the regimens and practices, that take you far.

Put another way, goal-setting is nothing without the daily discipline of how you get there.

Enough concepts, here’s my new 2024 intention and daily morning ritual:

2024 Intention: Calm and Regulated

6:30am Wake up

• 20 minute meditation
• 20 minute exercise with breath work
• Quick phone check
• 30 minutes to walk my dog, Bodhi
• 30 minutes to make matcha, breakfast, and dress
  
  

These are my best practices for building your ideal ritual:

1. Set an overall intention — my 2024 intention is to be calm and regulated. Long COVID introduced dysregulation to my nervous system over the last 2 years, so this is a top priority for getting my life back.
   
2. Align your daily ritual — I asked myself the question, “What activities and settings make me feel calm and regulated?” Write that list down and use it as the backbone of your ritual.
   
3. Schedule your ritual the same time everyday — It’s much easier to build a habit when you do it the same time with the same ingredients.
   
4. Wake up to your ritual….not your phone — Decide where in your ritual you check your phone. I encourage you to wait until the middle or end of it if you can.
   
   

And if you’re a science nerd like me, here are some of facts that will impact your ritual:

• Get 15-20 minutes of sunshine outside within the first hour of waking up (no sunglasses, don’t stare directly at sun) and/or turn on bright lights when you wake up.
• Don’t have caffeine for the first 60-90 minutes of the day so that you can let adenosine (the sleepy chemical that builds up overnight) wear off naturally. Otherwise you get that afternoon slump.
• Incorporating AM exercise also reduces adenosine levels in the body.
• Try to incorporate a cold AM shower or bath to increase dopamine levels throughout the day up to 250% from baseline.
  
  

Resource: The Optimal Morning Routine – Andrew Huberman

Wishing you lots of cold showers and morning sunlight!