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Here is an episode of The Purpose Show all about my morning ritual and how it has changed over time.

If it’s easier to read the episode, I’ll leave it below.

This is a sort of follow-up episode of one of the most popular episodes that I’ve ever done for The Purpose Show called “How My Morning Ritual Is Changing My Life.” I used to be really religious about doing my morning ritual. It was such a life-giving time for me. Then some things changed and my mornings looked different. This episode is about how some things have shifted for me, what I’ve learned, and what my morning ritual looks like today.

Hey guys! How’s everybody doing? I am super honored that you chose to spend some time in your day with me. Thank you for being here! Also, thank you for all the positive reviews on the podcast lately.

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Reviews are everything on iTunes. They basically decide if other people see and find the podcast or not. Positive reviews can put me in the noteworthy section on iTunes, which is a huge deal, and has happened, and I am just really grateful for you guys doing that for me. It takes a lot of time, manpower, and effort to make this podcast happen. I appreciate when you guys who partake in it also give back. Thank you so much. It means the world to me.

If you have not left a review and you want to, I’d love to see how you’re feeling about the podcast and what you love about it. You can go to iTunes and do that. Thank you so much.

Okay, let’s dive into today’s episode. This is a sort of follow-up episode of one of the most popular episodes that I’ve ever done for The Purpose Show. It’s kind of an “accidental” follow-up because back in the day when the podcast first launched, I did an episode called, “How My Morning Ritual Is Changing My Life.” That was like a year and a half ago. This new episode is how some things have shifted for me, what I’ve learned, and what my morning ritual looks like today.

The Morning Ritual episode is one of the most shared episodes ever. Pretty much anytime I get tagged on Instagram that somebody’s listening to my episode, I know it’s going to either be the latest episode, Episode 6, or the Morning Ritual episode. You guys love that one. It always gets shared. I want to do more of what you guys love for sure and I think you guys will love this episode.

I want to talk about how what I do before a speaking event has translated into every day for me. I think you guys will find this pretty interesting, hopefully. If not, then why are we here? But hopefully you do.

A year and a half ago when I came out with that episode about my morning ritual, I was really religious about it. I would do my morning routine or my morning ritual (I feel like routine kind of feels like “work” or sounds like there’s work involved. So, I like to say morning ritual because this is really just a very slow and life-giving practice). But anyway, I would do that every single morning and it was so good for me. It was such a life-giving time for me.

But I shared in a recent episode that my mornings shifted when I started to have health issues. I decided that I needed to prioritize exercise and that it would just simplify my life if I got it done right away in the morning. So, I kind of left my morning ritual. I told myself that I would do it in the morning after my exercise time or in the afternoon during a midday break and I just needed to give my mornings to exercise.

I started to do that and it just drained me. It was really not helpful. It was not life-giving at all. It felt empowering to get my movement done and out of the way and to take care of my body right away in the morning, but it made my morning ritual totally slide.

I never had time to do it when I got back from my workouts because I would get up really early in the morning, make a cup of coffee, grab a quick snack, drink some water, use the restroom, and get myself ready. Then I’d have to drive 15 minutes to my trainer’s house to train in her home gym. The workout was an hour, and then I had to drive all the way back home. When I got home it would be time to make the kids breakfast and I’d have to get ready for my work day because my work day starts at 9 or 10 a.m.

So, even though the day started early, I just wasn’t doing my morning ritual anymore. I wasn’t doing the life-giving, slow practice of reading and stillness and all that that I was doing before. It was just get up and go. And that wore me down so much. I think there are a lot of people out there that it works for them to get up and get their exercise done and that is a great ritual for them. That is life-giving for them. But that was not the case for me.

I worked out in the morning first thing for about six months straight, and there were good mornings, but it really started to get hard. It was just draining the life from me, making me feel like I was dreading the mornings. I’d go to bed at night and start to just feel dread for the coming morning and that is not how I want to live.

So, I realized that was not good for me and I shifted my exercise. I moved away from my trainer. I thanked her for teaching me. I definitely learned really great, helpful things about how to move my body and how to take care of myself in a physical way, but I was not going to be able to come in the morning anymore. I was going to start to get my movement in throughout the day whenever I took a midday break, when I took a break from work, or took a break from homeschooling or whatever. And that has worked really well. But I had gotten out of my morning ritual routine.

Now that I had my mornings free again, I would wake up early, make coffee, sit and read a little bit, have some prayer time. But I had lost the passion and flow of being very specific and strategic about what I was doing during my morning time. And so, I was kind of in that space for a little bit.

I was really enjoying not rushing out the door, exercising super hard, rushing back, feeding the kids, getting ready for the day. I was really enjoying not being in that space anymore. And so, I just kind of stayed there for a little while.

Well, in the midst of all this, I had a speaking event. I don’t take speaking events very often, but when I do, I make sure they’re really great and I’m going to reach a lot of women and get paid well to leave my family for several days.

I had a speaking event, so I went to Virginia. I was there, and I have this speaking event ritual-I guess I’m big on rituals-and I immediately fell back into it.

It had been a while since I had done a speaking event and so I was like, “Oh yeah, I have this, pre-speaking event ritual that I love to do that gets me in the right mindset to show up for people and really serve them in my talk.” And so, I started to do that ritual the morning that I was speaking.

I woke up early, and I practiced gratitude. I prayed. I spoke life over my day and the people that I would interact with. I did positive affirmations. I sipped my coffee in my hotel room and kind of just paced back and forth while just speaking life and saying, “The day is going to go well. I am going to help people. I am going to say the words that they need to hear, not the words that I want to say.” I started to speak affirmations over my day like that. Then I took a really brisk walk outside and listened to an empowering mindset podcast and really got into this flow of being ready for my day, ready to speak.

I spoke 4 times in 24 hours. It was like a marathon. It was crazy, but it was so good. And I did that morning ritual every morning that I spoke. When I was flying home from Virginia, I thought to myself, “Why do I do this when I’m going to speak, but not for my normal day? What would happen if I not only got back to having a structured and life-giving morning ritual, but if I applied something more like this ritual-my pre-speaking events ritual-to every single day? Why would I treat the mundane days, the “everyday,” as any less important than speaking days?”

What I’m doing at home is far more important than what I’m doing when I’m speaking. I’m raising people. I’m doing live streams. I’m talking to the world. I’m writing emails that get to hundreds of thousands of people. That is a big deal. I need to show up for that better.

So, I decided to come out of this weird funk that I had been in with my morning time and be a little bit more intentional about it like I used to. I knew what my previous morning ritual was and I didn’t really feel like it fit anymore. I wanted it to be different. So, I wrote out what would give me life, give me energy, and make me feel like I had connected with God, connected with myself and just really shown up for the day before it even began. And I just want to share with you guys what that morning ritual is like now.

My pre-speaking ritual has turned into my everyday ritual, and it’s really life-giving. It’s really beautiful and I know that it will help somebody out there, so I want to share it with you guys.

The first thing I do when I wake up is I literally stay in bed. I wake up and I lie in bed. I’m not waking up super, super early like I used to anymore. For a really long time when I was starting the business, I’d get up at 4 a.m. and work. Then for a really long time I got up at 5 a.m., then it was 5:30, and then it was 6:00 for a while.

I own my business so I can start my workday whenever I want, and about six months ago I decided I’m never going to start my work day before 9  or 10 am. (90% of the time it’s 10 a.m.). Every rare once in a while I need to start at 9 a.m. but it’s so rare I can almost say it’s never. I basically always start my work day at 10 a.m.

And that’s hard because I live on the west coast, so that’s like 1 p.m. for everyone on the east coast and a lot of people that I work with are on the east coast. But I just decided that this was worth it for me. That I needed to have a slower morning. That it’s super life-giving for me and my family. I yell less when I’m not stressed out and rushed and I needed to have that morning space. I’m the boss and I worked really hard to be the boss, so I’m going to set that tone of the day how I want it to be. So, I shifted that.

Now I don’t really get up until in between 6:30 and 7 a.m. I wake up when my body wants to wake up, but I do have an alarm set for 7 a.m. in case I do sleep late, which never happens. I always wake up before my alarm. I wake up naturally, which is really nice, really slow.

You moms who have young kids who wake you up super early, it gets better. It is coming. It’s okay. Trust me.

Right when I wake up, I stay in bed. I open my eyes, I take a deep breath, and I immediately practice gratitude. And this is a super simple, juvenile, whatever comes to mind kind-of-thing like: “I’m grateful for this beautiful home that I get to live in. I’m grateful for my bed. It is so soft. I remember having a really crappy mattress for years and years because we were so broke and it was so hard. Nothing was luxurious or nice at all. So, I’m grateful for my mattress. I’m grateful for my blankets. I’m grateful for all those books on my shelf. They make my room feel cozy. They remind me of all the things I’ve learned and how easy it is to get knowledge today. I’m so grateful for that. I’m grateful for this man sleeping next to me. He’s such a good man.” Or sometimes Brian’s not next to me. He’s downstairs already because he wakes up early.

I’m grateful for whatever the situation is, whatever comes to mind. “I’m grateful for my candles. I’m grateful for my flowers on the nightstand. I’m grateful for date nights. I’m grateful for my kids and grateful for cereal on the mornings that are hard. I’m grateful for…” You know, whatever it is. I’m just grateful and I practice that for a few minutes.

Then I get up and I get my slippers on. I grab a sweater. I make a cup of coffee and I go and sit on my porch. This is where I practice prayer and stillness. I just sip my coffee. I sit really still and I listen to the sound of silence out front.

Everyone always wants to know where the kids are and you know, sometimes they’re still asleep. It depends on how early my body woke me up. Sometimes they’re awake. Breakfast is at 8 a.m. so they know to just kind of hang out. If they want to make their own breakfast, they can make their own breakfast earlier. That’s okay. They can go to the bathroom, get water, play, get breakfast, whatever they want. When your kids get older, it gets like this and it’s nicer. We homeschool so we don’t have to rush out for school. One of the biggest reasons that I love homeschooling and owning my own business is the ability to set a slow tone like this in the mornings.

So, I sit outside and I just enjoy the stillness. As I finish my coffee and I finish being still, I begin to talk to God and I just pray and I have a conversation with Him. And conversation involves listening. So I talk and I listen. Whatever comes out of me. It could be about my day. It could be about the previous day. It could be about a relationship issue. It could be about a work thing. Whatever comes out, I just talk to Him. Sometimes I just ask Him what He wants to talk to me about and I listen. Sometimes not much comes out of this and that’s okay. But I practice prayer and stillness for a little while.

I have my headphones with me. I love my Airpods. I don’t know if you guys have those, but I have a pair and I love them. I put in my headphones and I listen to an abundance meditation. You can just Google it and find one that fits your beliefs, fits whatever floats your boat. There are so many out there. I just listen to an abundance meditation and I really focus on it. I breathe in, and I breathe out. I listen to the words about just creating a beautiful life, reaching your goals, succeeding in the things you want to succeed in, creating more of what you want so that you can share it with others, and just creating an abundant life.

Then I do a quiet space and visualization exercise. So just more stillness. I usually still keep my headphones in and I’ll just put on some lyricless music on Spotify or something. And I just practice visualization. I really believe in the power of our minds. I believe that I am made in the image of the Creator of the universe. He is the All Powerful Creator and I’m also a powerful creator. I create what I think about.

Our minds are incredibly powerful. I believe the power of life and death is in the tongue and you say what you think. It all starts with your thoughts and it is very important to guard and protect your thoughts and also intentionally use your thoughts for good and not evil. I think that when you think that the world is awful or life is so hard or your husband’s a jerk and your kids are just so difficult, then you’re going to get more of that because you’re thinking it, you’re seeing it, you’re proving to yourself that you’re right.

But you can choose to switch that. Think positively and visualize joy, abundance, good in the world, and good in your life. Practice gratitude and visualize more of that. Visualize what you want.

I visualize my business going really well. I visualize specific revenue goals coming to fruition. I visualize having a good relationship with my kids now and when they’re older. I visualize a happy marriage. I visualize it happening right now and into old age. I visualize a lot of different things. I don’t need to share all of those things, but I visualize getting where I want to go. Reaching goals.

I visualize some big charitable giving goals that I have that I can’t wait to see come to life. And I know they will. I visualize writing those checks to charities and organizations that are doing great things that I care very much about. I just use my mind to visualize big things.

Then I move into visualizing small things like my day going really well. I know what’s on my calendar, I know what I’m doing that day, so I visualize those things going really well. I just go over it in my head like, “Okay, today I’ve got a livestream at 11 a.m. and that is going to go beautifully. If there’s tech issues, we’ll deal with it. But there’s not going to be tech issues and it’s going to go really well. I’m going to reach a lot of people with this message and they’re going to find freedom in the words that I have to say.”

I invite the Holy Spirit to come and be with me and rest on me and speak through me. I visualize the whole day going well. I visualize having the time and space to do what needs to get done. I visualize being empowered to make decisions about what needs to just wait until later so that I can have time with my kids and have time to do everything that I need to do that day.

If it’s date night I visualize no tension, high expectations or bickering happening that day. (Because if any of you are married and you’ve ever had a date night, you know that it’s very easy for there to be a lot of tension on date night for some reason. That’s just the way it works.) I visualize no tension before date night. I visualize a beautiful day and a great, fun romantic evening with my husband at dinner or whatever it is we’re going to do that night. I just feel grateful again. I thank God for everything that He gave me and that I do have the power that He gave me in my mind and I can visualize things happening and that is His will for me.

Then I do something that’s kind of specific to me in my story. If you are new here, you’re going to be like, what the heck? But after that, I open up my bank accounts. I check the business bank accounts. I check my personal bank account. I check the platform account that basically tells me how much money the business made yesterday and today so far, and what’s coming in. I look at the flow of money in my life and I connect with that and I practice gratitude for it. I’m connected to that.

I shared in another recent episode that because of my PTSD diagnosis because of our money struggles, I had avoided looking at money for a very long time and it wasn’t good. It wasn’t good for me; it wasn’t good for my business. And so, now I’m very connected to money in a healthy way. I check in every morning and I just see what the business made and what’s in our account, what bills have come out, what needs to be paid, what’s coming in and going out. And I just feel grateful.

I say out loud that I’m so grateful for this money that I’ve been given and that I can do good things with it. When good people make good money, they do great things and I want to be one of those good people that do great things. I’m thankful for this flow of money in my life and I thank Jesus for it. That’s just a personal thing that I do because of my personal story.

Then I come inside and I kiss my babies because they’re definitely up, awake, and downstairs by now. I make sure that they’ve got breakfast going. If they don’t, I help them get it started. And then I grab my flip flops or my shoes, I kiss my hubby and I take a walk. I just go. I walk around my neighborhood and sometimes I get grateful again. If I feel like I’ve just been kind of stuck in a negative place and I need even more gratitude, I will do that.

Sometimes I’ll listen to a podcast. Usually I listen to a podcast. I love podcasts about mindset and I try to give that to you guys here. But I also love James Wedmore’s Mind Your Business Podcast. It’s definitely business-centric so if you don’t own a business you probably won’t like it. But sometimes I listen to that, especially if it’s a day that I’m going to be in the office. I will listen to something positive, walk around and get moving. Usually I stop and do some lunges, squats, or push-ups or something, get my body flowing a little bit. Then I come inside, eat breakfast, have another cup of coffee and spend time with my family. And then we all get dressed for the day.

That is a very specific look at my morning ritual. I’ve been doing this every day for a couple of months now and there’s no end in sight. It’s so fulfilling.

Basically, I can wake up with stress on me and just having this practice of talking to God, connecting with myself, connecting with my Creator, connecting with my day, connecting with my brain is so powerful. It’s really healing. Whatever I’m going through, whatever stress there is, it really doesn’t have a place to stand on when I practice this because it just falls away. I’m reminded of all of that I have to be grateful for. And I see all that I have to do in a positive light instead of with a perspective of dread like, “Oh my gosh, there’s so much to do.”

I hope this helps you guys. I hope this encourages you and inspires you to get your own morning ritual. And please tag me, share that you’re listening, tell me what you’re doing in your mornings-based on this episode-that is just giving you life. I’d love to see how you’re partaking in this!