Having a strong morning routine is the foundation for achieving success on a daily basis.

There is a reason why the majority of highly successful people (professionals, athletes, entrepreneurs and even presidents) have a robust morning routine…and they look forward to it!

A morning routine is really just a set of small habits you do sequentially during a set time at the beginning of the day.

The best time to wake up and start this routine is between the hours of 5 and 6am, since for most of us, our regular day starts around 8 or 9am. This gives you plenty of time to complete your routine which can last anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours.

Here is a list of some of the top habits that successful people incorporate into their morning routines, and this list also follows my personal routine pretty closely.

Read 5 to 10 pages in an inspirational book

Read five to ten pages in some sort of inspirational or self-development book. Not only will this motivate you for the day, it will expand and grow your mind. It will give you new ideas, cause you to think beyond your current situation and inspire you to improve yourself.

Reflect on your goals and values

This is the part of your routine where you set your compass for the day.

The first element, reflecting on your goals, resets in your mind what you are ultimately working towards. This helps you to stay focused throughout the day and allows you to determine which tasks help you get closer to your goals, and which tasks you should say no to. These can be monthly goals, six-month goals, or goals that are a year or more out.

The second element, reflecting on your values, resets in your mind the things that are most important to you. You can value family, you can value integrity, you can value ambition. Reflecting on your values sets your moral compass, so you can stay true to who you have decided to be.

Our days are full of distractions, successful people understand the importance of reflecting on your goals and values daily, so you can avoid these distractions and accomplish the things that truly matter.

Reflect on your vision

Pro athletes do this before a big game or competition. They imagine and visualize the upcoming performance, mentally running through everything they will need to do to win.

They visualize winning. 

This trains the mind, much like when you train your body when you work out. They say practice makes perfect in a physical sense…well…practice also makes perfect in a mental sense.

The best way to do this is to have some sort of vision board. On your vision board, place images of your ideal lifestyle; where you want to go, what you want to do, who you want to be, what you want to have. Spend time looking at this and imagining that have all of it already. This solidifies in your mind the “why” behind everything you do that day and keeps a fresh picture in your head of what winning looks like to you.

Meditate

Meditation can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. But in the sense that I’m talking about, meditation is simply taking the time to be still, to be in silence, and to clear all the clutter and noise from your mind and then fill your mind back up with only the things that you want. This only needs to take a few minutes, but it makes a huge difference.

Learning to control what goes in and out of your mind is an incredible advantage in a world so full of noise.

Exercise

Our bodies are not meant to be sedentary. Even a few minutes of exercise can give you as much or more energy than a cup of coffee…and the more you do it, the better you will feel, and the better you will look, which ALSO makes you feel better.

It’s important to note that this doesn’t always have to be an hour long trip to the gym, it can be 15 minutes doing jumping jacks, pushups, and situps…really anything to get those endorphins flowing.

You will be amazed at how alive and ready for the day you feel after some physical activity.

Journaling

Many of the great men and woman of our age and in history kept detailed journals. Writing things down really solidifies them in your mind, and at the same time, it can expel things from your mind.

You can use journaling to remember ideas, things that happened, feelings, etc. and you can also use journaling as a tool to empty your mind by getting stuff onto paper.

If you decided that journaling is best for you, I would highly recommend writing down one thing a day that you are grateful for. Finding something to be grateful for and writing it down is a proven step towards happiness and a daily realization that there are people out there that have it worse than you do. It makes you more thankful for what you DO have.

And that’s it.

Out of all the daily routines I’ve studied from highly successful people, those 6 habits are the most common, and the most essential for holistic success in life.

There are many other great habits to include in your morning routine that I didn’t mention, such as drinking lots of water, eating a good breakfast, spending time with your family or spouse etc. But those 6 are the main ones.

It’s also important to note that these habits were in no particular order or length. Morning routines vary from one person to the next. Take what I just shared, and craft a routine that works best for YOU. These habits can be in any order, and take any length of time. What’s important is that at the end of the morning, they are effective for you.

Don’t be afraid to experiment.

I personally incorporate all 6 of these into my morning routine, which I start between 5 and 5:30am. I have a version of my routine that lasts about an hour and a half, and I have a version that lasts 10 minutes or less on really busy days.