Morning Rituals
Welcome to Part 2 of Win The morning you can click on here to read Part 1.
We all have things we like to do in the mornings. Humans are creatures of habit. We create habitual behavior. We get up on the same side of the bed every morning. We start the coffee pot, we use the restroom, read the paper, brush our teeth, etc., etc., etc. You get it, we develop habits in life; but we get to consciously control them if we want. As actors, you better start paying attention to behavior.
Morning rituals are there to get our day moving in a conscious way right off the bat. When I say “conscious”, I mean we are making decisions; and we are aware that we are doing it. Majority of your life is made by unconscious decisions. Think about it. When you get to work in the morning, can you actually think back and remember your drive? Details, like what color was the car in front of you? You probably rode his bumper the whole way and can’t decide if the car was grey, red, or blue unless you are color blind, in which case you probably know what color it was. We will dive into consciousness, awareness, and being present along with the present moment in another blog very soon. Right now, I want to make sure the habits we create are good ones! How our morning goes will create the momentum for the rest of the day.
Now, let me show you how we can choose to start our days off with a bang!
If we know our thoughts become our actions and our actions become our life and reality, then the last thing we want to do is flood our minds with worry and negative thought, which will in turn become negative emotion. We want to put good thoughts and good feelings in our mind and approach life and work with that mentality.
What is my morning ritual?
Some of the most influential people in the world attribute their success to morning rituals. Tony Robbins does a dunk tank into 57 degree water. It wakes him up; and, then, he primes himself for the day followed my a morning meditation. Many claim their success on their meditation practice, daily breathing techniques, mantras, all the way to transcendental meditation.
Personally, I attribute my work to meditation and a healthy lifestyle, which includes a decent amount of coffee and great fats, such as grass-fed butter. The other thing I like to do in the morning is strategies. Sometimes, I will do it the night before; and if so, I will use the free time to blog or “clean out my thoughts”. Most humans have what I like to call the “monkey mind”; and we tend to overthink everything. We even overthink the past; and unfortunately, or fortunately, we cannot affect that anymore, so let it go! The past and the future usually take up most people’s day, even though they don’t really exist. Our mind can come up with the worst outcomes for the future even though majority of time the outcome could never be that bad. I am not saying don’t approach something with the knowledge of what you want the outcome to be; but I am saying when you get into something, for example, for actors, we start a scene and most actors are thinking of their dialogue or their mark and they are not presently focused on the task at hand, our “objective”, that thing we want or need. If we can let our mind be focused only on that thing; then, we can stay with the other actor in the scene and allow everything around us to affect us, which is what we want. If you aren’t an actor, then think of it like this – if you are going to sweep the floor, sweep the damn floor! If you are going to do the dishes, do the SHIT out of those dishes.
I like to hit the gym in the morning, or hit my office to jump on some immediate tasks. If I am staying home, I get rolling with some stretches, then a few breathing techniques, like a Whim Hoff technique, a morning meditation, and then I usually jump into a quick “what do I need to do to move today’s list forward?”. I try to focus on 3 main tasks, then 3 things I can do to move them forward. Whatever the big one is, I try to do first. For instance, I don’t like to wait and turn auditions in on their due date. I would rather put some time in and knock it out asap! Not only does it get to casting sooner, which they appreciate, but it also gets it off my chest so I am not splitting my brain around it and whatever else I am doing all day. I think visualization is fantastic; but I try not to daydream as much during the day, except for the times I want to allow myself to focus on those future activities. I find keeping a clear head, focused on the task at hand allows me to be present; and it is hard to do when you have something looming over you all day like a big audition.
Daily Mantra
A daily mantra, or a life mantra, is something that sets a fire under you. A daily mantra is something that you can tell yourself at any point of the day and it makes you want to throw out the excuses and get focused on moving forward. It makes you want to make today just a little better than yesterday. That isn’t a bad one to be honest. I want to work hard today so tomorrow will be a little better, a little easier, and a little more fun! Mine is: I am a creator and it is my job to create and love. I have a small tattoo on my left arm that says “Creator” and one on my right arm that says “Gnosis”, meaning knowledge. I will explain what my beliefs are in a later blog, as well!
Morning workouts!
I love a good morning workout! You don’t have to go nuts and kill yourself, as any morning workout will get the blood to flow and allow your body to wake up and move all the toxins around to get them out of your system. Find things that work for you. One simple thing that goes a long way is called the Five Tibetan Rites. Ok, five things that go a long way. The rites are said to be more than 2,500 years old! They must be doing something right to be that old, right? Anyway, here is a quick video to explain them; and I hope you got some use out of this blog and if you have any questions please comment below, share, and join the email list!
FYI – You don’t have to do it 21 times to start off..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJElLrpBetc