Change your morning, change your life.

If you sat here and watched my morning routine, you'd probably think I was a psycho.  So I'm going to tell you about it, and you can then think I'm a psycho. A freaking awesome psycho.  Because remember, "Everyone is living in their own self created illusion."

I'm not one of those guys who's all like "You must get up at 5am if you want to be successful." I know the title is telling you to change your morning, but don't change anything if you don't want to. You really just gotta figure out what works best for you, and importantly what feels best. I simply feel better all day when I get out of bed around 6:30am and go through this routine.  I'll explain that in a second.

If you told me 10 years ago when I was a dumpy 19 year old college student that I'd be getting out of bed everyday at 6:30am and doing the things I do, I would have thrown a Keystone Light at your face. I used to be the king of sleeping in, as most high school/college kids are. I was the classic wake up at 11am if I didn't have class before that type fella. I thought I needed that much sleep, but I really always felt groggy waking up that late. Yet I continued to do it.

Fast forward to now, like most people my age, I can't sleep in anymore. And more interestingly, I've noticed if I even sleep until around 8-9am my head simply does not feel good. Not clear, no good, takes me a while to get clear that day if ever. I'll admit though, I still happen to sleep in some weekends, I'm no get out of bed hero, but I don't really know why I do it because I just feel worse. If you feel great after sleeping in, more power to you, do that more.

What I now do, and will probably continue to tweak over time, I created from a combination of different people I've read or listened to- Tim Ferris, Tony Robbins, Rhonda Byrne, etc. So what the hell do I do every morning? Right, that's what we're talking about.

I wake up at 6:30am with my alarm. I'm usually very tired, and would not be able to get up without the alarm. I'm also usually so tired I used to always hit the snooze if I knew my schedule would allow it, so now I put my phone far out of reach which causes me to actually get up out of bed to turn my alarm off. By that point of getting up to shut off my alarm, I'm not going back to bed anymore. That was a great trick Mel Robbins suggested and really helped a big time sleeper like myself.

Once awake I put on headphones and turn on some meditation music where I have a little session of gratitude, then visualization seeing all the things I desire as being done (In my closet. Sure it's weird, but it's cool), then I journal. Tim Ferris really inspired me to start journaling in the morning, I was never a fan of it, but he has a way of making things sound awesome so I gave it a try and love what it does for my day. I just write about a page worth of a little pocket notebook most days. He says just write about anything, get it down on the page. So that's what I do.  I then follow that with either yoga or racquetball. Usually 4-5 days of yoga and 2 racquetball each week.  If I have an early morning meeting or somewhere to be, I simply move up the wake up time. Doing those things are non negotiable for me when I'm at home. When I'm traveling I'm definitely not as good, I'd say not good at all, maybe I'll attempt to get better there.  So that all still sounds pretty normal eh?

The weird (to some, not to me) really begins at breakfast. Or whenever the first time I eat that day is. Sometimes breakfast is around noon if I did some fasting. I never have breakfast without music. Spotify has possibly been the greatest investment in my life.  Crushing music while making my breakfast has been the absolute game changer for me. It's an all out dance party, usually by myself.  If Alissa is home it's both of us.  The music is pretty strictly either The Greatest Showman soundtrack, Deadmau5, Macklemore, Lady Gaga, or T-Swift.  Just all time good vibes music.

While we're rockin out and singing along to those awesome jams, I make the same thing nearly every day. Some fantastic coffee with coconut milk, garlic sausage from Costco, rice, avocado toast, and sometimes fried kale.  That or this awesome sandwhich pictured below.

Garlic sausage, fried egg, avocado, chipotle Tabasco, homemade sauerkraut = bullet train to Flavortown.

Besides the party in the kitchen, I think what people would find the weirdest is how much I enjoy my breakfast every morning. I literally freaking love it every time.  Like every time. Fist pumps are thrown in the air, and I'm sitting there making those "mmmmm" sounds like Bob in this scene from What About Bob. Alissa can confirm this. This also happens at most dinners, desserts, and any time I drink her Kombucha.

But I'm not doing it as a joke, or to try to convince myself I'm enjoying my food. I actually just love the heck out of the food I make, certainly all the food Alissa creates.  And I just enjoy enjoying things. What I've really realized by starting my day like this, with my routine, and then just enjoying the heck out of my food and dancing around my kitchen, is that when I have a great morning I have a great day. And when I have a couple great days in a row I have a great week. A few great weeks make a great month. And pretty soon I've had a great freaking life. It's simple math.

It's also taught me how fun life becomes when you enjoy the little things. When you're enjoying all the things that seem small, celebrating them and being grateful for them, it puts you on a different frequency, and more things that you'll want to celebrate and be grateful for will come to you. Or at least that's how I see it in my self created illusion of life.

Like I said before, you don't have to start popping out of bed just because I said so. This is what has worked for me, and hopefully it helps a few folks. I'm only writing this because I used to just wake up, shower, and rush off to work, and I was definitely less happy throughout the day. Experiment and figure out what feels best for your body and your life.  Be you. Even if it's short, try to do something new in the morning and see how it works. Write 10 things you're grateful for, play and rock out to your favorite song, journal, tell yourself how awesome you are. Whatever gets you GOING. It's always worth it to start your day jacked up. 

Be Awesome.

-Tom Spaniol

"If you don't have 10 minutes, you don't have a life."
-Tony Robbins