The Gift of Morning

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep!” - Rumi

I am usually the only person in sight on my daily summer sunrise walks. I pass cows, deer, and turkeys in the fields and hear only the songs of the birds and crickets. The stillness and sounds of dawn fill me with gratitude and appreciation for this magical time of day and the opportunities it provides for me to spend time focusing on myself.

​As a collegiate rower in California, I woke most mornings at 4:00 a.m in order to be at the boathouse for 5:00 a.m. practice. Waking early became a habit for me and while not easy at first to establish, it allowed me to invest time in myself to become both mentally and physically stronger while most everyone else was still asleep.

The time we invest in ourselves is the best investment we can make as we strive to attain our career, life, health, and wellness goals. Purposely taking time each day for personal development and self-care can seem selfish and leave us feeling guilty or anxious, but the returns are significant and will impact every area of your life. Waking up early each morning to put the proverbial mask on ourselves first will result in increased self-confidence and self-esteem, strengthen our boundaries, and propel us forward to success with our goals.

So how exactly does harnessing the power of morning help us improve our lives and attain our goals? If you consider that the majority of people wake up and immediately go into a reactionary mode The alarm goes off, they grab their smartphones and start checking emails or social media, then go about getting ready for the day in the same way they do everyday with the same routines and the same thought patterns. These becomes repeatable patterns of living in the past as they are doing the same thing they did the previous mornings. Humans are creatures of habit; our lives are the result of the actions we repeatedly do. Being on autopilot in the mornings assures that we stay the same with predictable emotions and feelings and therefore, therefore, stay the same.

Consider this title from Marshall Goldsmith’s book “What Got you Here Won’t Get You There” or this quote from Les Brown. “To achieve something you have never achieved before, you must become someone you have never been before.” 

We must purposely and intentionally take different actions and become somebody different in order to achieve the different results we desire in our lives. 

The early hours of the morning provide us the time to devote to self-development work and the platform from which to start our day in a way that sets us up for success.

You don’t have to be a morning person or need an hour long routine to be able to harness the power in the moments after waking. How we structure our thoughts and what we do in the mornings can have a profound impact on our day. As a life coach, I often weave the opportunities that are abundant in the quiet moments after waking into my client’s goal getting and success endeavors and into their self-care design.

Consider these questions for yourself:

How would intentionally designing your mornings to include time for yourself affect how you experience your day?

Are there opportunities in your morning to grow stronger, find more peace, more self-love, or more gratitude?

What can you achieve in those quiet dawn hours that could change the trajectory of your life?

And if you do have a morning routine, how could you enhance this important time to connect more to your purpose and to your goals?

​-Coach Augusta