It’s easy to measure our level of success by arranging our milestones in rank order. A job promotion here, a half-marathon there, maybe a new record for sales or articles published in a month. With our most impressive highlights, we map out a picturesque mosaic.
While these are necessary to keep track of, milestones aren’t what define us. The small, quiet hours in between the milestones are what determines our success. The discipline we hone and contend with on a daily basis is the foundation to the staircase leading to achievement.
Without the daily disciplines, those habits that you’ve collected and cemented into a routine, the accomplishments worth bragging about wouldn’t have happened. What appears in the spotlight, what appears before audiences—this is but the icing on the cake.
The many steps leading up to that moment, all the things you do when no one is there to see it, that is what builds success. It’s about the small battles underlying the large victories. Win the small battles; claim the large victories.
At 22, I’ve come a long way since I first entered university. I graduated last May and, this past year, I’ve been living abroad in Southeast Asia. An international move is a huge adjustment, though luckily I was able to lean on my discipline and habits I had developed in college. Without these, I likely would have moved home, given up, and lost my way. The adjustment would have been too steep and my mental and physical being would have been suspended in disarray.
However, maintaining my habits and discipline—by winning the small daily battles—I was able to adapt on the fly to a new culture, language, and lifestyle. Then, I secured a job I love as an editor and writer.
Milestones are the things that make headlines, the things you call home about. But the habits, the discipline, the daily battles—these define you and take care of you. They pave the way for milestones to fall into place. Below, I’ve listed my exact routine I follow every single morning that has propelled me mentally, physically, and spiritually. These things have kept me on the straight and narrow despite the turmoil and upheaval happening all around me.
Let’s get into it.
Wake up before 6:00 AM
I started doing this in high school when I played water polo. Practice started at 6:00 AM everyday, which meant I was up at 5:30 AM. That was 2010. These past 9 years I’ve carried this habit with me and it has given me an edge in every single thing I’ve attempted.
Waking up before 6:00 AM is a small battle that holds massive gravity. Each day, the first thing everyone does is wake up. Transforming “waking up” into “winning a battle” makes a difference psychologically and prepares you for more victories throughout the day.
Early rising inspires an immediate feeling of accomplishment every single day. You are up before your peers and have quality alone time. Because no one else is awake, there are rarely phone calls, texts, social media alerts, or interruptions. During the day, how often can you say that you have time to spend with just yourself, when nobody is trying to reach you?
Exercise in the early morning
The benefits of exercise are documented in enough affirming research to clog your search engines. There is no dispute here, and most people find this to be self-evident. Although, when paired with the previous habit of waking up before 6:00 AM, this becomes potent.
The alertness of exercise paired with the feel-good sentiment of winning not one but two battles (waking up early and exercising) is both a jolt of energy and mood-booster. There are many excuses that help preclude people from exercise. “Not having enough time” reiterated in its many forms is the most common. Exercising first thing in the early morning destroys that excuse, in addition to freeing up your hours later in the day to do things other than exercise.
Exercising first thing upon waking will give you more time to spend working on other projects, spending time with family, or going out and being social.
Early morning exercise becomes a remedy to two common excuses: “I don’t have enough time to workout” and “I can’t hangout because I have to go exercise.”
Exercise comes in many forms, but the first step is installing the habit and integrating it into your daily routine. Focus on how to get moving and how to find different forms of exercise that you enjoy. Finding enjoyment in the exercise makes it sustainable—ask yourself, what could you do that you would be willing to do?
Read first thing in the morning after exercise
Like working out, a common excuse to skimp on reading is “I don’t have enough time to read.”
And it may be true. People work full time. People exercise. People have families and friends and spouses. There isn’t a lot of time in the day to sit quietly with a book. Some people may even consider that selfish. That’s where the early mornings come into play.
At this point, if all is going according to plan, you’ve waken up before 6:00 AM and exercised. For myself, I usually stick to under an hour of exercise in the morning, leaving myself time for reading before I start my work day. There are infinite benefits to reading such as increased knowledge base, sharper verbal skills, improved articulation and public speaking, increased empathy, improved conversations — you get the point.
Reading is an activity that is usually considered a leisurely, weekend pass time. Imagine prioritizing it and maximizing your mind and mental acuity every single day. The aforementioned benefits only compound with each book.
Many people don’t finish a full book again once they graduate college. It can be hard to find the time and effort to do so. But by prioritizing it and placing it as one of your first tasks of the day, completed books begin to stack up. A rotation of reading becomes regular. You learn something every single morning. You get sharper and mentally active while other people are still sleeping.
Don’t sleep on reading everyday.
The perfect concoction
Pairing reading with exercise and an early morning is the golden formula.
The early morning affords undisturbed quiet and eliminates all excuses to avoid exercise and reading. In waking up early, you achieve your first victory of the day, and it’s quickly followed by two more immediate victories in exercise and reading. By picking up a book post-workout, you have greater mental clarity and energy as opposed to reading before a workout or in the middle of the day. With high energy and alertness, your mind is optimized to learn.
Each day starts out with physical and mental exercise, and it’s all completed before your family and friends and competition wake up. By rising early, there is no impingement on your day-to-day schedules and relationships.
This routine creates discipline and habits that can take care of you through hardship and transitions. Maintain the routine and all else will fall into place.
Optimize your life, win the daily battles, watch the victories accumulate.
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