Staring at never ending to-do lists.
Managing bad group members.
Working on one problem for over an hour.
Leaving lectures completely confused.
Sitting in the lab for hours.
Studying engineering is hard! You are probably stressed and overwhelmed. It takes perseverance to graduate with an engineering degree. But, the good news is by making a small tweak to your day can make you more motivated. The key to running your day instead of letting it run you lies in how you start.
Adding motivation to your morning routine can help you get more done and overcome challenges effectively.
Importance Of Morning Motivation
Have you ever had one of those days that nothing went right? It starts off with you snoozing through your alarm. Then, rushing to get ready and in your haste, spilling coffee on yourself. Maybe you hit traffic during your commute or you got to class and were welcomed with a pop quiz. Everyone has had one of those days, where you just want it to end so you can start over again.
When you are having a bad day, it usually starts the moment you wake up. For instance, you over slept your alarm or stub your toe when you get out of bed. These seemingly minor incidents can cause you to feel irritated and put you in a bad mood. This carries on throughout the day and leaves you thinking everything that could’ve gone wrong did.
Why?
Because your day started off negative, so you saw the negative in everything throughout the day.
This illustrates the importance of being intentional and waking up with positivity, which will give you motivation. This will set a positive tone for the day.
You have control over when you wake up and what you do with your time. Engineering is difficult enough, so you need to be at your best to get through your work. Making time for morning motivation will give you the ability to confidently tackle any challenges you encounter.
How do you get motivated in the morning?
Morning motivation actually starts the night before. You must get a good nights rest in order to feel motivated the next day. I know this is challenging in college. Many students stay up until the early morning. However, you are doing yourself a disservice.
You see, you make the best decisions in the morning- regardless if you are a morning person or not. After a period of sleep, you wake up restored and with energy to make good decisions. As the day goes on, you make many decisions, which causes decision fatigue to kick in. This causes your willpower to go down. It is also the reason if you leave working out until the end of the day, you may choose to forgo your work out and get take-out instead.
Therefore, studying until all odd hours of the night is not going to be very productive. Instead, try to get 7-9 hours of sleep so you wake up, well rested and ready to take on the day.
Refine Your Morning Routine
Second, you need to evaluate your morning routine. Most people already have some sort of routine for getting ready, even if it is as simple as waking up, going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, showering, and eating breakfast.
Even though these activities get you “ready” for the day, do they really motivate you?
Probably not.
Most people wake up with just enough time for them to rush through this routine to get out the door. However, this is a missed opportunity to optimize your productivity.
Adding motivation to your morning starts with waking up earlier than normal to make time for your motivational activity. I know I can hear you groaning right now- but hear me out.
There is a reason why most successful people such as Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, wake up early. He wakes up just before 4am. Each morning, the first thing he does is review users’ comments on Apple products. This way, the customers are in his mind all day. Then, he works out.
Reading customer reviews and working out gives him the motivation he needs to run Apple successfully.
Now, I am not advocating for getting up in the morning at 4am- unless you really want to. It is up to you how early you need to wake up to make time for your morning motivation.
Tips For Waking Up Earlier
The key to making morning motivation a habit is not making it painful, but a ritual you look forward to. That is why I don’t recommend making a drastic change to the time you wake up. It will be hard and feel like an obligation, so you will not stick with it.
To create a habit, it needs to be easy and make you happy. So try waking up only a few minutes earlier, maybe 15 minutes. Once that is easy, then add another 15 minutes. Keep doing this until you have the time you need to perform your morning motivational activity.
Another tip for getting out of bed in the morning, do not hit snooze! Put your alarm somewhere that requires you to get out of bed to silence it. That way, when the alarm goes off, you are forced to get up and then stay up. With consistency, it will get easier.
Choose A Motivational Morning Activity
The secret to starting your day off motivated comes down to a neurotransmitter called dopamine.It is one of the four main “feel good” chemicals that are naturally released in your brain. Dopamine is also known as the reward chemical. It is the reason you feel so good checking things off your to-do list. The other great thing about this neurotransmitter is it creates reward-seeking loops, causing people to want to repeat the behavior that made them feel good. Therefore, making you more productive throughout your day. Activating dopamine is as simple as choosing one of the activities below to perform when you wake up in the morning. Studies show by doing this, you will be more motivated in the morning and set your day up for success.
1. Celebrate Your Wins
Keeping a list of everything you have accomplished will get you motivated to take on the day. Keep your list somewhere handy like your nightstand or tape it to your bathroom mirror. This practice will release dopamine and boost your morning motivation on the days you do not feel like waking up for that 8 am class.
2. Eat Breakfast
Before you even eat your favorite food, dopamine will start being released because you are looking forward to it. This is why you feel good when you start your day off with food. If breakfast isn’t your thing, try grabbing your favorite beverage instead, such as tea or coffee. Calmly sipping your drink is a relaxing way to start your day.
3. Complete A Task
Get a jump on your day by crossing a task off your to-do list. As mentioned above, this will give you momentum and motivation to want to get more done. The classic example is making your bed. However, it can really be any task such as answering emails, doing a load of laundry, or completing a homework assignment. Whatever responsibility you choose, no matter how small, will be sure to give you your morning motivation.
4. Review Your To-Do List
Don’t have time to complete a chore? The mere act of reviewing your to-do list and visualizing it completed is enough to release dopamine. The expectation of a reward will give you motivation. This is also a great habit because it will give you a clear picture of your priorities for the day.
Pick the most important task off your to-do list. I call this the one thing. This means, no matter what happens that day, this is the one thing that you will get done. This helps make sure you are always getting something done and making progress.
5. Treat Yo Self!
Tom and Donna on Parks and Recreation had this one nailed. Participating in a self care activity is another way to reward yourself. This is why taking a bath or reading a good book makes you feel great. Here are some more ideas below:
- Listening to music
- Listening to a pod cast
- Putting makeup on
- Meditate
Choose your favorite self care activity to release dopamine and trigger morning motivation.
6. Review Your Goals
Similarly to re-reading your to-do list, the simple act of visualizing how good you will feel when a goal is accomplished can activate dopamine. The key is to be intentional about how you will you use today to take steps that will get you closer to achieving your goals. This is a great way to start your day with inspiration.
Want to take it to the next level? The morning is a great time to focus on your Why. Why do you want to accomplish your goal? What is driving you?
Keep your Why easily visible, such as putting a sticky note on your mirror or keeping it on your night stand.
Focusing on your goals and your Why will give you both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation is triggered by external rewards, including good grades, money, or praise. Intrinsic motivation comes from within, such as your Why.
7. Practice Gratitude
Giving thanks puts you in a great mood because it activates dopamine and serotonin. Serotonin is also called the mood stabilizing chemical because it makes you feel happier, calmer, more focused, less anxious, and more emotionally stable.
To achieve this state of mind, start by acknowledging three things you are thankful for in your head or writing it down in a gratitude journal. You can reflect on yesterday or what you are looking forward to in the day-ahead. Research by UC Davis psychologist Robert Emmons, shows that people who practice gratitude regularly reported numerous benefits including more optimism, happiness, and higher levels of positive emotions.
8. Workout
Everyone knows physical activity has numerous health benefits, including making you feel great. Why? Endorphins are only one of many feel good neurotransmitters released when you exercise. Working out also triggers the release of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. This is why early morning exercise is so common and a sure-fire way to give you your morning motivation.
In college, my activity of choice that made getting out of bed easy, was getting a tea from Dunkin’ and drinking it in the campus center. When I wake up I need tea to start my day. It was so peaceful to be up early and pretty much have the whole campus center to myself.
Then, as I sipped my tea, I would review my to-do list for the day. This gave me a clear picture of what I had to get done and my priorities. This routine gave me the motivation I needed to successfully get through my day.
So, what morning ritual are you going to pick to start your day off motivated? You can also choose multiple activities like I did or start gradual and choose one that takes almost no time at all.
If you enjoyed this article, Morning Motivation: How To Set Your Day Up For Success or have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below!
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