I have always believed in the beauty of morning time. The time from 5 am to 8 am is sacred. I believe how we spend those hours shapes our entire life.
But after years of preaching about it, I myself had fallen off track and had started to wake up late, around 7-8 am. All I had time for was to make breakfast for myself and cook myself lunch before heading out for work.
I could see how cranky and disinterested in life I was becoming slowly because I was giving no time to myself.
My mother too, all her life, before she intentionally looked after her habits, says that she never even had the time to drink her morning tea slowly and mindfully.
And I know this is the reality for so many of us.
Often, for most of us, our mornings are spent hurriedly: rushing our morning coffee, running around for clothes to wear for work, doing the dishes from the night before, or simply wasting a good part of our morning scrolling through social media and bombarding our brains with news, notifications and feeds.
The world puts its grip on us the moment we wake up. It casts its net, and we willingly let ourselves be trapped.
But is this how you want to spend your one precious morning, rushing and hurrying through all your life?
Well, there is a different way to spend our mornings, in a way that leaves us feeling more fulfilled, more calm, more meaningful and more satisfied.
And for this, you need to do 4 things before the world gets your attention.
4 Things to Do Before the World Gets Your Attention
Table of Contents
When people come to know that I wake up at 5 am, they ask me, “To do what?” in a ghastly surprise.
And I say, if I don’t wake up at 5, I wouldn’t have this precious time to myself.
I want to wake up and spend time with myself before the world gets my attention.
In the morning, it’s my precious me-time where I nurture myself.
So today, instead of giving you a whole list of things to do in the morning, I want to share a simplified version.
There are just 4 things you need to do before the world gets your attention.
You don’t have to do all four for hours.
Even 15–20 minutes for each can change the way you enter your day.
And some mornings, one might need more attention than the others.
Think of these not as four more tasks on your to-do list, but four parts of yourself that deserve a little attention.
So here they are.
1. Do Something for Your Mind
Before the world gets your attention, do something for your mind.
It can be:
- Avoid your phone for the first hour (P.S Toxic habits to stop doing in the morning)
- Read something that inspires you rather than news
- Read poetry
- Review your goals
- Sit quietly with your thoughts
- Study something you’re curious about
- Listen to a good podcast
- Ask yourself a question and journal your thoughts about it
- Listen to or write positive affirmations
- Learn something new that challenges your mind and makes it active. (P.S 30 Things to Learn when bored at home)
- Ask yourself a question and journal your thoughts about it.
(P.S Journal Prompts to figure out what you want in life)
You can do any one of them.
Spending even 15–20 minutes doing something for your mind every morning will let you know the difference very soon.
I keep mornings for reading a self-help or something inspiring kind of book.
I’m currently reading The Artist’s Way to find my way back to my creative self and also another book named Indistractable by Nir Eyal.
2. Do Something for Your Body
Before the world gets your attention, do something for your body.
You don’t only have to do “exercise”.
The point is to get your body some movement, and you can give that in whatever way that feels good and gentler to you.
Also, don’t forget: eating on time, eating healthy and sleeping on time are also doing something for your body.
Here are some ideas for doing something for your body in the morning:
- Go for a morning walk
- Stretch for 10 minutes
- Do yoga
- Pilates ( I am currently doing only Pilates and Yoga from the YouTube channel Move with Nicole, and I love this for me)
- Dance to your favourite music
- Do a short workout
- Go for a run
- Practice mobility exercises
- Get some morning sunlight
- Drink a glass of water.
- Make yourself a nourishing breakfast.
- Take a slow shower.
- Spend a few minutes breathing deeply.
- Step outside and get some fresh air.
- Simply move your body in whatever way feels good
Even 20 minutes of doing something for your body will make you feel amazing, and you’ll thank yourself in the future.
P.S. Here is how I made myself love working out.
3. Do Something for Your Soul
Before the world gets your attention, do something for your soul.
- Journal (Here are 100 Gratitude journal Prompts for 100 days)
- Meditate
- Pray
- Chant
- Practice gratitude
- Sit in silence (P.S On Learning to Sit: A Quiet Courage)
- Watch the sunrise
- Spend time in nature
- Read something spiritual
- Practice breathwork
- Light a candle or incense
- Sit quietly with a cup of tea
- Write down what you’re feeling
- Listen to peaceful music
- Simply do nothing for a few minutes
Morning journaling is what I do first thing in the morning. There’s nothing much to think about while journaling.
Just take a pen and your diary and write whatever comes into your mind and dump it on the pages.
I write three pages of my journal every morning, and it makes me feel calmer.
If there’s something that’s worrying me or on my mind, I let it out on the pages, and I also seem to get the answers as I write.
I wrote in this post all about the 5 powerful benefits I received from journaling.
Then, after my workout, I sit for 10 minutes of meditation, listening to a guided meditation or playing peaceful meditation music in the background.
It makes me feel so wonderful and ready to tackle the world calmly now.
4. Do Something for Your Purpose
Before the world gets your attention, do something for your purpose.
What is the thing that matters to you?
Your purpose means the work that you have been put on Earth to do.
You only know what your purpose is, and it doesn’t have to be big.
You don’t have to go out and change the world.
You don’t have to become a climate activist or a freedom fighter.
Your purpose can be as small as making a healthy breakfast for your kids or growing vegetables in your garden.
Your purpose can be to write poems, paint, play the guitar, build a business, raise a family, teach, write a book or simply become really good at something you love.
Whatever it is, your purpose should make your heart feel lighter and add light to the world in whatever tiny way possible.
- Write if you want to be a writer
- Paint if you want to be an artist
- Work on your business
- Work on your book
- Practice an instrument
- Work on a creative project
- Tend to your garden
- Work on a personal project
- Study something related to your calling
- Build a skill
- Plan your next creative project
- Work toward a dream you’ve been postponing
- Create something instead of consuming something
- Spend an hour on the work that makes you feel most alive
Your purpose doesn’t always have to make money. It simply has to mean something to you.
So before the world gets your attention, give some time deliberately, not just the breadcrumbs of time, to your purpose.
Your dreams deserve more than the leftovers of your day.
Give them your best hours.
Do what your heart calls you to do.
Know its demands and fulfil them.
That is your purpose.
As they say,
“The meaning of life is to find your gift.
The purpose of life is to give it away.”
So find your gift and give it away.
And every morning, devote your attention to nurturing that gift because it deserves to be taken care of by you.
Final Thoughts
So these are the four things I try to give myself before the world gets my attention:
- Something for my mind
- Something for my body
- Something for my soul, and
- Something for my purpose.
You don’t have to wake up at 5 am to do this. But if you want to try, you can.
You can simply read a few pages.
Do a little movement.
Spend some time in silence.
And spend a little time, even if 20 minutes, doing something you love but which is painful (because going after our purpose is a hard task!)
These small things are how we slowly come back to ourselves and fill our cup.
So perhaps, tomorrow morning, before you reach for your phone or begin thinking about everything you have to do, you pause for a moment and ask yourself,
What do I need this morning?
Maybe it is something for your mind.
Maybe something for your body.
Maybe something for your soul.
Or maybe a little time for the thing that makes you feel most like yourself.
Whatever it is, I hope you give yourself permission to do it.
You might also like:
Leave a Reply