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Some mornings everything goes right. You wake up before your alarm goes off. Your morning jog feels like playtime. The coffee tastes better. And there is no traffic on your way into the office. And when you sit down to get to work, you feel like you could conquer the world.
Other days are not like that all.
And while you can’t prevent every unfortunate a.m. situation that might come your way, experts say there are a few things you can do to encourage your mornings in that direction so you can make the most out of the rest of your day, too.
“If you wake up [energized], you’re going to carry that energy through the rest of the day,” says productivity expert and coach Ellen Goodwin. Starting your morning with little “wins” (having an outfit picked out and ready to go, working out and leaving on time) primes your brain to work toward more “wins” and successes throughout the day, Goodwin explains.
But if you start the morning off on the wrong foot, you’re already behind, she says. And that means you’ll need to use the energy you do have to get to a better emotional state, she explains. (Think back to how you calmed yourself down the last time you got caught in a traffic nightmare or public transport breakdown.)
“Energy equals willpower — and you only have so much at a given time,” she says. So the more of it you use to recover from a train delay or an alarm-didn’t-go-off morning, the less you have later for concentrating on a big project at work, family drama or whatever your day throws your way.
