A self-love routine differs from your self-care routine. A self-care routine is doing things you enjoy but also doing things you have to get done to keep yourself in balance. It's all about refilling your cup so it doesn't get empty. That being said, adding self-love morning habits to your everyday routine is different.
What’s the Difference Between Self-Love and Self-Care?
Self-love morning habits differ from a self-care routine because, with these habits, you are starting your day intending to wake up to self-love. It helps you structure your day. It also encourages you to take small practices into loving yourself if you're beginning your journey with self-love, or it can help you feel more deeply connected to yourself if you're farther along in your journey.
7 Self-Love Habits to Ingrain Into Your Morning
1. Give yourself ample time
I'm the master at being late or almost late to almost everything, and that's not cute. I hit snooze one too many times in the morning, leaving myself with five minutes to get ready. As of recently, I've been setting my alarm an hour or half an hour earlier than I would normally. I did this so I could hit snooze a few times and still get up with time to get a few things done and leave my house at a decent time to get where I needed to be.
Doing this has been such an eye-opener for me. It has given me time to do things I enjoy doing in the morning. It has also taken away that feeling of being rushed, unprepared, and frazzled. I hated that feeling and knew I had to change.
Yes, sometimes I still press the snooze button in the morning or overestimate the amount of time I have to do things and rush to get somewhere. But, hey, we are all humans with our flaws and this is one of mine. I'm working on it.
2. Start the day with a positive thought
Before you get out of bed or even open your eyes in the morning, think of something positive about yourself or your life to frame your day. You can think about how good that morning coffee you're about to have will be or how your friends or family bring you such joy in your life. Something simple to put you in an optimistic mood for the day.
3. Write down your intentions for the day
I swear by using a planner since I was in the sixth grade. It keeps me organized and on-task, which lets me know places I need to be and when. I've recently started using to-do lists in the morning to set my intentions for my day. I use my planner as a general overview of what I need to complete by certain dates. So, it was easy for me to procrastinate because I had things I could work on, but I could also do that thing tomorrow.
I wanted to use my time more efficiently, and writing things down I wanted to get done in that one day proved to be very effective even after the first day. There was one day I wrote down four things that I thought were going to take forever, but I had half of those things done by 10 am. So, it's been a way to value my time and not stress myself out because I have procrastinated on something that wouldn't have taken me long to complete.
4. Drink water when you wake up before your coffee or tea
I sleep with a water bottle next to my bed every night. When I wake up, I make myself finish the bottle of water before pumping caffeine into my body. Ideally, it's best if you can wait an hour after you wake up and have breakfast before coffee.
I drink water all day every day, but I still don't get the daily recommended amount in. So, starting my day off by hydrating my body with something it needs makes me feel better, and it's like setting your body's intentions for the day, too.
5. Be grateful
It's so easy to get caught up in our day-to-day lives and think of mainly negative things. If I'm being honest, I was so irritable and cranky this past weekend because I felt like I wasn't good enough or good at anything. Looking at social media and what everyone else was doing around me seemed so much cooler and better than what I was doing. Which means I'm a failure, obviously.
I wasn't focusing on the great things in my life that already have and other people may not. I focused on what I didn't have rather than what I had. I woke up the following morning and felt so much better than I did the day before because I started thinking about everything that I love in my life and how happy I am to have those things. Being grateful seems like something so small that we brush it off because we can't seem to find the time to think about it for even a second, but it makes all the difference when you do.
6. Try meditating
I mentioned in my 5 Minute Body Scan Meditation post that it's essential to check in with your body now and again. If your check engine light goes off in your car, you would want to check that out as soon as you can. So, why not do the same for your body?
Meditating doesn't have to be super complicated, profoundly deep, or time-consuming. You can do it for even a minute, at the very least. Just close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and see what your body is trying to tell you.
7. Do you before you scroll
Many of us immediately roll over when we wake up and scroll through social media. I am very guilty of this and do it all the time. I know it's not good for me because I see all these great things people are doing and compare myself right away when I wake up. And what is that doing for me? Making me feel more anxious? Making me feel like I'm not doing enough? It's nothing beneficial.
So, this week I'm challenging myself to skip the scroll when I wake up and do something for myself before checking social media. I challenge you to do the same and want to hear how it goes.
I'm not saying that I do these things all the time. The goal is not to do all seven of these every single morning because let's be real there are some mornings where you have to run out the door to get somewhere on time. And that's okay. At least try to make it the goal to incorporate one to two of these habits into your morning routine and see what a difference it makes for you.
Check out this amazing woman, Louise, here for healing techniques and making joy part of your everyday life.