Today, we’re talking about creating a morning self-care routine that’s going to improve your life in 60 minutes or less.
An alternative title for this post could have been How To Make Yourself Want To Get Up In The Morning because this method is going to get you pumped to get out of bed as soon as you wake up.
Seem like a long shot? Those of us who aren’t morning people and have to be dragged out of bed are going to be especially skeptical. I have been that person for the majority of my life.
Not only will this method help you get out of bed, but it will also give you time to take care of yourself and start a self-care routine (because how many of us can’t seem to find the time for this?).
Before I reveal all of my secrets to you, let’s just talk about mornings for a second.
Why do mornings suck so much?
Raise your hand if any of these things describe you:
- You’re constantly snoozing your alarm
- You’re always running late to work
- You feel like you have no time to do anything in the morning
I raised my hand for literally all of these things. For the past 6 months or so, I’ve been finding it really difficult to get up in the morning without snoozing my alarm. And I mean snoozing for like a whole extra hour. I realized that there was one huge factor contributing to this: I had nothing to be enthusiastic about in the mornings. My morning routine (or lack thereof) just wasn’t doing it for me.
I think the number one reason we have trouble getting out of bed in the morning is that we don’t have anything to look forward to.
Luckily, I’ve come across a method that has totally changed my mindset. I found a way to get myself pumped up about waking up in the morning with the added bonus of taking care of my health at the same time.
The Self-Care Power Hour Method
So how do you break your alarm snoozing habits and develop a self-care routine at the same time? You start by devoting 20 minutes to your mind, 20 minutes to your body, and 20 minutes to your soul in order to take care of yourself in just one hour. It’s like a power hour for your well-being!
The verdict? This is the real deal.
At first I was like, Do I really have to get up an extra hour to do this? But strangely enough, when you’re excited about something and know it’s going to improve your mood, it makes getting up a lot easier.
I feel like I’m more productive, my stress levels decrease, and my outlook is more positive when I start my day this way.
How The Self-Care Power Hour Works
Choose Three Activities
Start by choosing three activities from the list below for your mind, body, and soul. You can also think about activities you love or want to try that may not be on the list.
Set Aside Time
Set aside an hour in the morning to try this. It may seem impossible to wake up an hour earlier, but the goal is to find activities that are exciting and enjoyable enough to you that you don’t mind losing that extra hour of sleep. You could also go in baby steps and just focus on one area (mind, body, or soul) for 20 minutes each day.
Start The Timer
Do each activity for 20 minutes. You don’t have to go in any particular order, just choose the thing that excites you the most first. For me, I usually like to wake up and either read or write, then I’ll do some yoga, and then I’ll listen to a podcast or watch a video.
P.S. You totally don’t have to do this in the morning or in one big chunk. You can span it throughout the day or do it before bed. I personally think it’s the best strategy to get excited about waking up.
Self-Care Routine Ideas
Mind
- Meditation
- Reading a fiction book
- Journaling
- Coloring
- Sudoku
- Learning a language
Body
- Walking
- Yoga
- Dancing
- Non-running cardio
- Pilates
- Stretching
Soul
- Playing an instrument
- Listening to a podcast
- Reading a non-fiction book
- Watching a TED talk
- Baking or cooking
- Starting a DIY project
If you want even more ideas, my post with 30 goal ideas to nourish your mind, body, and soul should help you out! You’ll probably find that a few things can cross over and be placed in more than one category. It’s up to you how you interpret each activity.
The Self-Care Power Hour Worksheet
To make this process even easier, I put together a worksheet for you to print out so you can keep track of your activities for 7 days!
You can plan these out ahead of time, or just write down each activity as you complete them. You also don’t have to do something new every day. If you want to write every day, do it – but if you want to try writing one day and meditating the next, that’s cool too!
Are you going to try the self-care power hour method?
Because this method has helped me enormously to take better care of myself, I think it will really benefit you too! I challenge you to grab the guide and try the Power Hour Method for 7 days! See if it gets you excited about waking up, squeezing in exercise without hating it, and makes you feel more motivated and inspired in your days. Give it a go and let me know if you’re a fan!
55 Responses
I am definetly not a morning person, but i want to be so I am excited to try this out!
I love that you want to be a morning person! Some people are so opposed to it haha. I’m sort of an in-betweener – I like to wake up early but some days I just need to sleep in.
Whoa!!! I love how you break it down to mind, body and soul. That is such a good way to warm up for the day! I’m pinning this and going to try this!
Haha thanks, Daisy! I’m so into the mind, body, soul thing right now.
This is fantastic, I’m definitely going to try this out! I’ll let you know how I go :)
Yes, please do!!
I always do this, it really sets the tone for the entire day! Thank you so much for the inspiration to keep doing this, it’s so relaxing when you aren’t rushed you just feel more ready to take on the world! xxxxx
http://www.romantiquely.com
I love that you already do this! You are such a zen person haha. What are your favorite activities to do in the morning?
This is genius. I am definitely going to try to wake up and do this tomorrow morning! Maybe start with one or two in the morning though. Baby steps, right?! But I am absolutely inspired by this and hope to work up to it. You’re so right about having something to look forward to in the morning. Instead of thinking that when we wake up we have to go to work, shifting our perspective gives us more room and time to focus on other important things in life. Love this!
Baby steps, absolutely! I kept telling myself that I had to wake up and exercise ASAP, but that just felt like a chore so I never wanted to get up. Mixing exercise in after I’ve read or journaled makes it a lot more enjoyable!
This is brilliant! I am so downloading that worksheet for next week to try this out! :)
xo Kitten ♥ The Howling WolfHeart
Awww yay, thanks Kitten! Would love to hear how it goes xx
I’m pretty good at waking up in the morning, but I’m absolutely terrible at making myself clean! It stresses me out to slowly be chipping away at a cleaning project so I deserately need to try this! I know it would work.
I’m also so bad at cleaning! I can organize like a madwoman, but I just do not like to clean haha. This would be a great way to get it done though!
What an amazing post and concept! I love this and I truly believe it rings true. When I was working at a job I didn’t LOVE, it was really hard to get up at 7:30am. Now that I’m a mom and a full-time blogger, I sometimes roll out of bed at 5:30, giddy get grab my coffee, get bloggy stuff done and see the smiling face waiting for me in his crib! ;)
I love this! I know that I would be much more motivated if I could work from home, but alas it is not possible just yet :)
This is sooo good! Every time I read your blog posts I get so excited about everything and anything! I’m so going to try this :)
Yayyyy, thank you! I hope school is going well! I’m still patiently awaiting the return of your posts ;) xx
That’s such an awesome method. As a Holistic Life Coach, I’m all for working our life from a three dimensional aspect. Thanks for sharing it!
Yes, totally! It’s so important to work on all three aspects of your life xx
I love this idea! I am definitely going to try this. Thanks =) I am really not a morning person, so that’s going to be a challenge, but let’s see what happens with those cool tips =)
I’ve so loved finding your blog through our link-up together and now I’m just savoring my way through your archives. I’m looking forward to trying my own Power Hour!
Love this so much. I’m the worst at getting up, it normally takes me 30 minutes to an hour. So having a system like this to look forward to would really help!
I really want to try this! I’m just worried because my usual morning routine (skincare, breakfast, coffee + pastry while catching up on blogs/youtube vidos) normally takes an hour. and i love that routine. but i want to add this, but don’t want to take 2 hours to get ready in the morning! have you tried this in smaller time increments or is 20 min the best time set up?
Well honestly I think you could totally count watching blogs and youtube as a soul thing since it adds a little more contentment into your day! And I think as long as you’re doing something, even for 5-10 minutes, in each category each day you’ll get tons of benefits from it :)
I just found this, and this is a beautiful genius way of getting self-care in! I definitely find that doing something to nourish myself first thing in the morning sets my day off on a high vibe space and that energy carries me through the day!
I just found your blog and I love it!! I plan on sharing it in my monthly favorites over on sarastrives.com! I may also reference some of your articles in one that I am working on. I’ll let you know! :)
This is something that I think would help me. Mornings are pretty brutal. I could use something to look forward to. Excited to give it a try!
Heck! I just woke up better already after reading this article. (And I have yet to have my coffee!) I usually only have one good thing to look forward to, my coffee. Why not have more than one good thing to look forward to? Brilliant! I am totally trying this method! Can’t wait to start my days better. Thank you for the break down and sharing the article!
This is so amazing!
With Love,
Anna || Curly Yorker
I can’t wait to try this in the morning! For the past 3 nights, I have gone to bed saying that I will wake up and do yoga. I think reading this post is the final push that I needed to ACTUALLY get up and do it. Thank you!
That’s so awesome to hear, Lauren! I hope it gives you a little push in the right direction :)
Athough I am a morning person, sometimes I have a problem to not snoozing my alarm haha. :-) I started do yoga again, which I’m really glad, because it is one of my favourite thing to do everyday. :-) But thank you for this useful tips.
have a nice day xx
http://www.inbluebox.com
This is such a good idea, I love it! I’m definitely going to give it a try but I’ll start over the weekend to easy myself into haha
Such a beautiful post! Definitely going to give it a try. Thanks for sharing.
https://thatkenyanwanderer.wordpress.com/
Wow I love this! Thanks for being so thorough with your writing – it’s so helpful! Definitely planning on trying this sometime soon :)
http://www.delightedheart.com
Love this post! I started a routine similar to this about 2 months ago and the impact on my life has been significant! It amazing how starting your day off on the right foot can honestly change how you live your life! Thanks for a great post :).
Love this post, looking for some inspiration and direction to make my day productive and happy. Hopefully I will be able to this.
This is such a wonderful idea! I’m totally a morning person, but I find myself losing motivation and bargaining in the morning. I love the idea of getting up because you’re excited!
Love these ideas. I have to put my alarm across the room to make sure I don’t snooze when it goes off.
This is fabulous. My wife is THE WORST SNOOZER EVER, but can’t seem to break the habit. I sent her this article and she’s trying it out this morning. We’ll see!
Haha I LOVE that! Hopefully it worked ;)
I too am not a morning person…but I recently committed to doing my own version of a power hour in the morning. I can attest it can do wonders for your life. The concept has actually been around for a couple decades. I believe it was Tony Robbins who coined the phrase Power Hour, but there’s also an amazing book I would encourage everyone to read, called The Miracle Morning.
I had no idea it was a Tony Robbins thing! I’ll have to look more into this haha. And I’ve heard such good things about the Miracle Morning but still haven’t checked it out. Thanks, Michelle!
Love love love this post! Thank you X
I genuinely needed to read this. I’m excited to try it out tomorrow and see if it’ll cure my hatred of mornings
This is interesting but I always have a problem with tips that incite people to sleep less. If I want to get up one hour earlier in the morning, I need to go to bed one hour earlier, which is just not doable – I’m already going to bed at 10 pm! What pleases me however is the idea of spending a few minutes in the morning on something I like, so I’ll try that. I could take the 10 minutes I loose with the snooze button and maybe hurry up a bit my morning shower. ;)
Hey, Katharina! I totally understand that it’s not possible for everyone to wake up earlier, and luckily this method is totally adaptable to fit whatever time you have in the morning. Thanks so much for reading!
Hi Cathy ! I find this power hour lovable but the thing is that i am living in a dormitory, with a mate in the same room as I. So if i wake up earlier, she will have to do so too, and she is already ready before me and doing things on this meantime so it wouldn’t seems fair…
Do you have any ideas how to cope with this ?
Thanks and Love, Sarah
Hey Sarah! That’s a great question. I remember it was always a struggle trying not to wake up my roommate in college. Not sure how close you guys are, but could you suggest trying the power hour together? Otherwise, maybe it’s something you could try at a different time of day when you wouldn’t have to worry about waking her.
Just wanted to drop a note and let you know how much I appreciate this post and your page. I stumbled across your page a little over a week ago completely by random and so much of what you address really hit home, for I recently hit an incredibly low point. My boyfriend and I broke up a couple days ago and I realize this separation is going to be so beneficial for me, (and I’m hoping for him as well) instead of adding to my lows. I’ve been slacking on my self care and sacrificing my personal time to be with him. I’m learning there are certain parts I can not sacrifice from my life NO MATTER THE PERSON. Boyfriend, best friend, mom…. etc. So, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for sharing your self care tips! It’s definitely helping me tap back into mine, and inspiring me to try new things.
I am so so glad this post came at the right time for you, Tressa! Breakups are tough, but it already sounds like you are finding the positives in the situation :)
this blog really is helping alot…
I am also one of those people who hates waking up early in the morning. Sleeping makes me happy and makes me feel peace, but just for a change, I would like to try this one out. I am so glad that I found this inspiring blog of you. I’ll try to start with one or two every morning, just like taking baby steps. Thank you for inspiring me and giving me ideas on how to make my day more productive. Having something to look forward to is beautiful and it also makes me so happy by just thinking about it.
i loved this