Start Your Day with Healthy Habits
After recommending a glass of water first thing in the morning, I had a student comment that her blood sugar levels evened out and started to improve. She had been concerned because the numbers seemed to increase over time and she didn’t know how to reverse that. A glass of clean water in the morning also gives our large intestine the fluid it needs to eliminate waste.
In the morning, we can also set a positive tone by opening our heart before we open our eyes. Start with a list of gratitude, envision a positive attitude throughout our days, and feel our heart open like a blooming flower facing the sunshine.
In addition to a glass of water, eating a healthy, bigger breakfast will give us the energy we need to fuel our morning and set a tone for the day. I know that when I skip breakfast, I find myself foggy, hungry, and more irritable all day long—or at least until lunch, whereby I need to eat twice as much to catch up.
Beyond water and nutrition, we can focus on the information in our mental diet first thing in the morning. We can avoid the news, email, and social media feeds first thing in the morning. Instead, read something inspirational, listen to music that makes you happy, talk to loved ones, and stretch a little. Finally, bring your awareness into your physical body. Feel the softness of the bed linens, feel the floor under your feet, pay attention to the texture of the water in the shower. Getting our awareness into our body, instead of our head, feeds a part of us that experiences peace. If all the energy goes to the head, it robs our vital organs of that energy.
It Will Never Be Perfect
Procrastination robs us of more dreams than any of our habits. Usually, we procrastinate for a few simple reasons. We procrastinate because we fear judgment, thus we keep trying to make it perfect.
We procrastinate because we’re not organized; we may even thrive on the chaos and the whirlwind. We procrastinate because that’s our habit, “we work best under pressure.” It may be that we only work under pressure. The wolf at the door gives us the sufficient motivation to get into “gear.” We procrastinate on accident, because we don’t give ourselves enough time to realistically complete a project. This still results in rushing at the end and subpar performance.
Ironically, the surest way to get close to perfect is to pace ourselves. We fare far better by planning a reasonable amount of time, slowly and steadily working on something, allowing ourselves time to review it. We not only produce a better end result, but we save ourselves all of the stress that is experienced from the time that the task begins until the time we complete it. When we fret about it being perfect, we take energy away from real action. One project that is complete is better than five that may someday be perfect.