Alright, let me tell you about August 16, 2016. That day was supposed to be the one. I had this grand idea that I was finally going to lock down the ultimate morning routine, you know, the kind you see online that promises to make you a productivity machine overnight. What a joke, looking back on it.
My plan was pretty ambitious, I’ll admit. I had it all written down the night before, very serious stuff:
- Wake up at 5:00 AM sharp. No snoozing. Yeah, right.
- Immediately meditate for a solid 20 minutes. Supposedly for ‘clarity’.
- Then, three full pages of journaling. To ‘unlock my subconscious’.
- Followed by a vigorous 30-minute workout.
- Only then, a perfectly balanced breakfast and a calm review of my day’s tasks.
So, the alarm blares at 5:00 AM. It was still dark, obviously. My first, very clear thought was NOPE. But, I dragged myself out of bed, determined. The meditation? Well, that was mostly me battling to stay awake and constantly wondering if the 20 minutes were up yet. I’m pretty sure I just dozed off a few times, sitting there.
Next up was journaling. Three pages! My brain felt like it was still asleep. I think I mainly scrawled things like ‘I am so tired’ and ‘this is a bad idea’ over and over again, just to fill the pages. The ‘vigorous’ workout quickly turned into about five minutes of half-hearted stretching and a lot of staring blankly at the wall. I felt completely silly.
What a fantastic start to becoming a ‘better me’, right? Total disaster.
By the time I even thought about breakfast, I was already feeling stressed and way behind my imaginary schedule. Instead of feeling energized and focused, I was just tired, grumpy, and felt like a failure before my actual workday had even begun. All that effort to be ‘super productive’ just blew up in my face.
That whole experience on August 16th was a bit of a rude awakening, ironically. It taught me that trying to force-fit someone else’s ‘perfect’ system onto your own life is mostly a recipe for frustration. We’re not all built the same. I spent that entire morning fighting myself. Later that week, I ditched that whole complicated mess. I started way smaller – just getting up at a reasonable hour and having a quiet coffee before anything else. And you know what? That actually worked. Way better than my grand, failed experiment of August 16th. Live and learn, I guess.
