How I Start Each Day, 2018 Addition

I'm always kinda fascinated by how other people start their day, so I figured it might be fun share my latest morning routine. (Because it is really doing it for me.)

These are the 3 day-changing (therefore life-changing) journaling prompts i use to drag my tired, crusty-eyed booty outta bed:

1) How do I want to feel?

Ah yes, the back-to-basics, Danielle Laporte-inspired, mood-shifting, tone-setter.

When I connect with how I want to feel (relaxed, at ease, poised, refreshed) versus dial into and perseverate on how I currently feel (groggy, lazy, grumpy), get this -- I almost immediately start to generate those way mo betta feelings.

Just by fucking jotting them down and dwelling on them, I start to get a delicious whiff.

"Ah yes--REFRESHED, I know you. I've felt you before. Let me summon you now."

Much like gazing at a glistening rotisserie chicken through the window of a BBQ joint will cause one's mouth to water, emotionally focusing on how you want to feel will cause your soul to stir more deeply in that direction.

In the wee hours of the morning we must focus wisely. So consider: How do you want to feel?

2) What would make today absolutely amazing?

Yes -- what would make today amazing? And not in some basic, "Maybe I can go for a walk after lunch!" way (although that's cool too), but in a larger, grander, let's seriously ponder what would be beyond insane and awesome to experience today...

As in: "If money was no object, and I was given full reign over how I spent this day, and I could do legitimately anything I wanted, what would I do?"

This morning I jotted down that I'd hop on a plane to Hawaii with a few of my business besties.

I'd luxuriate in a candle-lit roman-style bath filled with rose petals.

I'd buy my Mom her dream house on Cape Cod.

I'd make dinner for a sexy, worthy man and we'd throw a blanket on the living room floor in front of an epic fireplace and picnic it up and then--um, we'd go to sleep. Yeah. We'd go to sleep...(tee hee.)

I encourage myself to go to these dreamy, outlandish places because UN-LIMITING IS WHERE IT'S AT.

Connecting with the truthful core of your heart's desire (even if it doesn't look anything like your current schedule or to-do list) is necessary and wise. Admitting to yourself that you'd love to frolic in a field with a bevy of golden retriever puppies is actually a fun, useful point of focus.

We spend a lot of time mucking around and focusing on our lives as they currently are. This prompt is about allowing yourself to spend time in your life as you wildly wish it could be.

How courageous. How insightful. How cool. What would make your day absolutely, beyond, amazing?

3) Who do I want to be today?

OH FUCK THIS IS WHERE THE DELICIOUS RUBBER MEETS THE SWEET FUCKING ROAD.

Because by this point in my journaling process, I've stirred up all these rippling, ecstatic, good-good feelings.

I've allowed my imagination to stroll over to a dreamy place where maybe I have a brunch date with Michael B. Jordan.

I've left the hum-drum realm of, "Hmph another cold February morning," and entered an intoxicating (and truthful!) space of, "Wait--this is is my life. This is where I get to feel things and dream things and imagine things. This beautiful world is actually my very own decadent, have-it-your-way oyster. And I get to decide: Who will I be today?"

This final prompt is about paving the way for the person I am becoming to show up, and deliciously deliver.

Cause let me tell you, the person I want to be is not grumpy, groggy, anxious, or crusty-eyed.

She is calm. She is centered. Resilient, powerful, supremely capable. All of the most majestic, BAMF descriptors.

I write it down. I feel it. I picture it. I watch my inky pen glide over the page like I'm casting a special spell.

And once identified, once dreamed, once schemed, it is my personal responsibility to generate these ways of being moment-to-moment. For the rest of the day (especially in difficult moments), I know I've already outlined and written down who I will be and how I will show up.

I do this because I want to remember and recall that this is what we came for, Amy. To feel ripples of everything good. To un-limit and imagine and blow the popsicle stand of what's "realistic" or "unlikely" or "impossible".

I came here to become the woman I am meant to be. That's my job. It's my right.

So I need reminders. I need to feel like her. Dream like her. Act like her. Be like her. I need to show up. In all her majesty.

And maybe you could use a few reminders, too.