What’s up World Changer??

I have a question for you. How good are you at keeping your bucket full?

You can’t pour an empty bucket, and empty buckets won’t overflow. In order to positively impact the world around us, we must give out of our overflow, not from our lack.

Let me take a step back, and explain. The bucket is you, and what fills the bucket is your health. 

The challenge is to constantly fill your bucket and to patch it with health because it WILL leak.

A myriad of things that will cause your bucket to leak, including stress, poor food choices, chemicals in the environment, lack of exercise, toxic relationships, financial troubles, unproductive habits, etc. 

The things that keep your bucket full is water (yes water), clean air, nutrition, exercise, healthy relationships, sleep, personal development, faith, gratitude, etc. 

Remember the 5 Fingers of Health from Blog #6.

We are on a constant journey of patching the holes and refilling the bucket to make us whole.

You can’t go to the gym for a month and expect to take the rest of the year off.  It’s journey of constant growth.

So I’ll ask again; how good are you at keeping your bucket full??

Your bucket filling starts with your routines, or habits. 

One habit that I firmly believe in is a morning routine, because how you start your day sets a tone and rhythm for the rest of your day. 

The most important lesson I learned in football was to control what I could control. I can’t tell you how many times this has served me and continues to. 

My morning routine (habit) starts long before the sun rises. In fact, it begins the night before with my sleep. 

I haven’t always been disciplined with my zzzs, and I’m still getting better. My personal downfall was a fixation with social media. 

I was spending HOURS scrolling and thus killing myself the next day from lack of sleep. The cumulative effect was that it destroyed my morning routine, and ultimately my day. 

So in the evenings now I put my phone on airplane mode, accomplishing two things:

  1. I don’t look at my phone immediately when I wake up. I had a bad habit of going directly to social media and/or emails thus letting that dictate my day. If your feed and inbox are like mine, then you know it’s not all good news or negativity. 
  2. The radio frequencies from the phone can interrupt sleep patterns, especially your REM sleep cycle. I’ve noticed a considerable difference in my sleep quality since I started putting my phone in airplane mode while sleeping.

Sleep has been a big challenge for me running a business. As an entrepreneur, I don’t have a 9-to-5 job. I have a from-when-my-eyes-open-to-when-my-eyes-close job. 

I used to think I could beat sleep with good nutrition but unfortunately had a crash about two years ago. 

This setback caused me to do more research into sleep and I learned that getting less than 7.5 hours of sleep essentially negates your nutrition.

Lack of sleep accelerates the oxidative stress in your body. This is what causes the aging process, just like rust on a car. It doesn’t matter how good you eat if you don’t sleep. 

So now I’ve made it a habit to feed myself more sleep and set a firm bedtime.

Am I perfect? Far from it! There’s plenty of nights where I only get 5-6 hours. The difference now is that I listen to my body and will take a 45 minute nap, or even forgo a workout if I’m feeling extremely tired.

Make no mistake about it, I then get enough sleep and make up that missed workout!

Being disciplined at night has enabled me to develop a pretty extensive morning routine which then enables me to keep my bucket full.

Here’s what my current routine is:

This is a vital part of my 28 Day Challenge.

This is a vital part of my 28 Day Challenge.

  1. Wake up 2 hours before I need to be at an appointment.
  2. Make my bed. (watch this amazing video on why to use this)
  3. Drink my Forse Cocktail (apple cider vinegar, fresh lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and turmeric) mixed in alkaline water.
  4. Take my vitamins (I take a brand called Usana Health Sciences).
  5. Make my bulletproof coffee. (read this article for more info)
  6. Read my One Year Bible.
  7. Pray/Meditate.
  8. Start with gratitude by doing my 5 Minute Journal (check it out here).
  9. Text my gratitude and my first down for the day to two of my accountability partners.
  10. Do 50 pushups (this number is increasing!).
  11. Shower, brush my teeth, and get dressed for the day.

This may seem extensive, and it for SURE didn’t happen overnight. This has been a journey and I’m always looking to add more to it.

The thing you must understand, is that I don’t even think about this anymore, because it’s a HABIT!!!

Habits lead to patterns, and patterns lead to results. 

So if that seems a little intimidating, I have some good news for you!

If you desire to create a better morning routine, start with two things:

  • DON’T HIT YOUR SNOOZE. 
  • MAKE YOUR BED.

That’s it. Start there.

This will start the process of creating better habits and your life will start to change. It won’t change overnight but it WILL produce results if consistently pursued. 

This morning routine has helped me keep my bucket full. Since starting this, my life has shifted dramatically! 

I hope this inspires you to make a change and make the world a better place. But first make your bed. 

I believe in you! 

Let’s go change the world!!

Your Friend,

Nate

 

Do you need help creating a morning routine???

If so, schedule a call with me now and I can help you get started on this journey!

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