You may have heard or read a lot about the morning rituals of high-functioning people—CEOs, visionary businesswomen and men, political leaders, gurus, life coaches, and other larger-than-real-life figures: They only sleep 45 minutes a night, and upon waking, they walk into a dry ice chamber for ten minutes to meditate and get their heart going while reviewing their goals for the day, then eat fresh greens and raw fish, wash it down with a gallon of ionized water, and finally have a single espresso or four ounces of coffee. After finishing their morning routine, they go out and succeed like a motherfucker, making more money in the first hour of the day than you and I make in an entire week or month. And I kind of assume they look good doing it.
You, too, can adopt these routines of successful people.
OR: You can do something completely different, something similar to what the rest of us do in the morning. Follow these 14 steps and you’ll be on your path to being kind of successful—especially if your definition of success is something like “keeping it together for another day” or “being pretty grateful to be alive and have what I have.”
1. Get 7 to 9 hours of sleep, and then,
2. Hit snooze 3 to 11 times
3. If you have kids, laugh at the idea of having a routine that optimizes anything to do with you
4. Despite the fact that you’re already behind schedule, look at stuff on your phone for 5 to 20 minutes. Doesn’t matter what it is.
5. Exclaim “oh shit” and bolt out of bed
6. Without first meditating for 10 minutes or doing any sort of exercises, walk straight to your kitchen and make coffee however you usually do it.
7. Consider making a smoothie using one to several superfoods, and then don’t do it and instead drink two to five cups of coffee without eating anything
8. Grab the notebook you would like to use for five to ten minutes of journaling. Write a semi-complete grocery list in it instead.
9. Check your cupboards to see if you own coconut oil. Yes? OK. No? OK too. Moving on,
10. Hastily brush your teeth for 20 seconds
11. Put on clothes for work. Maybe even clean, and or/ironed ones.
12. Begin your commute, continuously mulling over whether you have time to stop and get a breakfast burrito or not. Either way, stop and get a breakfast burrito.
13. Realize you left your grocery list at home. Make a mental note to at least buy toilet paper and bananas.
14. Regardless of what type of footwear you’re wearing, sprint or Olympic racewalk the final three to five minutes to your office. Arrive flushed, slightly sweaty, and ready to eat a breakfast burrito at your desk.
—Brendan
More stories like this in my new book, Bears Don’t Care About Your Problems, out now.