I look for the answers to life a lot, like A LOT. If you were to look at my YouTube search history you would see things like “morning wake up routine”, “how to be more productive”, “do aliens live under the ocean”… you know the usual things. I must say though, no matter how much I search for life hacks or look for routines from other people, none of it ever works for me. I would always feel like such a failure to myself for not being able to take a blueprint and make it work, when it finally clicked that I am searching for answers to my life by following someone else’s life and what works for them. Why would that work for me? They don’t know my life. When in reality it’s not designed to work for me!

Honestly, the sooner I figured that out and really started to accept it, the easier it was for me to build my own routine of balance. I began to pay attention to myself more – to my body, my mind, my spirit, my gut, my patterns all of it. When do I naturally wake up? How do I feel after eating certain foods? What are my daily responsibilities? When do those responsibilities have to be done? When are my breaks in my day? Do I even have breaks in my day?? These are just some of the questions I began to ask myself to help find a routine that works for – me.

While I still watch those videos to get tips and listen to how their routine works for them, I take more time now to think about “how can I make this work for ME?” Because no one lives the same life, and to be honest I don’t care how many “5am productive morning routine” videos I watch, they will never make me get up at 5 am and be productive. They may make me WANT to get up and be productive, but that is not the routine I truly want for me. People can yell it from the mountain tops of Mt. Social Media, and I will still feel like “mmm mmm get somebody else to do it.” Because that is not in my ministry!

My point is that while yes we all have to make changes and sacrifices to create the life we want, we still have autonomy over HOW we choose to create. Also, just to be forreal forreal, we have to truly WANT change to make it happen, and I’m sorry I just do not want to wake up at 5am, AND I will not let the fad of impossible productivity standards make me feel bad for not wanting to. You can give me all the speeches about being consistent and staying motivated, but if I can find time to do what I would do at 5 am at 7:30 pm… I am personally going to choose 7:30 pm so sorry about it! But not really sorry because it’s my life. Social media is a great tool to get get inspired, but don’t let it tell you what to do. Do not let it run your life and your choices.

It’s almost like social media is that one toxic friend who has the potential to do soooo much good, and is really super funny but peer pressures you into doing exactly what they want you to do all the time. It’s like dang can I do my own thing? And of course, yes you can. Don’t fall under peer pressure. Do what feels right to you and your body. Do you naturally wake up around 5 am before your alarm but force yourself back to sleep? Then I say listen to your body and find a routine to help you stay up at 5 am, get active, and get prepared for the day – at your own pace that works for you. Do you naturally wake up at 6:30-7 am? That’s fine! Take some deep breaths and create a morning that feels good to YOU. 

Now listen, I am going to end this by saying if you are someone like me who loves a good morning adrenaline rush by racing to make it to work for 8am by leaving your house at 8:05 am, I’m going to tell you right now to get it together. We need to do better, and we will – at our own pace. Just don’t think that your steps to better aren’t good enough because these new fads and trends aren’t telling you that they are. Every step towards improvement is enough, and you should celebrate those steps of improvement because everyday is a day to be better.