Simple Morning Habits That Made Me Feel Like Myself Again

For years, I would wake up in the morning and immediately start the day. Wake up, drive to the gym, work out, go home, shower and work. Rinse and repeat.

It worked, but life felt flat.

When we moved out of the apartment and bought a house, I still skipped straight to work when I woke up.

This routine made my soul feel dried up. It felt like I was living to work. I wanted to learn and create, but the day didn’t seem to have enough hours.

That is, until I made more time.

Over the past year, I started two new habits that drastically changed my life, and improved my happiness. I can’t say that I intentionally designed it this way. I never really sought to create a “happiness” routine, but that’s what happened.

Every morning, I set my alarm earlier than I want to. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that if you want to make sure you stick with a new habit, to do it early. For me, this means that to get the most important habits out of the way I have to do them first.

Over the past few years, I noticed something troubling in myself. I would say, “I want to learn more,” or “I want to read more,” or “I want to journal,” and yet I never carved dedicated time to do it. The truth is, I wanted to be a writer. In my head, I saw reading and writing as non-negotiables for this. As I read in one of my favorite Stephen King books (On Writing), to be a writer you must be a reader. Or something like that.

That stuck with me. And for years, I’d on and off be a voracious reader. I’d dig into a new book every few days, read constantly on my phone, and think to myself “this is it!” I will study the “greats” and then myself transform into the writer I knew I always could be.

Over time, my daily reading dissipated, replaced with more pressing matters. The time spent lounging on the couch with a book was replaced with other projects, initiatives, or just life. Books on my shelves started collecting dust, and months would go by without me reading so much as a chapter. Worse, it felt like each time I picked up a book again that it was harder than ever to pay attention for more than a few pages.

Similarly, I was tacitly aware that to be a creative writer journaling was a pathway. I didn’t know why. No one ever told me “if you want to be a writer, you must journal.” I don’t think there’s a rulebook to this stuff. But for some reason, I had this sneaky feeling it was the case. So, much like with reading, I’d tell myself I’d journal every day.

Well, as it went with reading, I barely could make it two days in a row until I forgot I was “supposed” to journal. It went from being an aspirational way of being to being a chore.

For years, my mornings were filled with things. Work I had to do. Work I imposed on myself. It didn’t really matter what it was, I found a way to fill that crack in between when I woke up and when the day began.

I felt uneasy most of the day. Like something was missing. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

In December of 2024, I decided that I wanted to start learning again. I committed to reading every day. But how could I possibly stick to this commitment when in the past, I had failed so many times? I looked at my day, and realized that unless I “got it out of the way,” first thing in the morning, it likely wouldn’t happen.

So, as cliche as this sounds, beginning on January 1, 2025, I committed to reading at minimum 20 minutes per day as soon as I woke up.

Setting a goal of 20 minutes eliminated the challenge of finishing a chapter or specific number of pages. It was a small amount of time, but enough. That’s all I needed.

After making this commitment, something interesting happened: All friction I had previously felt toward reading regularly disappeared. I realized that the morning was the best time to “squeeze” in reading, because it guaranteed I would accomplish it.

Reading turned from something I felt like I had to do, to something that I felt like I needed to do. But not in the kind of “need to,” way that makes you prickle. The “need to,” that makes you feel incomplete when you don’t do it.

As months passed, what was previously an aspirational state of being turned into an identity. I was no longer someone who “wanted to read,” but was “a reader.”

So, what about writing? That didn’t come as easily.

I tried to commit myself to journaling for years. As a kid, and even throughout college, it was something I naturally gravitated to. However, even in my most journal-y years, I never wrote with a specific cadence. Days or weeks could go by, and I’d crack the journal only to find out it had been a month since I last wrote. I’d inevitably write some apology letter to myself, attempt to provide a life update, and write until my hand grew tired before putting the journal away for another mysterious length of time.

And yet, as with reading, I knew in my core that to be the writer I wanted so desperately to be, I needed to write. More importantly, I needed to write when it didn’t matter. This was a way to shake the cobwebs out, so the true creativity could flow uninterrupted.

For a while, I tried to journal in the small crannies of the day where I could. A few minutes after breakfast or before lunch. Life happens, things get busy, and you know where that ended up.

I thought about it for a while, and realized that if I wanted to make the practice of journaling a part of my life the only way this was going to work was if it was first thing in the morning. So, instead of setting my alarm for 5:00 a.m., I’d set it for 4:45. Much like with reading, I set a bare minimum for writing. It didn’t matter how many pages I got through, my only metric was whether I wrote for at least 15 minutes.

At first I felt friction. What do I even write about? Half of my initial journal entries began in this way. Over time, however, words flowed quicker than my hand could move (and it showed).

Over time, I started to yearn for the early moments in the morning. The slice of time between when I woke up, and when I started to have to “do,” things.

What started as a small habit of reading, turned into a year of learning and dozens of finished books. What started as a small habit of writing an entry in my journal each morning, turned into a form of therapy I didn’t realize I needed. Both habits became highly meditative, addictive in the healthiest sense, and a staple of my day.

If you’re looking for a way to start indulging your mind, I recommend the combination push and pull of reading and writing. Reading pushes your mind to consider new ideas, new topics. Writing, on the other hand, pushes you to consider life further. It’s the act of “doing” that helps us to transform our lives.

It has been approximately 15 months since I started reading every day, and approximately 6 months of consistent journaling. Both practices have improved my mental health, well-being, and happiness.

If you’re not sure what to read about, pick whatever speaks to you. My preference is to read a non-fiction in the morning, and a fiction book at night. This gives me a healthy balance of learning and indulging. If you don’t know what to write about, simply pick your favorite line in the book you’re reading and muse on it a bit.

You’ll be surprised to see what you’ll learn, and how you’ll transform, by these simple morning habits.