The Morning Routine

Starting your day off right is important to help you feel focused, positive and motivated throughout your day. That’s why we created a morning routine in our guided journal to help you get started on the right foot. Consider these morning pages as a mental cleanse to spill your unfiltered thoughts over a few prompts - whatever you come up with is fine.

Waking up, I feel…

When you wake up in the morning, take a moment to think about how you feel in this moment. How are you doing today? What is your mood like? Do you feel a certain sensation in your body?

This is a quick but powerful exercise that will allow you to sort through your feelings, assess your physical and emotional needs, and make a conscious plan to meet those needs throughout the day.

But really, there is no need to overthink it. A simple ‘Waking up, I feel refreshed’ is perfectly fine. Just pay close attention if there’s anything unusual.

What am I grateful for?

The practice of gratitude implies counting our blessings and recalling a few things we are grateful for. While science has proven that a healthy amount of gratitude can help us tremendously to appreciate the present moment, most people tend to learn from and use negative information far more than positive information. The negativity bias explains, for example, why we often think far more about criticism than compliments or why we react more strongly to aversive stimuli. By recording your blessings, you can counteract this negativity and significantly improve your well-being.

Therefore, we start our day by writing down up to three things we are grateful for to shift our minds towards positivity. The more detailed you can capture what you are grateful for, the easier it is to connect with the emotion of gratitude.

What am I grateful for?

1. I am grateful for delicious poké bowls delivered to my doorstep.
2. I am grateful for being in a loving and healthy relationship with a supportive partner.
3. I am grateful for the warm and cosy bed I sleep in.

Please keep in mind that it doesn’t need to be something you already have, but it can be something you are working towards, e.g. I am grateful to live a joyful, well-lived life with rich experiences and adventures.

What would make today great?

This section helps you to remind yourself of who you want to become or what you want to achieve. It gives you the space to think about how you can spice up your day and focus on daily incremental actions to improve the likelihood of having a great day. By focusing our minds on positivity, we are more likely to actually get positive results.

It is important that you define actions that you can do or achieve, so you won’t be discouraged or feel pressured by not fulfilling them. A good approach is to start out by saying what you want and how you can accomplish it, e.g. I want to feel healthy, so I’ll eat a lot of fruits and vegetables today. This simple approach also works in reverse focusing on the actions first and then defining how you’ll feel. For example, I will eat a lot of fruits and vegetables today, because I want to feel healthy.

What would make today great?

1. I will take a 30-minute walk today because I want to feel well-balanced.
2. I want to feel comfortable, so I’ll wash my bedsheets and go to bed before 10 pm.
3. I will use my lunch break to catch up with my brother because I want to feel encouraged.

As long as we feel fulfilled by completing the task, we keep it as a habit. If it makes us feel drained, we need to go back and reassess our goals.

Remember to focus on things that you have control over. For example, taking a nice walk in the sun in February when you live in Copenhagen is most likely not going to meet your anticipation.

Your Daily Affirmation

Create mantras that you repeat to yourself daily. A mantra is a collection of words strung together to create a positive effect. In Sanskrit ‘man’ means mind and ‘tra’ means freeing.

On the one hand side, you can pick an affirmation that you want to deeply integrate into your life. It should be outside of your reality and take significant time and effort to realise. By repeating this to yourself every day it will become an integral part of your life and you will strengthen your belief to achieve this goal:

I am…

...confident and I am comfortable approaching strangers.

On the other hand, you can try writing down daily affirmations to capture something you want to see given a specific event in your life. For example, you have an important presentation that day, so you write:

I am…

...prepared and I will share great insights with the audience today.

The daily affirmation can sometimes be difficult to grasp, so if you need some further details or inspiration, please head over to our blog article on this topic.

 

The Evening Routine

The evening routine is important because it allows you to reflect on your day and identify any areas that need improvement. It also allows you to pause and take a moment to yourself before bedtime. This routine will help you wind down and relax so that you can get a good night's sleep.

How was your day?

Following our first question in the morning, we want to take a moment during the evening to reflect on how we feel at the end of the day. What was your day like? What happened? How did that make you feel?

This prompt can help adjust the steering wheel in the days that follow. When you feel good, look back on your day and consider what triggered that positive feeling. Can you do more of the same?

The same is true when you feel exhausted or angry with someone. Think about what you could have done to avoid that negative feeling. This could also be a starting point or inspiration for the question, "What did I learn today?”

What made today special?

At the end of the day, stop for a few minutes and think about what happened. Consider the small and the big events.

You can start by going back to what you wrote down in the morning when you thought about what would lighten your day, but sometimes the unexpected gives us the greatest joy. In the beginning, this might involve very simple things, but as you proceed and learn how to reflect, you will notice how you can direct your mind to focus on specific areas and the good in life.

It can be something as simple as the following:

What made today special?

1. I took a wonderful walk through the forest today.
2. Making a super tasty Spaghetti Carbonara with truffle oil.
3. Positive feedback on my marketing strategy presentation.

What did I learn today?

While the first question in the evening routine focuses on what worked well, this question taps more into what didn’t work out and what we learned from it. When something doesn’t work out in our lives, it’s always important to review and reflect on what can be improved to ensure we don’t make the same mistake twice. It’s about improving and taking responsibility for your life.

Let's imagine the following scenario: For a while, you've been feeling upset about something and you've been hesitant to speak up about it with your partner. Every day you did not manage to speak up for yourself has made you feel worse. Today, you finally decided to muster up the courage to finally communicate what's been weighing on your mind. To your relief, your partner listened attentively and was understanding of your needs. You feel empowered by this experience and proud of yourself for taking a risk. In the evening, you go back to your journal and write the following:

What did I learn today?

Be open & honest about your feelings. People have a lot more understanding than you might expect.

This exercise will help you thrive from your daily experiences and become a better person. Stay aware of daily lessons that will help you become better the next day.

Song of the Day

Dance while the music is still playing.

Lastly, we added a personal Song of the Day to your daily routine. Music is an important driver in many people’s lives and it can significantly impact our mood throughout the day. If you feel down during the day, just play a song that lifts your mood or maybe even makes you sing and dance.

At the end of the day, think about a song that made you feel in a specific way, for example, a song that motivated you during your workout or a vibrant song that put a big smile on your face on the way to work. We believe in the power of music and after all, it’s about singing and dancing while the music is still playing.

To make it a little easier for you, we created a collaborative playlist on Spotify where you can share your Songs of the Day with the community to brighten up their day.

Pit-stops

Developing a consistent routine is important to realise the benefits of journaling and practising gratitude. However, if this was our only way of reflecting, we might stagnate. We do not discover anything new about ourselves, we write down the same thing every day and do not see the progress we had hoped for. Believe us, we’ve been there!

Einstein is right in saying that our brain sometimes needs a different kind of stimuli to render new results and new findings. This is why we included so-called pit-stops in this journal. Pit-stops are journaling prompts that are different to those you find in your daily routine. They are here to mix things up and help you to

1. Use your mind in a different way
2. Give you a sense of progression

We studied more than 1,000 journaling prompts and mind exercises commonly used in psychology, sociology, religion or mindfulness practices. We narrowed it down to a selection of 25, hereof three in this prototype. They may creatively challenge you, put things into perspective or describe a physical quest. Remember the principle of making journaling a habit and not a chore? This will help you with that and hopefully be a lot of fun!

When faced with a pit-stop, take the right amount of time. Some tasks might require the right occasion or some preparation; others can be completed easily. Either way, try not to skip them to simply carry on with your daily routine.

We call for pit-stops for a reason. We ask you to stop, open your eyes, look back, look ahead and reassess your direction.