Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
This podcast episode is a response to a comment. Kind of a question also, from a longtime listener of this podcast. Asking me about morning routines, and telling me about how he listens to this podcast consistently, but also other podcasts and “Srini, I see everywhere people talking about early morning routines. You talk about it recently, you talked about it. But I have been trying to follow this for a while and it doesn’t work. Can you simplify this?”
Incredible comment, incredible question. I’ve been thinking about it myself, too, you know, how do how can we simplify this because something that I have been struggling with myself, or initially I struggled with these days pretty streamlined. But initially, I struggled a lot with this. And a lot has gone into me coming and speaking here about morning routines. I have a very well-dialed-in morning routine. Now my evening routines are not that great. Hence, there is a risk in the morning routines. But then it’s a common thing. If you’re starting out, structuring your morning, that means in a way you’re structuring the whole day. And that is why it becomes hard. Because everything is dependent on everything else, if you get one thing incorrectly, everything else gets impacted. So I went through mentally this was a comment a few days ago, and I went through mentally and I said in the how do I simplify this. And if I have to say that in a way that makes sense to every listener of this podcast, how to present this. So first, let’s talk about what to do. And then we’ll come back and talk about when to do it. So I’m not going to talk about the start time. Now let’s talk about what to do once you wake up. Now, different people do different things, I do different things. And the things I do because they work for me, things that will work for you will not work for me. So that’s the baseline understanding here. I want to start off by saying that, then the things that you read in the media that people talk about, are the things that others do. So I can talk convincingly about what I do. But I know it’s not going to work for you.
So the question becomes says how do I simplify? Because I have a podcast I do this? How can I simplify something such that it makes sense to anybody and everybody? So if nine out of 10 people can relate to this, then I think I haven’t been. So I have, I still have. So today after I’m done with this podcast explaining my thinking, I will still lose some people. I think it’s okay, because if nine out of 10 people can relate to the concept then I think I’ve ever been. So let’s get into this, there are three P’s, that’s how I simplified this, there are three P’s that you have to do, I do. But I see others also doing it. So if I see everybody doing it, it’s also working for me, then I think it will work for you. So there are three pieces, there’s the first P the minute, you wake up, the minute you open your eyes, the first P is that you need something that is POISE, something that is spiritual. And if you believe in religion, your religion, then your religion has something already in place that it expects you to do. When I wake up in the morning, my religion expects me to do something morning, the minute I wake up, and I do that. Even if I had no religion, let’s for the sake of the argument, let’s say, I don’t have any religion. I don’t practice any religious practices in the morning, then I should be doing something spiritual.
Now, most of the time your religious practice has some spiritual element to it. It’s spiritual. So there are some. In fact, I shouldn’t say some, all of it should be spiritual. So the reason why it is that way, and whatever it says that you should do. So if you don’t believe in religion and you’re not religious, then that should be something that you should do. That is spiritual, like meditation, mindfulness exercise, something like that along those lines, something that you have learned or you have experienced. Now, there is a debate on this. Some people say anything that we do throughout the day can be turned into a spiritual thing. True. You can take anything and turn it into spiritual. But the key point here is you start something that’s the poise that’s peaceful, that spiritual, and most of the time it’s already there, you don’t need to search for it because it’s there in your religious practices anyway.
So I would start with that. The second P is, that immediately after that I will do something that I’m very passionate about. I’m passionate about this podcast, I will try to record this podcast, the minute I wake up these days, I would like to. So once I’m done with my spiritual stuff, I jump into recording the podcast. Now, I’m not saying that you have to do a podcast, sometimes I get this message of saying are you set this is see I’m not telling you to do exactly what I’m doing. I’m just giving you an idea of how I do and what I do. You can do whatever you’re passionate about. If you’re passionate about music, do it. If you’re passionate about dancing, do it. If you’re passionate about hiking, running, or climbing, do do it as a part of your morning routine. And the part p in this is physical, do something physical, go take a walk, or run or swim as I said, or climb the first thing as a part of your morning routine.
Now, these are some, these are the three P’s that I do. And I started looking and I started looking at my activities. This is how I started categorizing those activities into the three P’s. You can add anything else you want to add to this. Now of the three P’s are out of our way, it will be four or five for you. But whatever it is now that we’re done with that, let’s go to the start time there’s a question was more about the start time. I didn’t start at 430. And I was horrible at 7:30. Myself. So sometimes, before my kids were born, I wasn’t even waking up. Before 7:30. I was lazy, I was awkward. And I was not. I didn’t even know what I was doing back then. So I would say that don’t go for 4:30 or 5 am. Whatever we say whatever we have to say because we have a mic, we have a podcast like this, or the radio show like me on whatever, a blog or a YouTube whatever, don’t follow precisely to the instructions that I or anybody else is giving you start experimenting life is about an experiment, it’s not about taking commands. So wake up, try to wake up at six, six is late. But still good. Six 6:30, you wake up at night, try to wake up at six, you wake up at six try to wake up it’s, you know, five, or four, whatever, right? So you start whatever time you want to start doesn’t matter. But here’s what I’ve seen, you got to consistently wake up at the time, that consistency has to be for about a week or two. Try two weeks, consistently because whatever time you decide 630 Make up for two weeks consistently at 6:30 am. And once you get some consistency, then you start pushing the time and try to wake up at five and 5:30 or 4:30 whatever, four o’clock, some people recently I met somebody said I wake up at three in the morning. Wow, amazing.
Whatever it is whatever works for you. But then you start pushing the time backward. Then once you know that you have a reasonable clutch or hold on to a second timezone, you lock it. That said that becomes your identity. And you keep on waking up every day. Regardless, you have a lot of you don’t have an alarm, whatever. So you try to get to that level some these days I mostly I don’t need but I do need became a habit. Now. It kind of depends on the alarm to wake me up. So you get the idea. And that’s it. So start with whatever time you’d like to start. And then keep on modifying till you dial in. So don’t wake up tomorrow morning at 4:30 and do it for three days. And then come back and say it’s not working. This takes some time. Spend about 30 days on this. Now understand and I started the podcast with this. Your 4:30 or five or 5:30 will only work if your evening routine works. So be careful about how you structure your evenings. You are going late you have no firmness or you have you’re not hard on yourself, you’re to cut everything down, slow down closed down by 10 or 11. At the most or whatever time. It’s difficult to wake up at six in the morning. So you want to wake up morning at 4:30 Then try to wrap up everything by 8:30 if you can. And most of the time people just don’t know what they’re doing with their evenings. They’re watching movies and they’re on the bed watching Netflix or whatever it is and I’m not saying anything didn’t have any of that is bad because every time I say that, I get a counter back from people saying that’s the only time I relax. Yes. depends what your definition relaxation is a squandering away time wiling away time. I don’t know. But understand you have a responsibility for tomorrow. So don’t take today for granted. That’s the point.
Okay, that’s all for now I hope I simplified this. If I did not, then it’s my mistake. It’s not anything to you. You asked a great question I attempted. Hopefully, this is going to help you and also every listener who’s listening to this. And if it is, then or if it is not, either way, let me know that should be a place for you to write a comment if you’re watching this on YouTube, or it should be placed on the app itself. Wherever you’re listening to this. Or if you’re listening to this on my website, there should be a place for you to make the comments. That’s all for now. You will take care of yourself and I’ll be live and active here. As early as tomorrow morning. Thank you. Bye now.