Kelly Bertrand tries her best to set herself up for success with the perfect morning routine. Does it even exist? She tries a few of the most popular ones out
This story is proudly brought to you with the support of QT Auckland
The 5AM Club. Miracle Mornings. There are so many ‘secrets to success’ when it comes to nailing a perfect routine that it can be overwhelming and you’re confused before you even BEGIN to figure out what the hell you should be doing with your life (deep and overdramatic much I know but come on, we’re at the end of the year here).
We love talking about success at Capsule: What it means, how we measure it and why, above all, we should be celebrating it.
But after writing all of these stories, it got me thinking about the SUPPORT around success. It doesn’t just happen – whatever you want to be successful in, there’s gonna be a huge amount of hard work and sacrifice. So as we prepare to farewell one year and welcome in another (hopefully more stable?!) one, I wanted to figure out the best way to support my own quest for success in 2024.
Relying on a routine to help improve your life isn’t a new concept – there are thousands of books on the subject and it’s well-known that many successful people credit their mornings as their secret to accomplishment. B.G Fogg, a Stanford University professor who wrote Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, says that starting small, celebrating often and making it fun are the keys to a successful routine (I can get behind that!)
“We’ve been trained in our culture like, ‘This wasn’t a big achievement. Why should I feel good about it? I should just criticise myself for not doing more,’” Fogg tells. “A big part of my work is to help people see that you change best by feeling good, and that tiny can become transformative.”
Of course, as a classic millennial I figured the answer lies in Google, and according to its infinite wisdom, the secret lies in building a morning routine.
Now, I love a routine. Routines work for me. Until I fall off the wagon somewhere in month two when I ignore the alarm, stop buying kale and revert back to Starbucks, wine and delusion.
But instead of launching into TikTok’s favoured clean girl routine of the moment (I’m looking at you, 5AM Club), for once I actually sat down and figured out what I wanted to get from a routine – eg, WHY the hell am I doing this!?
- A slower, more thoughtful pace of work throughout the day (my fiancé loves to call me ‘rip shit and bust’ and look he has a point)
- Time just for me in the morning where no one can talk to me (I know, the dream)
- A good start to the day so even if I fall off the wagon in the afternoon (when you work from home the temptation for a 3pm wine is strong, trust me) I know I’ve done something good
- Time to celebrate my success – whether that’s a small thing during the day or a big business win (obviously that’s when I head to the rooftop at the QT Auckland #shamlessadplug)
- The ability to romanticise the little things and enjoy the daily minutiae
- Productivity increase, especially as the year winds down and any iota of motivation vanishes
- A little self-care every day.
With my WHY sorted, then comes the science (kind of): trying two of the most popular routine trends right now to see what works for me.
“Routines work for me. Until I fall off the wagon somewhere in month two when I ignore the alarm, stop buying kale and revert back to Starbucks, wine and delusion.” – Kelly Bertrand
The 5AM Club
Well this one is really in the name, right? Coined by Robin Sharma, a leadership and performance coach, more than 20 years ago, The 5AM Club is going through something of a revival on social media, with young women especially showing off their discipline, motivation and tenacity. Jesus, I’m already exhausted. But the concept as outlined in Sharma’s book is simple – to supercharge your productivity and enhance your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.
The idea is that you’re getting up earlier than everyone else, therefore you’re able to DO more than everyone else, and says that participants should outline an hour in the day – 5am to 6am – to do stuff you normally wouldn’t have time for, such as exercise, study and reflection in a 20/20/20 ratio.
Ardent followers of this reckon their productivity and wellbeing have improved drastically. What did it do for me? I’ve seen the countless videos on TikTok with impossibly rich white chicks demonstrating their aesthetic ‘5-9 before the 9-5’ routines and I was instantly crinkling my nose, if I’m honest. But I gave it a go for a few weeks – getting up at 5am for a quick HIIT workout, a Headspace meditation and some journaling.
Verdict: This was NOT for me. One, 5am is ridiculous and with every alarm I would glare jealously at my sleeping fiancé and wish I was back in bed. Two, journaling for me was a waste of time. I’m a writer – I’m literally writing POV opinion stories all day every day, and doing it before I got to my desk felt like an unnecessary chore and like I was phoning in my feelings (and I’m sorry but there are just some days where I don’t have any feelings to report on. No one, not even my Kindle journal, gives a shit that I wished it would stop raining and that I’m annoyed my café down the road raised the price of a flat white by 50c). This felt a little too specific and didn’t really allow me to figure out what works for me.
I did, however, have a lot more time up my sleeve thanks to the early morning rise and I found I did like having a bit of time just for me, but it came after I’d finished the 20/20/20 – when I was able to take my time getting dressed, going through my skincare and even getting ready for the work day. I feel like I want to keep this element – although maybe not SO early!
The Miracle Morning
The name ‘The Miracle Morning’ is a bit ambiguous, isn’t it – is it a miracle routine, or are YOU the miracle for doing it?! Just like The 5AM Club, The Miracle Morning is also a book, written by author Hal Elrod and promises to give you more motivation, energy and focus by ‘levelling up your life’. Ok, so far so good for a lot of my seven goals – but what is the premise? There’s six practices of the routine, helpfully spelt out in the acronym SAVERS – Silence, Affirmation, Visualisation, Exercise, Reading and Scribing.
There’s a little bit of flexibility with this concept, as silence can mean what you want it to – whether it’s 10 minutes of simply sitting (or lying) in silence or using a meditation app. Affirmations are easy; you simply set out what you want to accomplish in a sentence or two. Visualisation is when you see things as you want them to be, rather than what they actually are (big fan) and Exercise, well, she’s self-explanatory. Reading is a minimum of 10 pages a day (Hal recommends reading a religious text – NOT happening – or a personal development book) and then finally Scribing, which actually means writing but you know, you have to have a good acronym these days.
Verdict: Now we’re getting somewhere. This concept isn’t time-specific, nor is it activity specific. Rather, I felt like I could play around with the acronym to make it work my needs and goals, and I actually really liked it. Instead of 5am, I set the alarm to 6am and listened to a quick Headspace meditation for10 minutes before a HIIT workout (if you want a good workout at home, check out The Body Coach, it’s brilliant). I used my time in the shower to tick off the affirmations and visualisations – no extra time, but rather a moment to focus on what I wanted to achieve during the day, which I really found kept me on task for the rest of the day (like, a crazy difference in productivity?!). I also found that I was more deliberate and slower in my self-care moments during the day, such as my skincare routine, and even making a coffee.
Instead of reading a book for myself (I prefer to do that during the evenings, I blocked out 20 minutes in my calendar to read magazine articles and entertainment news, so I’m ready and inspired for my day at work. And, as previously stated, I turned my nose up at scribing, although I did turn my focus back to expressing gratitude and I remembered how much I enjoyed it. And, hot damn, did I not feel more productive, focussed and successful during these weeks. I had so much more time at the end of the day, I found I didn’t need to work as much on the weekends, and I wanted to celebrate all the little wins of the day, which then in turn made me feel even better.
Miracle mornings? A bloody success!
My takeaways of trying a morning routine:
If you’re like me and you’re trying to find the best support system that’ll set you up for success, there’s going to be a bit of trial and error. The problem with trending routines is that they come with pressure on what they’re supposed to look like, especially the viral TikTokers who somehow breeze through life on an aesthetic cloud with no real consideration to reality.
My advice? Lay out what you want to achieve and how you want to feel, and then give a few concepts a go to see what elements work for you, and combine them into a customised routine that actually works for you.
I’ll continue to fine-tune my routine until it’s 100% what I need for my own personal definition of success. I’ll let you know – and keep reading, because thanks to our pals at QT Auckland, there will very soon be a chance to celebrate all of our success together!
This story has been brought to you with the support of our incredible partner, QT Auckland. Capsule has a special relationship with QT – it’s where we ourselves celebrated our own success with our first birthday bash, and where we continue to go to toast ourselves and each other. Popping bottles on the Rooftop, sharing success stories over a long lunch at Esther, a private party in the Premiere Harbour Suite with your very own bar – trust us when we say it’s the perfect place to celebrate your success, whatever that looks like for you.