Morning Routines for Success: Here’s How Entrepreneurs Start Their Day

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So many people are always on the lookout to gain more skills, more tips, more ways to gather real estate knowledge. That’s great, but there is something more important than just skill sets.

Taking care of the space between the ears—your brain—is by far one of the most important tasks for successful people.

Every person has their own morning rituals but, of course, there are routines specifically for entrepreneurs that are designed to help with motivation, goal-setting, and creating an incredible career.

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Mental training tips

The eight points below are just a few of many mental training tips that most people can benefit from. These are not designed to be done once or twice. Rather, they are designed to do daily.

These tips work best if they become a habit and part of a morning routine. They are not set in stone and can be customized, but ultimately people should work toward making them habitual.

1. Meditate and visualize goals

Anyone can do this while working out, before starting their day, or before going to sleep at night. Dr. Joe Vitale has done amazing work on the subject. He has also authored over 70 books—many of which deal with meditation. He developed a course called “The 31-Day Billionaire,” which has nothing to do with real estate and 100% to do with the space between the ears.

2. Exercise

Take a walk, lift weights, do yoga—do something—daily. This creates discipline, an elevated mood, and more energy to accomplish personal goals all while lowering stress.

3. Life plan and business plan review

Write it down and read it daily, for four to five minutes minimum. Of course, this one requires a life/business plan first! This can be as simple as an index card with the top four goals for the month and top six to eight for the year written on it.

There is something about reviewing those daily and embedding them into your subconscious that does wonders.

4. Inspirational reading

There are several thousand incredible books out that help keep every kind of entrepreneur motivated, focused, and intense. Reading apps such as Audible, Blinkist, and many others make it super easy to listen to or read a book anytime, anywhere.

It is actually easy to combine a few of these eight game-changers. Read physical books at home and while on the stationary bike at the gym, and then listen to audiobooks while in the car, running, walking, or working out on the elliptical machine. By the way, Blinkist provides a 15-minute summary of 3,000-plus books. Who doesn’t have time for that?

5. Motivational listening

This can also be done while working out or while driving. The goal is to play something motivational or educational whenever possible.

There are many training sessions that cover self-improvement topics that are available as audio files. Get the audio files for these trainings and make riding in any automobile into a university and take advantage of the time spent driving around.

6. Recite affirmations

Affirmations are extremely powerful, and almost all successful people use them to their advantage. Take it to the next level and create an affirmation audio loop to listen to daily.

Two fabulous books to get started with affirmations are Affirmations of Wealth: 101 Secrets of Daily Success by V. John Alexandrov and What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter.

7. Develop healthy lunch habits

Mornings can be used to prepare for the day in so many ways. Shortly after waking up, pack a lunch or make a plan on what to eat midday that will help avoid running to a fast food joint for a quick bite.

It is a good idea to try to have lunch at the same time daily, and eat something designed to give a power boost for the afternoon. That will help you avoid the afternoon slump and redesign how, when, and what to eat.

8. Visualize and execute

Get in the habit of using the morning to get in the right mindset and think about doing something productive or else the day may pass with nothing done.

It is super easy to get comfortable when things are going well. It is best to try and break down yearly goals into daily bite-sized pieces—and regardless of the progress experienced thus far, do that one thing every day—and it will be an amazing year. Remember, don’t get complacent with success.

The miracle morning

Thanks to Hal Elrod and his best-selling book The Miracle Morning, mornings (and lives) around the world have been transformed forever. In the book, Hal goes into his findings from studying the most successful people’s morning routines. He takes note of six different activities many of them do and calls them “SAVERS.” Many successful people practice at least four of these activities, but rarely do all six.

The routine (SAVERS)

Hal Elrod coined the acronym “SAVERS” to help remember each aspect of the ideal morning routine. Here is the list:

• Silence/meditation
• Affirmation
• Visualizations
• Exercise
• Reading
• Scribing

Craig Curelop (aka the FI Guy), admits that he found the routine a bit weird but it ended up working for him. He used the technique for six months and accomplished an extensive list.

He went from a job that he did not love in San Francisco to his dream job at BiggerPockets in Denver, Colorado; was able to kick his weekend drinking habit and remove all added sugar from his diet; created passive income streams of more than $1,000 monthly; and more.

“There was a tremendous improvement in my life in just six months,” said Curelop. “You will see that I have taken many steps towards accomplishing my goals, resulting in a much happier life.”

Here is an example of his SAVERS morning routine.

1. Silence/meditation (10 minutes)

The first thing Curelop does in the morning is meditate for 10 minutes. He uses a playlist on Spotify called “10-minute meditation,” and it helps him stay calm, focused, and concentrated throughout the day.

2. Scribing/journaling, part one (5 minutes)

Next, he writes down three things he is grateful for. Yes, this can get repetitive but it puts a positive perspective to the start of the day and is a reminder of all of the things to be grateful for.

In an effort to continuously improve, he writes down three things he needs to be better at. It can be things that need improvement—spending habits, fitness or dietary habits, or anything at work or in family life that can be improved upon.

Next, he writes down three goals that he would like to accomplish for the day and make sure that these are aligned with his weekly, monthly, and annual goals.

3. Affirmations or prayer (5 minutes)

As Napoleon Hill (and also Curelop’s mom) says, “Anything you can conceive and believe, you can achieve.”

This may sound silly but affirmations are the simplest form of prayer. Said Curelop, ”Repeating my goals to myself causes my brain to subconsciously focus on them throughout the day. You will be surprised how things tend to fall into your lap, allowing you to easily accomplish your goals when doing this.”

He uses the Miracle Morning app on his phone, writes affirmations in there, and reads them every morning emphatically.

4. Visualizations (5 minutes)

Visualizations are similar to meditating. The difference? In meditation, the goal is to train the mind to ignore distractions and think about nothing except breathing. In visualization, one has to envision themself accomplishing their goals.

This can be done in many different ways. Some people create a bulletin board and pin pictures of their desires to the board. Curelop shuts his eyes and visualizes himself achieving both his short and long-term goals.

“In all of the feats I outlined above, visualization was a huge part. I envisioned myself accomplishing these, and they came true,” said Curelop. “It’s weird, even eerie in a sense, but I am not complaining.”

5. Scribing/journaling, part two (30 minutes)

Once his mind is focused, he takes the next 20 to 30 minutes to write freely. Curelop shared that he used to hate writing. But once he started writing about things he has a passion for, he realized it is quite refreshing.

6. Reading (90 minutes)

For some people, reading for 90 minutes might be overkill. However, Curelop sets a goal to read 60 books a year. A big reason why he is well on his way to accomplishing that is that he takes 90 minutes every morning to feed his brain. Said Curelop, “You will be amazed how much you can learn just by reading at least one book per week.”

7. Exercising (40 minutes)

A workout could be a morning run before the sun is even out or watching a YouTube workout video. For Curelop, he prefers to do his rigorous workouts in the afternoon. So in the morning, he throws on a podcast and does foam roll stretches for 30 to 40 minutes. This gets his muscles loose, releases endorphins, and prevents injury from his more intense afternoon workouts. Then he does as many pushups as he can to get the blood flowing, hops on his bike, and heads to work.

Curelop’s morning routine is long and a bit out of order. All in all, it is about 3.5 hours long. He knows that this will not work for everyone and encourages people to try to wake up 30 minutes earlier than usual and do all of the SAVERS for five minutes each. As time passes and it becomes more of a routine, it can be extended to one hour, two hours, etc.

“Before you know it, you will be a super early riser and will be able to get more done before 8:00 a.m. than most people accomplish in a week,” said Curelop.

The morning rituals covered in this post have a lot of similarities—keeping fit, writing affirmations and goals, visualizing. And they also share one goal: to help people become more successful and fulfilled.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.