My mornings don’t look like the ones you see online.
There’s no three-hour ritual. No stack of supplements laid out perfectly. No calm, aesthetic start to the day.
They start after school bags, nursery drop-offs, and the quiet moment when the house finally empties, and I realise the day has already begun.
For a long time, I thought that meant I was doing it wrong.
Everyone talks about morning routines like they’re a test of discipline. As if the more complicated they are, the more serious you are about your life. But the truth is, I don’t need a perfect morning. I need a reliable one.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve tested almost everything on my body. Different workouts. Different timings. Different ideas of what “healthy” is supposed to look like. Some worked. Many didn’t. I’m still very much a work in progress.
What I’ve learned is this: on my worst days, motivation doesn’t matter. What matters is having a simple routine that carries me when I don’t feel like carrying myself.
Mine takes just over an hour.
No coffee. No stimulants. No optimisation theatre.
It’s not impressive.
But it works.
And that’s why I want to talk about it.
THE ONE INSIGHT
I used to think the problem was motivation.
That if I wanted it badly enough, I’d show up consistently. But motivation disappears the moment life gets tired, busy, or inconvenient.
What actually changed things wasn’t wanting better days. It was deciding how I wanted my body to feel before the day even started.
Once my body felt steady, my mind followed.
The routine didn’t give me more discipline.
It removed the need for it.
That’s when mornings stopped feeling like effort and started feeling like support.
WHAT I ACTUALLY DO
After the school run, I don’t sit down. I go straight outside.
I start the day with cold water.
I have a cold bath in the garden. In winter, the water is naturally between 0 and 6 degrees, so I stay in for just over three minutes. In summer, when it’s warmer, I add ice and stay in longer, usually seven to ten minutes. Not to be tough, but because the stimulus needs to be strong enough to actually do something.
I do this because it changes my baseline.
Cold exposure has been shown to increase alertness and dopamine in a steady, sustained way. Andrew Huberman talks about this a lot. For me, it shows up as calm focus, without needing caffeine.
I don’t drink coffee. I haven’t for more than ten years. No tea either. Just water. And plenty of it.
Then I go to the gym.
I start with around thirty minutes of fast walking or light running on the treadmill. It helps my body warm up after the cold and clears my head better than anything else I’ve tried.
After that, I move into strength training. The programme isn’t fancy. I built it myself over time through trial and error, paying attention to what my body could actually sustain. I finish with stretching, because skipping it always catches up with me.
The whole routine takes about an hour and fifteen minutes.
I’m still a work in progress. But this routine carried me to losing around 50 kilos in eleven months, and more importantly, it carries me on the days when motivation doesn’t show up.
That’s all I need from a morning.
My latest project…
A few weeks ago, I shared a short book about my weight loss and health journey, and the identity shift that made it possible.
Not the routines or the rules, but the internal changes that had to happen for me to stop cycling and start moving forward. I’m mentioning it here for anyone new, or anyone who wants to understand the deeper work behind sustainable change.
You can find it here if you want to read more.
Before You Go
I’ve been writing these pieces in the quiet, between school runs, work, and late-night thinking, but I’ve started sharing more of the journey in real time too. The reflections, the systems, the messier parts of reinvention that never make it into the newsletter.
If you want to follow along, you’ll find me here:
Come say hi. It’s less about followers, more about finding the others who are doing the invisible work too.
If something in this email made you pause, think, or feel seen, send it to a friend who’s been quietly trying to make a change, too.
You never know what might land at the right moment. Link here.
“The routine that works is the one you don’t have to negotiate with.”