The ShineSparkL morning routine that is good for business
Image by: @brucemars
Morning routines. It’s been trending now for a few years, fuelled by books such as The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma, released in 2018. The concept behind getting up early is that we have time to kickstart our mornings in ways that set up the remaining day for success. For example, some have theorized that if you are able to get up and do one single successful task such as making your bed, you’ve already accomplished something. It motivates you to keep going on that same track, and then bonus that you’re happy to have a beautifully made bed to slip into at the end of the day.
I haven’t read that book but I have read other blog posts and articles about morning routines. Many swear by them and I too believe that there’s something to it. Not so easy though if you’re not a morning person, or if you snooze your alarm 30 times and a late sleeper, like me.
I have never in my life been an early riser. Forgivable in my teens, but my University friends still poke fun at me for missing all my morning classes and then begging for their notes! I was always a night owl. In the traditional working world where I needed to be at the office for 9am, I would wake at the latest possible time in order not to be late.
Morning Pages
Things changed for me several years ago when I heard this quote: Create before you consume. At that time I had started to journal in the morning on weekends, when I didn’t have to go to work. Often being tethered to my phone in the mornings, that quote hit me hard. I was already on the path of photography, and considered myself a creative. It occurred to me that consuming a load of other people’s stuff as the first thing I did when I woke, was a disservice to myself. What exactly was I looking for in that scroll? This is the moment when my journalling became a morning ritual that needed to be a priority in my life. I stumbled across Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and the concept of morning pages, and my mornings (and my life!) were transformed.
Rebrand to the ShineSparkL brand
It has been several years now where I was able to wake early enough to at least write in my journal to start my day. Most times it wasn’t the amount of pages suggested by Julia Cameron, but even if I could only write a paragraph, I was creating for content for myself before consuming anyone else’s content. But a true morning routine was elusive. Many incorporated reading, meditation, fitness and education, and those things for me still didn’t have a concrete place in my life or schedule.
I started this website as a blog in 2018 when I fell ill with a mysterious illness. Being largely unable to work outside of the house, I spent a lot of time fatigued and in pain lying on the couch in between medical appointments. Having the bandwidth of a hamster, I scrolled a lot on Facebook, where I discovered how often photographers were posting on their struggles with marketing. Having worked my entire career since graduating University in marketing agency before moving to the non-profit sector in 2009, I had answers for their questions and started to respond. Repetitively responding to multiple posts, I gathered my thoughts into blog posts, and Marketing and Business for Photographers (MBP) was born.
Things chugged along for a few years. I got a diagnosis of Crohn’s, a treatment plan, and was back on track. The marketing side of the business was third in my business life. I worked part-time, and photographed weddings and families on evenings and weekends. I developed a few guides and kept up with blog posts, but things stayed small. Until 2022, when I had a night epiphany (this is what I call shots of intuition when I go to bed at night). A thought burst into my head that I needed to develop MBP more. This thought catapulted me into a journey resulting in a re-brand to ShineSparkL and this is what has lead me to a powerful morning routine.
Sparkling mornings
Between 2028 and 2022 I journalled almost daily, but continued to struggle with a morning routine and waking at an hour that I felt good about. I tried Ramit Sethi’s suggestion of writing things into my calendar - everything! A daily walk, a workout, reading. I live and die by my paper-based agenda and thought that this was a success tactic - if it’s in the schedule then I will take it as seriously as an appointment or a client commitment. At home during the pandemic, I did start working out with more regularity and even had a custom program made for me by a local personal trainer. But none of it gelled. I would talk myself out of workouts, postpone them. If it was raining, I’d forgo the walk. I read or listened to education and inspiration whenever.
In 2023, ShineSparkL came to life in the form of the 5-pillars: Body, Mind, Brand, Wisdom (Business) and Intuition. Derived from the Eastern philosophy concept of the 5-koshas, I had a profound realization that life and business without this holistic framework is what may block all of us from success. If your body is unhealthy then you physically cannot keep up with the demands of life (like me at the height of untreated illness). When our mindset is poor, it holds us back from advancing our business. There is no work-life balance I realized, because work is part of life. A better definition was the harmony or unity of my 5 pillars, which support life and my life’s work. Finally, about 6 months ago, Sparkling Mornings came into being. They consist of 3 pillars: Intuition, Mindset and Body.
Intuition Training
Journalling for me is a method to tap into my intuition. Intuition is a message from something greater than us, from a source that binds us all as humans. I believe we can all acknowledge that intuition is a mysterious thing that nudges us sometimes. It comes as thoughts, dreams, gut feelings. When it comes, it usually feels outside of our thinking brain to give us inspiration, ideas, direction and guidance. When the lightning bolt hits it usually surprises us, but there are ways of opening ourselves up, so that we can regularly receive the messages meant for us. We’ve heard how people state that they will remember their dreams when they go to bed, and indeed that helps with recall. They have paper/pen or notes on their phone at the ready for when they wake, to write their dreams down. Journalling does this for me. When I move the jumble of thoughts from my head to a paper, my headspace is now clear and open to receive the intuitive guidance I need to make advances towards my dreams. Journalling is a thought-transfer activity to make room for the creative process to have space to grow. It is also a priority-setting activity. I make myself the priority first thing and it represents self-love and self-confidence. If other people make us a priority we feel good: supported, loved, cared for. I do it for me first and it is transformative for my self-view.
Mind Training
I call the Mindset pillar the great annihilator of the Business or Wisdom pillar. But in fact, mindset can effectively sabotage pretty much everything in our lives. I came to a huge realization in investigating this pillar; that we are in control of our mindset, but we allow our mindset to control us. Thoughts pile up one after the next all day long and we feel there is nothing we can do. If they are negative we believe them and if they are positive, we allow the negative ones to overrule those. If you go to the gym and work out daily you will see results soon enough in your body, right? Let’s apply this to mindset. If we train our mind every day like an Olympic athlete trains for their sport, we will see results soon enough. Thing is, it doesn’t occur to us that we can train our brain in this way.
Once I have written in my journal, I go to a quiet place and I do between 30 minutes to an hour of guided meditation, visualization or affirmations. I go to Youtube and I find videos on the topics I want to work on. One such topic was being an early riser. Some of you won’t believe me, but I did several guided/ subliminal meditations on becoming an early riser and it actually worked. For the past many months, I have been up before my alarm. Now it’s not 5am (yet!) but waking around 7:30 - 8am and that’s better than what it used to be! It’s not woo-woo; it’s psychology. On an inner level I made a decision that I wanted to rise early, and then reinforced that inner desire with affirmations, thus creating conditions for success. This is the brilliance of mind training. We seek it in external things like guided meditation but that’s an external stimuli that simply underpins a change of belief and thinking on the inside. A catalyst.
Other topics on the regular are building self-confidence, resilience, being productive, success with entrepreneurship, good money management and tapping into my power and purpose. Coupled with this positive mind training daily I have gone on a media diet to limit the typical negative news that seems to be the only news reported these days. If we can change a habit by repetition in about 30 days, then imagine what our thinking might be if we do this kind of enhancing mind training for 30 days and beyond.
Bonus: Apparently Crohn’s disease is highly affected by stress. Being able to commit to an hour of mind training actually shuts my body down, but in a different way than sleep. I am placed into a highly relaxed yet awake state and I realized by doing this, how often my body is tense and clenched in the day. This ability to relax completely and intentionally has been a game-changer for my health. If you carry stress and tension in your body on the regular or struggle with some chronic medical issues, mindset training will benefit your body too!
Body Training
I have danced recreationally over the years in classes, and have tried to incorporate some movement and training into my days/ weeks. But the regularity has been spotty and my mindset often talked me out of it - I don’t feel great today, I’m tired, dance class is far, bla bla. Even writing it into my calendar didn’t work, nor did the reminders I set up on my phone. The key to it working this time? The implementation of Mindset Training. When I feel inspired and energized from listening to guided meditation on topics like self-confidence or tapping into my power, I am motivated to channel that positive energy to move! My body has let go of dysfunctional tension and stress and is primed for healthy movement. When I finish with mindset training, I open my eyes and stretch hard, and then calmly get up and change into my workout clothes. The resistant part of my brain is probably still half-asleep and that works hugely in my favour! I absolutely cannot believe how much easier it has been to work out. My training is this: Mondays and Fridays it’s any kind of movement, like cardio-dance, and some stretching. Tuesday - Thursday is strength training. Tuesday is arms, Wednesday is abs/back/ core, and Thursdays it’s legs and glutes.
Better outlook on Business
Living and working the 5-pillar way is now the only way I want to set up my life. Sparkling mornings immediately hit 3 of my pillars in a routine that last about 2-3 hours, depending on the day and when exactly I’m out of bed. I journal while sipping coffee. I go to my bedroom for mindset training so that I can have privacy if anyone else is up, and then I go to the basement for my workout. I shower, then have breakfast while listening to an educational/ inspirational video, podcast or ebook. At this time, I’m ready to spend some solid hours on my other 2 pillars: Brand and Business. When I sit down to work I feel energized and accomplished because I can focus fully on my work. Before, the postponed workout might nag at me and I had to take time to think about when I would try to still fit it in that day, or negative thoughts might infiltrate and cause my mind to wander. Getting all that squared away in sparkling mornings has freed me to be highly productive in the hours that follow and that is good for business!
I hope that my journey gives you hope, that if you’ve struggled for a morning routine, it can come together for you. While books, videos and posts by the “gurus” sound great, their teachings often sound unattainable and we feel defeated that we don’t have the same discipline or we can’t pick it up as quickly as they seemed to. The messaging can also be dangerous because we see the 5am-ers gushing about how successful their lives are, and here we are rolling out of bed at 9am.
Try your hand at Sparkling mornings and write me to tell me how it goes!
Join the Facebook Group with over 6,000 like-minded members to chat with others on this topic, and more!