Habits Archives - The Ideal Myth

How you start your morning often sets the tone for the rest of the day. If you wake up feeling scattered, rushed, or overwhelmed, that energy follows you throughout your schedule. On the other hand, a mindful and intentional morning can give you the clarity, confidence, and calm you need to take on anything.

The good news? You don’t have to become a 5 AM warrior or drastically change your lifestyle to build better mornings. You can start small, with simple habits that ground you, energise you, and feed your mind and body.

Here are 7 morning habits you can begin, which are practical, meaningful, and completely adaptable to your life.

1. Wake Up Without Immediately Reaching for Your Phone

One of the most powerful yet overlooked habits is resisting the urge to check your phone the second you open your eyes. Emails, news, social media – all of these flood your mind with noise before you even get out of bed. This often triggers stress or comparison before your feet hit the floor.

Try this instead:

Set your alarm on a basic alarm clock or place your phone out of reach.
Spend the first 10–15 minutes simply waking up mindfully.
Use this time to stretch, breathe deeply, or simply enjoy the quiet.

Even a short break from screens first thing in the morning helps preserve your focus and inner calm.

2. Hydrate Before You Caffeinate

After 6–8 hours of sleep, your body is naturally dehydrated. Drinking water before your coffee gives your system what it truly needs to wake up -hydration.

Benefits:

Boosts metabolism
Flushes out toxins
Improves brain function
Jumpstarts digestion

Tip: Add a slice of lemon or a pinch of Himalayan salt to your water to replenish electrolytes and aid digestion.

Starting your day with water isn’t just healthy—it’s symbolic. It’s a small act of self-care that reminds you to nourish yourself before rushing into the world’s demands.

3. Move Your Body – Even for 10 Minutes

You don’t need an intense hour-long workout to feel the benefits of movement in the morning. Just 10-15 minutes of intentional activity can boost your mood, energy, and focus for the day ahead.

Options:

Light stretching or yoga
A brisk walk
Jumping jacks or simple bodyweight exercises
Dancing to your favourite song

Physical movement releases endorphins, wakes up your muscles, and reduces cortisol (the stress hormone). It’s an excellent way to shake off grogginess and step into the day with confidence.

4. Practice Stillness or Mindfulness

The world will always try to pull you in a thousand directions. A few moments of stillness in the morning help you return to yourself before that happens.

This could look like:

Meditation (even just 5 minutes)
Deep breathing exercises
Sitting quietly with your coffee
A short gratitude practice

Mindfulness in the morning clears mental fog and helps you approach your day with intentionality rather than reactivity. You’ll notice you make better decisions, respond more calmly, and feel more grounded.

5. Set a Daily Intention or Goal

Instead of diving headfirst into your to-do list, pause and ask yourself: What kind of day do I want to have? Setting a daily intention gives your actions purpose and aligns your mindset.

Examples of intentions:

“Today, I choose peace over pressure.”
“I will approach my work with focus and patience.”
“I will stay present in my interactions.”

Alternatively, you can set one meaningful goal—something realistic and motivating that will make you feel accomplished by the end of the day.

Writing it down in a journal or planner solidifies it and keeps you accountable.

6. Nourish Your Body with a Wholesome Breakfast

Breakfast often gets skipped or replaced with a quick coffee, but it plays a key role in fueling your brain and body. A nutritious breakfast stabilises your blood sugar, improves concentration, and reduces the likelihood of energy crashes or cravings later in the day.

Even if you’re short on time, a smoothie or overnight oats can be a fast, nourishing option. Eating well in the morning shows your body that you value its performance and well-being.

7. Avoid Rushing—Create a Peaceful Flow

One of the most underrated yet transformative morning habits is giving yourself enough time. Rushing creates stress, irritability, and a sense of always being behind.

Waking up even 15–20 minutes earlier can shift your whole energy.

What a peaceful morning looks like:

You move with awareness instead of urgency.
You have time to sit and sip your coffee.
You’re not scrambling to find keys, bags, or shoes.
You arrive at your first obligation calm and prepared.

A calm morning helps you handle stress better all day. It’s not just about time management—it’s about honouring your peace.

Bonus Habit: Journaling or Brain Dumping

If you struggle with a busy mind in the morning, journaling can be a powerful release. Whether it’s a few lines about how you feel, what you’re grateful for, or just dumping your thoughts on paper—it helps declutter your brain.

Journaling can help you:

Spot negative thought patterns
Gain clarity on goals or emotions
Practice self-reflection
Start the day with gratitude or focus

You don’t have to be a writer. Just be honest. Your morning pages are for you and you alone.

Your Morning, Your Power

You don’t need to overhaul your entire routine overnight. Start with one or two of these morning habits and build from there. Consistency matters more than perfection. Even five minutes of calm or care in the morning can ripple through your entire day.

Remember, your morning isn’t just about getting ready for work or checking tasks off a list. It’s your sacred time to realign, recharge, and reconnect with yourself. Begin your day intentionally, and you’ll start living more intentionally, too.

Interestingly, we all know things that have a bad influence on us. We hardly do anything about it. We all have some habits that we like and some we feel are not good for us but are habituated to them or we can say we are addicted to them. These are some common 7 habits that cost you, cost us many a time when we don’t let go of these. Also, we know these habits are not good for us and it often takes us backwards. Habits that affect your health, personal life, professional life and career.

1. Smoking or unconcerned about health

The one who does and even one who doesn’t know that smoking is injurious to health. Even every packet has a statutory warning but hardly anyone cares about it. Like smoking, there are many other addictions and use of substances that affect health but people act ignorant of its impact on health. It not only costs one’s health but impacts one’s personal life and people around them are affected by some or other kind.

2. Saying YES all the time

Sometimes immediately after saying yes, we realize that we should not have. We know that it impacts your priorities when trying to be available for everyone and every time. It becomes tough to say no when we want to say no. Sometimes it becomes difficult to say no out of fear of disappointing and letting down the other person. The habit of saying yes always costs you and we agree on that too. It is good to say no sometimes for your well-being and priorities.

3. Negative Thoughts

Anxiety, nervousness and being sceptical about is common when people are struggling. There is a phase in everyone’s life when it’s too difficult to believe things to be perfect. It’s alright to worry and feel uncertain about things to some extent when life is not treating you well. At some point, we don’t realize but we make it a habit of being negative and focusing more on the negative outcomes of everything. One should not stop putting effort into walking for the risk of falling again.

4. Looking for approval from everyone

It is good to have feedback and opinions from people around you but looking for approval from everyone on everything can be harmful. The things which are best for you are better known to you than anyone else in the world. It is fine to some extent to wait for approval for the people that matter. It is difficult and impossible for everyone to be pleased with everything you do. It is important how confident you are about the things you are into.

5. Waiting for Ideal Things and Time

We often hide behind the myth and excuse that we are waiting for the ideal time and moment. We live in the ideal myth and want people to believe in it too. The habit of waiting for the ideal time and things around you to be perfect may cost you time, opportunity and delays. You shouldn’t run behind perfection and try to hit the bull’s eye on the first attempt.

6. Excuses

It seems very convenient to escape under excuses when someone does not wish to acknowledge their problems and avoid taking responsibility for their decisions. It certainly becomes a habit and it costs the person himself more than anyone else. This habit of making excuses delays in achievement of goals and the growth of the individual.

7. Resisting change when needed

There is a tremendous change in how things were and how they are. There is a lot of change in everything and everywhere if we compare it to a decade or two decades ago. There are a lot of people who are adamant about change. It is crucial to understand the potential benefits of changes and how they can impact. The fear of adaptability shouldn’t be the cause to resist change instead one can seek support from family, friends and experts if needed. The habit of being adamant and resistant to change may slow down growth and hamper the goals.

Every habit of ours either benefits us or costs us. Some of these habits that cost us are very well known to us but we do not address them. It is for one’s benefit if he gets rid of these destructive habits. It is not easy to change habits but making an effort slowly and gradually to replace these habits with good ones is for one’s own sake. In the end, it’s worth it.

7 morning habits you can begin- practical and meaningful