How to start your day well

If your future is built by the present, your morning is a chance to set the tone for your whole day.

For a long time, I’d wake up and lie there thinking some bleak shit. One thing in particular has helped me look past those thoughts and find little sparks of enthusiasm or passion or optimism.

It’s simple but tricky: I deliberately set a mindset.

Today, we’re breaking down the three steps to do that well:

1. Check what states of mind are available to you.
2. Check how your thoughts are trying to direct you.
3. Check how you’re going throughout the day.

Check what states of mind are available to you

In an episode of the 10% Happier podcast, Vinny Ferraro – who co-founded a Buddhist community Dharma Punx – talks about using an alignment practice to find direction among the chaotic range of “thoughts, hopes, fears and characteristics” his mind generates.

“There’s just so much to choose from,” Ferraro says. “Well, what do I actually want to give life to?”

Ferraro goes onto explain that “the two components of mindfulness are seeing clearly and responding wisely”. That means, if we’re seeing all the various parts of our experience well, we have the chance to pick the ones that will take us in the right direction.

Here’s what that looks like for me:

• I lie in bed for an extra few moments when I wake up (no complaints).
• I do a body scan to see how I’m feeling – any weird niggles or aches?
• I look inwards to see what thoughts and feelings are floating around my head.
• I pick an energy or feelings that I want to focus on that day.

I align with those feelings instead and set about my day.

Check how your thoughts are trying to direct you

The beauty of this practice is that it reaffirms a simple but important fact: your thoughts aren’t in charge.

They pop up, they suggest something and, if you leave them be, they’ll float on by. But if you let them run your life, they will. Here’s how Ferraro put it:

In the beginning in my life, I received thoughts as commandments, right? They had the power to animate me. My thoughts were my reality and they caused immense suffering.

By looking at our experiences with some mindfulness, we get to align ourselves with the things that take us in the direction we want to go. As Ferraro goes onto say, we get to ask ourselves a killer question:

“What part of my personality is operating right now?”

We’re all multifaceted little people, you know? We contain multitudes.

At any given moment, there’s the part of me that’s 100% confident in my abilities, the part of me that’s the exact opposite, and the part of me that just wants to bail on almost anything to watch some nonsense on Twitch.

The second I sit down to try and write one of these essays, all of them pop up. It doesn’t matter how important this whole thing is to me: the voices that say it’s pointless or that I can just goof off for a while first are there.

But, by being aware of them, I can focus on and align with the energy that’ll get me to the next thing I need to do.

We recently spoke about how the future is made from the present moment and that we build the future we want by attending to now well. Ferraro says it well: “each moment is conditioned by the next.”

Decide where you’re headed each day. Then give yourself the space you need to shape each moment as they come.

Check how you’re going throughout the day

Look, I’ll be real with you: this is a lot to keep track of all day, every day. We can try and keep on top of things with what Ferraro calls the noting practice.

He says that part of our attempts to see clearly and respond wisely is:

just noting what is floating through this awareness of ours. Okay, I can see thoughts, memories, plans. I can feel sensations. I'm having a memory, a plan, a thought occurred, whatever it is.

So the noting practice creates a little bit of distance because the moment that I can note something, I'm not lost in it. We can note what's arising and it breaks some of the identification with it.

This practice helps us see the true problem at play:

We think the thought is the problem. We think what's passing through is a problem, but it's really just because we're taking it so freaking personally.

In the process of noting, we can stop identifying each with individual thought and letting them control us. And, eventually, we can start to identify with “the awareness itself” – the part of you that’s present for everything else that flows through.

Keep it up and you can consciously decide what you’re aligning with throughout the day. Just don’t get lost in the sauce: the goal is to use the noting practice to make a quick note of what’s bubbling around and get on with your day.

You’re not hunting around for the perfect state of mind or anything like that. You’re seeing what’s there and then making a decision about where you’re headed.

This helped save me

This practice has been a lifesaver for me lately. I recently had a wave of self-harm thoughts that were so relentless and so overwhelming that I called Lifelife (a crisis support and suicide prevention service). I got lost in them – they felt like a kaiju bearing down on me. Calling Lifeline helped break the cycle.

I’ve since made a few changes to my life to help. Chief among them has been bringing the noting practice to the forefront. Now, a terrible thought pops up and I stop whatever I’m doing for a beat. I note it, say “thought thought thought” to myself and bring my attention to whatever’s around me. I ground myself in the present. And the thought drifts off.

It takes the sting out things. The thoughts haven’t gone away but they’re less relentless.

It’s not easy: the noting practice takes, well, practice. You need to sit down on the regular and get this type of mindfulness into your bones. Then – and only then – will it be there when you need it.

The 30-second action plan

1. Start with a simple morning check-in. Lying in bed, scan your body. What thoughts and feelings are around? What do you want to lean into today?
2. Practice noting thoughts throughout the day. Start small: hone in on the smell, warmth and taste of your morning bev. If you notice yourself drifting off track, say “thought, thought, thought” to yourself and lock in on your physical moment.
3. Schedule regular time to reflect. I’ve got 100% better at this since literally scheduling practice. For me, meal times are a good opportunity to spend 30 seconds checking in with myself.
4. Make changes as required. This isn’t about perfection. Change up, move things around, see how you go. Remember: noticing you’re distracted is a win, because your goal is awareness itself.

P.S. Share this article with someone if it helped you out. They’ll be impressed.