Onnie Michalsky (00:00.406)
If you are a mom who wants to try waking up earlier than your kids because you often wake up already feeling behind, or you go from 0 to 100 and jump into the day with both feet into the chaos of the day, which isn't working so much anymore, then this episode is for you. In it, we are going to talk about how your morning routine needs to evolve with the seasons of motherhood and how at times it's okay to not have a routine.
But what I do now as a three, what I do now as I have three out of four kiddos in school, one homeschooled and myself working some days at the office, other days at home, looks completely different than it did even a year ago and definitely different than it does in the summer. And that's okay. I am intentional about what I am choosing to do and I have a bare bones routine and one that I try to do when I have the time.
Trying to do it all simply adds more stress than I want to in my life. So I figured out what works for me in this season. My hope is that after this episode, you will be okay with what your morning routine looks like. And if you'd like to make some changes to it, then perhaps you'll be inspired to do so. If you're new to Moms Without Capes, I'm Ani Myszalski, therapist, life coach, and recovering supermom.
and I'm here to help you hang up your own Supermom cape so that you can get back in touch with the woman who's been put on the black burner for way too long. This podcast is where you'll discover that your true superpowers shine when you stop trying to be a Supermom. Welcome to the show. Let's start by talking about the challenges that us moms face when it comes to
creating a morning routine. So morning routines actually start the night before. And what I mean by that is by what we do the night before, the actions we take or we don't take actually end up affecting us in the morning. For example, staying up late. For lots of us moms, the nighttime after the kids go to sleep,
Onnie Michalsky (02:27.566)
is one of the only times we get to spend with our partner and that time be uninterrupted. And so we end up staying up late to catch up with our partners and it already puts us behind in the morning because we end up feeling exhausted or we can't wake up in the morning and it's already leading to a unsuccessful morning.
Or you might be staying up and catching up on your social feeds, right? Scrolling Facebook or Instagram and trying to catch up on everything that's happening in the rest of the world. And it's going to affect your sleep. Netflix is one that we end up just staying up. You know, they have, they're really good at keeping us in suspense and making us want to watch that next episode. There have been so many times where I've been,
watching Netflix with one of my kids or with my husband and it flashes at the end.
What's it say? Keep watching, right? Keep watching or episode starts in 10 minutes or 10 seconds or whatever. And Netflix is really good at leaving their episodes in cliffhangers. And so you're like, okay, one more episode, one more episode. If I can only, you know, if I had a nickel for every time I've said that, um, but this can really sabotage waking up and having a good morning when you are continually.
staying up and binging on Netflix, right?
Onnie Michalsky (04:10.349)
Another challenge that can happen or that can come up for us moms is just the basic unpredictability of life. You may have the best of intentions and say, tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'm going to, you know, read the Bible and I'm going to, you know, read a chapter of my book, or I'm going to take a walk. I'm going to do some sun gazing, whatever it is that you have it in your mind that you want to do in the morning. And you wake up the next morning.
with a sick child, right? Or you forget about that early morning appointment and the only time you have to get ready is that time that you wanted to do something else and, um, or you run out of milk. That's happened to us before where I get up and I'm like, okay, I'll go through the thing. And then you realize that you don't have, I don't have milk in the refrigerator and the kids want cereal for breakfast. And so.
to run to the store and get milk or eggs or whatever it is, right? Like there's always something that seems to happen. And I say always, that's not really the case. And a lot of times we can let that all or nothing thinking completely throw us off and make us feel very frustrated and hopeless. That no matter what you do, these unpredictable things happen and they completely throw us off course. And so I want us to shift that.
and start seeing, well, are there some thinking errors that might be at play here, right? Like that jumping to conclusions or all or nothing thinking. And have there been days that your morning looked how you would like it to look? Like you felt like the kids left for school or you've got, you know, the first thing on your calendar come up and like, you look back at that morning and say, you know what, things went well. Cause a lot of times we don't do that.
We tend to focus on when things go bad instead of looking at the times things went well. And so it helps to get into the routine, maybe put this into your morning routine of just reflecting on how can you improve, right? How can things, what went well, what can be improved? This helps you get off of autopilot and really start living intentionally.
Onnie Michalsky (06:36.525)
So with each stage of motherhood comes its unique challenges and joys. Morning routines need to evolve to accommodate these changes, like from season to season and day to day. Your weekday routine will likely look very different than your weekend routine.
And by routine, I mean those series of actions you take as you move through your mornings. Whether that morning begins at 5 a .m. or 8 a .m., what you do is going to look different. From me to you.
I encourage you to give yourself grace and compassion, recognizing that it's okay to prioritize self -care and set boundaries, even if it means letting go of certain expectations or routines. We can feel very frustrated when we hold certain expectations about what our mornings should look like. There's that should word. And when things don't go as planned. On the other hand,
When we don't have any set structure, we can often feel like we're hit by a whirlwind and then everyone is feeding off one another's energy and you have a pretty chaotic morning. So it's important to determine what needs to be let go of and what actions will serve you. I did an episode a while back on bookends. Often morning is a space that self -care can be incorporated into your day, but that's up to you. In episode 13 of the Moms of That Capes podcast,
I share with you how to best utilize your bookends, and by bookends I mean your morning and your night, so the bookends of your day, or your weekends, which are the bookends of your week. Oftentimes moms can find that.
Onnie Michalsky (08:35.021)
They can fit self -care in more easily during those times rather than in the busyness of the day or the busyness of the week. So check out episode 13 to learn more about the bookends. And it also takes holding certain personal boundaries. And I talked about boundaries in quite a few episodes, but I want to point you to episode 118, and I'll link to these episodes in the show notes of today's episode.
But in episode 18, I talk about honoring your own boundaries, right? Holding integrity, doing what you say you're gonna do. There's different types of boundaries. And in that episode, I walk you through how to, I offer some suggestions on how to hold those boundaries to do what it is that you want to do.
Onnie Michalsky (09:30.509)
Let's talk about structuring your morning. Because essentially you'll want to set up your morning to support your overall well -being. This could include waking up earlier to carve out time for yourself. It doesn't have to though. It also can mean making space for yourself after the kids go off to school or you give them time to play or read while you yourself take time for yourself maybe a little bit later in the morning. Something that might help,
is setting intentions for the day ahead. I usually look at my planner and our family calendar and I see what's going on for that day. And then I determine what is my top priority, that if nothing else gets done that day, if I do this one thing, I'd feel like the day went well. And I also make sure that the first part of my day includes at least one activity that brings me joy and energy. Like I mentioned,
My season of motherhood is all of our kids are in their double digits. Our youngest just turned 10 last week. And so my season might look different than your season. You may have a season where you have younger kids or your season may be that your kids are older and all of them are self -sufficient. The season that I am in determines or I allow to dictate,
what my morning routine is going to look like. And since most of my kids are self -sufficient at this time, I have certain things that I do in the morning. And like I said, I have a bare bones one. I have one that's like one or two things. And then when I have mornings that I have extra time or I have a substantial amount of time, I do more of those activities that I have already determined. And some of those activities do give me joy and energy.
and I make sure I do them in the morning so that I feel successful, I feel energized as the morning goes on.
Onnie Michalsky (11:38.925)
So, often times, it's important to set up for the morning the night before. This could involve packing lunches, laying at close, or creating a to -do list to streamline your morning routine and reduce stress. But again, this is based on your particular needs, the needs of your family, and the season of motherhood that you are currently in. Personally,
I will sometimes pack my own lunch and our youngest daughters if I know that I have to go to the office the next day. Remember, I don't go to the office every day. Our kids are mostly in the teens, so they will pack their own lunches. And at times, I'll make sure that any clothes make it to the dryer if they aren't, if my kids aren't awake to do it themselves. If I, I pass through the laundry room and,
If I see a load of clothes in the washing machine, I'll go ahead and just throw it in the dryer because the only time they do laundry is usually when they need clothes and sometimes they'll fall asleep. So I want to just help them, you know, get into that, you know, yes, I want to help them be responsible. But at the same time, it only takes me a couple of minutes just to throw those clothes in the dryer so that they have the clothes they need, because when they don't in the morning, they'll come to me.
to lament about the fact that their clothes didn't make it into the dryer and that takes some time away. So if I see that happening, I will just quickly throw those clothes in the dryer, call it good. If there's clothes in the dryer, I'll just throw them on the laundry table. They'll still be there in the morning. They'll still be there in the morning or later the next day when I am able to go back and either I fold them or one of my kids fold them. So I'm at a season where the main setting up I must do for a successful morning of what I need to do the night before.
is get myself to bed at an appropriate time, which for me is a few minutes before 10 p .m. By doing that, by getting in bed before 10 o 'clock, then I know that I'm gonna feel good in the morning. I'm gonna feel good enough to be able to get out of bed and actually do what it is that I wanna do. It allows me to wake up before my kids and I can enjoy a cup of coffee or two. I can read the Bible, I can pray, I can journal, I can plan my meals for the day.
Onnie Michalsky (14:04.781)
And some days I can even have an uninterrupted conversation with my husband when he gets up. So I ask you, what tweaks can you make to your nighttime routine that will allow you to have a more successful morning? Think about it. Let's talk about doom scrolling, right? I want to address the issue of just spending too much time on your smartphone and maybe doom scrolling. I can't even say the word.
For a while, I was checking my phone. I was checking texts and emails and Facebook and Instagram notifications. And I was doing this as soon as I rolled over and turned off my alarm because of course my alarm was on my phone. It became a habit that I knew wasn't a good one. And I noticed that I felt different on those days, even though I was only on my phone, maybe 10 to 15 minutes. And of course, some days I did end up being on longer and I just didn't want to be because...
I noticed how it was affecting me. So I decided to make some changes. I put my phone in sleep mode, and that lasted until 7 a .m. So I have an Android, which my kids say I am so uncool for having, but I like my Android. And I did try an iPhone at one point, and I did not like it. But on the Android, and I'm sure they have it on the iPhone as well, you can set it to a sleep mode. So at 9.
So an hour before I want to get in bed, my phone is set to go into black and white mode and that lasts until 7 a .m. and it makes my phone really boring to look at. I also removed some social media apps and made my phone even more boring. And then I went and hid my email app on the second page of some folder that especially early in the morning, it takes some real thought to remember where it is.
located on my phone. It creates enough thought that just in that pause, I can talk myself getting out of bed and into the bathroom and bypass the phone altogether. This may not apply to you, and perhaps you don't even have this problem, but for me, it was a problem, and I wanted to make changes to what I was doing. But in order to do that, I had to set myself up to be successful in changing the behaviors.
Onnie Michalsky (16:40.077)
So I invite you.
To jump into the Moms Without Cape's Facebook community, you can find it by looking at the link in the show notes or...
Onnie Michalsky (17:01.579)
Let me know what your biggest takeaway from what I shared in today's episode is for you. Come join us over at the Moms Without Capes Facebook group. You can click the link in the show notes of today's episode, or you can head on over to Facebook and just search Moms Without Capes. Come in and join the conversation and let us know what you plan on taking and taking action on from what I shared in this episode.
Remember, you are in control of your own self. And while your family may throw some unpredictability into the mix, ultimately you need to make sure that you are holding the wheel. It's never too late to start prioritizing self -care and evolving your morning routine to better support yourself and your family. Give yourself grace and compassion as you move through the seasons of motherhood and know that it's going to be okay.
Life happens for you and not to you. And in every step of the way, you must take care of yourself because you, my friend, are worth it. Thanks for joining me for today's episode and I will see you in the Moms Without Capes Facebook group.
