EP 22- Arrow Tip Tuesday: Create A Morning Ritual

Morning people. My college self just threw up in my mouth a little bit. As a teenager, if I had to wake up before my body felt ready, the entire world was dead to me. I walked around with a blank stare, wishing that a UFO would fly down, lasso every human who attempted to talk to me, and transport them to Mars, until I woke up on my own terms.

Legitimately, if someone greeted me with a “hi, good morning!” I’d think how dare you have the audacity to say such a thing to me before 10am.

But then, after college, I read an article by this dude name Hal Elrod. He mentioned that the single biggest contributor to his success in life was having a morning routine.

What?? Is this guy for real?

He brought up an idea, that rattled my morning-hating 10x snooze-button hitting self.

He said that every time you wake up, and hit the snooze button, you’re essentially, saying “I hate getting up, so let me do it over and over and over again.”

Wow. Truth. I am voluntarily re-living the most unenjoyable part of my day.

Since then, I’ve researched highly impactful athletes and people in this world, and have noticed that the majority of them all have some variation of a consistent morning ritual.

And it makes sense. Our days are filled with uncontrollable factors.  Once our day gets rolling, it’s so easy to get caught up being reactive. We get a text from a friend, we show up to training and our coach tells us what to do, we respond to all our piled up emails ..…by the end of the day, it can leave us feeling drained as if we never took time to ourself.

But the start of the day, is something we can always control. In implementing a morning ritual, we are able to start the day on our own terms. It’s an opportunity to show ourselves that we value our well-being and are in control of our lives. Once you find a ritual that feels good to you, it allows you to start the day off feeling alive, and excited to crush the rest of your day.

For the past four years, I’ve been tweaking my own routine, and have developed one that get’s me feeling like I’m Cinderella and that Prince Charming just returned my glass slipper.

Throughout the next few weeks, I’m going to walk you through my exact morning ritual that gets me into this enlightened state. Every one is different, but there’s a few main components that I believe will set you up for your day, and at the very least, make you not want to hit snooze, or hit anyone who tries to say “good morning!” to you before you’re fully ready.

Arrow Tip: Create A Morning Ritual

Specific details to follow in the future

Share the love

If you haven’t already, I would be so very grateful if you rated and left me a review of the podcast. It takes two minutes! Here’s what to do.

1. Click HERE

2. Click “view in itunes”

3. Click the “ratings and reviews” tab

4. Click “write a review” and show me love <3

Resources

Click HERE to become a part of Friday Feelz

Click HERE for a list of the 10 books I believe ever female athlete MUST read.

Click HERE  to be the first to know when a new podcast or article drops, and receive other exclusive content

EP 17- Throwing Away 9 Trash Bags Full of my Belongings Changed my Life

Not to brag, but growing up, I played on some pretty baller teams. With stellar teams, came our fair share of tournament championships. And with tournament championships, came a lot of free tournament championship t-shirts.

Winning free garments is infinitely more exciting as a kid than if you bought it yourself. For about a week, I would be high as a kite repping my new swag. My friends and I would ecstatically plan a certain day to wear our shirts to school. “Ok guys, on Wednesday’s let’s all wear our Chinook Cup Champions shirts!”

 After that day, without fail, the shirt would be chucked into the back of my closet with all of the other virtually identical uncomfortable stiff-materialed, generic-fonted, cheesy soccer ball-adorned tournament t-shirts.  

And then 10 years later, at the age of 25, when I still have a room at my parents place because I’m a professional soccer player, who happens to be female #equalplayequalpay….that’s when I realized I’ve been hoarding these t-shirts for my whole life.

The only reason I discovered my hoarding problem is because I read this book called The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

And, dare I say it, for a slob like myself,  it was indeed life changing.

I swear, tidiness makes  your head feel so much clearer and freer, especially when you get home after a long day of training. I believe any amount of stress, even it’s outside of the game, will affect your performance.

I posted before and after pictures of my room  in the full written piece HERE .  The insane amount of wardrobes I collected is equally shocking and impressive.If you are a fellow slob, I urge you to check this book out. At the time of reading the book, my messiness didn’t bother me, but once I went through this process and was living in a tidy place, I never wanted to go back.

30 DAY CHALLENGE to win Free Gift!

If anyone tries out the “kon marie” method described in this piece within the next 30 days (By May 6, 2017)  I’ll send you a free gift. All you have to do is send me a before and after picture of your room  (you can see an example of pic from the written piece HERE attach full written article link ) . Send me the pictures of the before and after via social media @arrowliving   or email me @arrowliving1@gmail.com and I’ll send you that gift.

Share the love

If you haven’t already, I would be so very grateful if you rated and left me a review of the podcast. It takes two minutes! Here’s what to do.

1. Click HERE

2. Click “view in itunes”

3. Click the “ratings and reviews” tab

4. Click “write a review” and show me love <3

Resources

Click HERE to become a part of Friday Feelz

Click HERE for a list of the 10 books I believe ever female athlete MUST read.

Click HERE  to be the first to know when a new podcast or article drops, and receive other exclusive content

08-Arrow Tip Tuesday: Plan Tomorrow Tonight

Arrow Tip: Plan Tomorrow Tonight 

Do you ever have those days when you are driving home after an exhausting day,  your workout kicked your butt, and you’ve been running a million miles per hour from one thing to the next? And all you can think about is how you are excited to get in bed and pass out.

Maybe like 7 nights a week?

That happens to me often, but it was an even more common occurrence in college.  I would get home,  brush my teeth, slip on my glow-in-the-dark retainers, snuggle into my covers, shut my eyes with giddiness so stoked to dream about puppies and scoring goals and chipotle, and then, all of a sudden, a little thought would pop into my head about tomorrow….

“I have to train. Then I have study. And go to the grocery store. I want to make almond milk. But  I have to Youtube how to make almond milk, because last time I attempted to do it myself, it tasted like soggy, nutty socks. And then I need to go to my physical therapy appointment, and call my grandma. I want to see my dog. I haven’t seen Jake in forever. I miss him. I bet he misses me.  But will I have time see him before I coach? And I have that family dinner. Ahh and I still haven’t sent my 10 month over-due birthday thank you letters…”

That one thought would lead to a cascade of other thoughts, and the realization that my day tomorrow is going to be even busier than today. And from that point, I would activate high-alert mode, feel very overwhelmed, rendering it nearly impossible to fall asleep   But, I found a super simple action that I’ve been using for years now that dramatically reduce this stress.

Before hitting the hay,  I take 5-10 minutes to plan out my day in detail,  hour by hour.

I Schedule my obligations first (i.e work, assignments, training, appointments…). I like to prioritize 3 things to get done after that.

I often find that if I plan strategically, and specifically by the hour, that there is time in the day to get a lot more done than I think. There are days when I don’t have time to search “how to make almond milk”, but with this knowledge, I can reschedule it for another day, and not stress about it at night.

This scheduling may sound rigid, but I believe it’s the opposite. When you schedule your day, you have a clear set of intentions for the day, you know what you need to do, and  it free up a ton of mental space so you can be fully present when throughout your day’s workout and other activities.

A lot times if we don’t have a schedule, we are constantly responding to everyone else needs, and disregarding our own. When you decide what you are going to do, that gives you back control.

A big benefit of scheduling the night before is that once you fall asleep, all night long your subconscious mind works on how to make these intentions happen. It pulls up past memories and comes up with creative possibilities to help prime your brain to get your intentions done for that next day.

Planning my days has been a real savior. It allows me to live each day with presence and reduces unnecessary nighttime mind-wandering. Now, when I climb into bed, I confidently whisper to myself “Night, night Kendall, sleep tight, don’t let the stress bugs bite.”

Have you tried planning your night before? Did you find it beneficial?

Let me know in the comments!

Share the love

If you haven’t already, I would be so very grateful if you rated and left me a review of the podcast. It takes two minutes! Here’s what to do.

1. Click HERE

2. Click “view in itunes”

3. Click the “ratings and reviews” tab

4. Click “write a review” and show me love <3

Resources

Click HERE to become a part of Friday Feelz

Click HERE for a list of the 10 books I believe ever female athlete MUST read.

Click HERE  to be the first to know when a new podcast or article drops, and receive other exclusive content