Most mornings don’t start slowly.
The alarm goes off. You reach for your phone. There are emails waiting, notifications you missed, things you need to remember, and somebody somewhere already needs something from you.
And your feet haven’t even hit the floor yet.
For women who lead, run businesses, manage households, care for other people, or somehow do a combination of all of the above, mornings can quickly become the transition from sleeping to being available to everybody else.
But what if you gave yourself just 10 minutes first?
Not an hour.
Not an elaborate morning routine.
Just 10 minutes with the coffee you were already going to drink.
That’s the idea behind the Me Time Morning™.
What Is a Me Time Morning™?
A Me Time Morning™ is 10 intentional minutes with your coffee before you start responding to everything and everyone else.
There’s no complicated routine to follow.
You don’t have to wake up an hour earlier. You don’t need to meditate, journal, work out, read a chapter of a book, make a smoothie and somehow watch the sunrise before 6 a.m.
Unless you want to.
The point is to take something you already do every morning and experience it differently.
Instead of drinking your coffee while answering emails, scrolling through social media or mentally running through everything you need to accomplish that day, you sit down and actually enjoy it.
For 10 minutes.
Pause. Sip. Savor.®
Why 10 Minutes?
Because I wanted this ritual to work in real life.
One of the problems with the way we talk about self-care is that it can quickly become another thing we’re supposed to fit into an already full schedule.
Another routine.
Another appointment.
Another box to check.
Ten minutes is different.
It’s long enough to create an actual pause in your morning, but short enough that it doesn’t require completely restructuring your life.
And your coffee gives you something even more important: a habit that already exists.
You don’t have to remember to create an entirely new routine.
You were already going to make the coffee.
Now we’re simply changing what happens after you pour it.
The 3 Steps to Your Morning Coffee Ritual
Tomorrow morning, try this:
1. PAUSE.
Make your coffee and find somewhere to sit.
Before you open your laptop, check your email or start scrolling, give yourself a few minutes where nothing requires a response from you.
Put the phone down.
Yes. All the way down.
Light a candle .
2. SIP.
Drink your coffee while it’s actually hot.
I know. Revolutionary.
Pay attention to what you’re drinking instead of treating your coffee like something that follows you around the house until you eventually find it cold two hours later.
Use your favorite mug. Brew coffee you genuinely enjoy. Light a candle. Put on music. Sit by the window.
Make those few minutes something you look forward to.
3. SAVOR.
This is the part we tend to skip.
You don’t have to accomplish anything during these 10 minutes.
You can journal.
You can read.
You can think about your day.
You can listen to music.
Or you can sit there, drink your coffee and do absolutely nothing.
Doing nothing counts.
Your Me Time Morning™ doesn’t have to become another productivity routine disguised as self-care.
Sometimes the entire point is simply enjoying ten minutes before the day gets moving.
Your Morning Doesn’t Have to Look Like Anyone Else’s
Your 10 minutes might happen at 6 a.m.
They might happen after school drop-off.
Maybe you work nights and your “morning” happens when most people are eating dinner.
Maybe tomorrow you only get seven minutes before life starts life-ing.
That’s okay.
The goal isn’t to create the perfect morning.
It’s to intentionally create a little space between waking up and becoming available to the rest of your world.
And when you practice it consistently, something as ordinary as making your morning coffee can become a signal:
This is my time.
Try It Tomorrow Morning
Tomorrow, make your coffee like you normally would.
But don’t take it to your desk.
Don’t open your email yet.
And please don’t let Instagram have the first 10 minutes of your day.
Sit down.
Take a sip while your coffee is still hot.
And give yourself 10 minutes before you start giving pieces of yourself to everything else.
That’s your Me Time Morning™.
Pause. Sip. Savor.®
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