Episode 24: Beginning the Day on Purpose
- Tina Boogren
- Feb 15
- 6 min read
Description: How you begin your day matters more than we often realize. In this episode, Tina shares a simple morning practice to help you set yourself up for a positive day, before emails, news, or to-do lists take over. Through intention, journaling, and choosing what you are a yes for, this invitation offers a gentle way to start your day with optimism and care.
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Resources: The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.
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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to Everyday Wellness with Dr. Tina H. Boogren. I am your host, Tina Boogren. Before we jump into this week's episode and invitation, I'm going to invite us to pause and take a nice deep breath. I'm trying to really get into that habit of just taking a breath in my transitions during the day. So as you transition into listening to this podcast, whether you are on a walk or in your car listening as you're getting ready in the morning, I just invite you to take that deep breath to just be here, and I'm so glad that you are here.
This week's invitation, this is week 24, this week's invitation is something that I want you to do in the morning, and that is to set yourself up for a positive day. And there's a couple ways you can do this, but here's something that I've been playing around with for a while now, actually, gosh, over a month now. And I actually feel like it's making a difference.
It feels a little bit cheesy. I don't think I've shared it with anyone until now, because it does feel a little bit cheesy. But you know what? I'm a little bit cheesy, and so I decided to try this thing on my own, and I think it's kind of working. So here's what I do every single morning. I have really stuck to a habit of allowing myself time in the morning with my journal before I even get out of bed. This is not the cheesy part, it's coming. So I leave my journal on my nightstand, whether I'm at home or in a hotel room, my glasses are right there. And when my alarm goes off, I put my glasses on and I grab my journal before I look at my phone or do anything else.
And in my journal, the very first thing that I write, I write today's date, and then I write this, and this is the cheesy thing, I write “Today is going to be the best day of my life. Today is going to be the best day of my life.” And that might be all you take from this invitation that you try out and just do that. I write it down. I am a journaler, as you know, but you might just say it out loud. So maybe when you wake up in the morning. You say it out loud, or maybe if someone else is sleeping and you can't wake someone up, you say it in your head. But when your feet hit the ground or when your eyes open, I want you to just- before you do anything else and any other thoughts come crashing into your brain- I want you to just say “Today is gonna be the best day of my life.”
Now, I don't know about you, but the minute I say it, my brain starts creeping in and saying, “Yeah, right. You’ve got to get on two airplanes today. It's snowing outside.” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I stop myself and I say, “Nope. There is absolutely no reason. I have no idea what is in store for me today. Today is going to be the best day of my life.”
And then I take it a little bit further because in my journal, after I write, “Today is going to be the best day of my life.” And sometimes I have to write it more than once when I can feel my kind of negative cynicism come in. I kind of just keep writing it. And then what I write, and here's another cheesy part, but it seems to be working, I write “Today I am a YES for… Today I am a YES for…”
So for example, I might say today I am a yes for smooth travel, for kindness. I am a yes for an unexpected, pleasant surprise. I am a yes for receiving good news. I am a yes for a phone call from someone that I've been missing. I am a yes for kindness from strangers. I am a yes for belly laughter and on and on and on. So I kind of think about my day and I think about what would make my day be really incredible, and I write out that I would be a yes for those things.
And then some surprises, right? I am a yes for an unexpected phone call. I'm a yes for good news arriving via my inbox. I mean, who knows? But I'm just letting the universe know that I am a yes for those things and that those things support my belief that today is going to be the best day of my life.
This really doesn't take me very long. It's a couple minutes in the morning. It feels like a really good way to start my day. It's kind of setting an intention for the day. It's pulling in those positive emotions, putting in that optimism for the day. And it just helps me show up for myself and for, you know, my to-do list in this mindset that feels really, really different than days where the alarm goes off and I'm already running behind, or the first thing I do is I look at my phone and I'm blasted by the news and terrible things happening in the world, and a gazillion emails that have somehow come in through the night that need my attention. And I feel like I'm already behind and I'm already irritated and I feel completely overwhelmed and I have not even gotten out of bed yet.
In a real intentional attempt to take control of my technology and my outlook and how I approach my days, this simple little tweak of getting my morning started right has made a huge difference. I then go on in my journal and go a million different ways of kind of a brain dump or things that I'm grateful for or just what, you know, I'm hoping for the day. I could just kind of go on from there. I'm usually, I get started when I say I am a yes for, and it kind of just flows into a few kind of different pieces.
I like the advice of Julia Cameron and her book, The Artist’s Way, to do three morning pages. She talks about three long hand pages of writing. But for me, what was happening when I was just doing free writing is I was kind of spiraling, thinking about my to-do list. It was becoming a list of chores and it just wasn't helping me enter into my day the best way that I knew how. So I tweaked the idea of those morning pages and put some positive intention behind them. And so if I can do three full pages, I do. It takes about 15 minutes for me to do that. And so I plan for that in the morning. And again, I really, really set myself up by saying, today is going to be the best day of my life. I am a yes for, and I just kind of keep writing. If I get stuck, I write again, today is going to be the best day of my life, and I start a new list and it just feels like I said really good.
Now, of course, you don't have to do three pages. You don't even have to write it down. As always, take these invitations and make them work for you. But that's what I'm inviting you to play with this week. At the very least, can the first thought that comes to your mind be, today is going to be the best day of my life. And maybe while you're getting ready, you are thinking about all of the things that you are a yes for and see if it makes a difference. I hope it does. I'm cheering so hard for you.
As always, we're so grateful to Adrienne. She is the magic that makes this all happen. Also, we are so grateful to Solution Tree and Marzano Resources and, and especially to you this badass wellness squad. I am so stinking grateful for you. I hope that this practice helps. Please jump on over to the Facebook group. I'm going to have prompts this week that'll help just remind us to be doing this and let's, let's see what happens when we show up in this way. Make it a great week, you guys. I love you.
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