Ep #69: How to Create Your Ideal Morning Routine with Jen Lamplough

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who is midlife and plus sized and you want to start running but don’t know how, or if it’s even possible, you’re in the right place. Using proven strategies and real-life experience, certified running and life coach Jill Angie shares how you can learn to run in the body you have right now.

Hey rebels, you are listening to episode number 69 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and today we are talking all about morning routines. And if a morning routine isn’t something that you’re familiar with or if it’s something that you’ve tried and been unable to implement, we are going to get past all of that today.

We’re going to teach you what it is, why it’s so important, why it’s so helpful, how you can create one that works for you and make sure that you stick to it. And to help us with that conversation, I’ve actually brought Jen Lamplough on the show. And if you remember Jen from episode number eight, she ran the Chicago Marathon about a year and a half ago and then she had some struggles earlier this year after she broke her foot and her morning routine actually helped her get back into it, back on track and really, really thriving.

And she’s just so talented at creating this morning routine for herself, she’s really good at teaching it to other people and she’s good at making it super easy to understand and easy to implement. So I thought she was the best person to explain it to you guys.

So in just a moment we’re going to get to my discussion, my chat with Jen about the morning routines, but I wanted to let you know we’re going to go on a hiatus from the Saturday episodes just for a couple of months while we get through the holiday season and while we do some reworking of the whole Not Your Average Runner organization. Because we’ve hired a bunch of people and things are going absolutely crazy. We’ve got so much going on, we have so much new stuff to be offering our Run Your Best Life members and our Rebel Runner Unleashed race-cation folks and so we’re going to drop back down to just one episode a week.

We’re not going away. We’re still coming out every single Thursday in your ear but we’re going to just take a little break from doing all of the extra interviews. We’ll still be doing some interviews. They’ll just be interspersed on Thursdays and we’ll be back to the two episode a week schedule probably in February.

Meanwhile, we’re going to be bringing you a ton of amazing content between now and then, so like I said, we’re not going away. We’re just scaling back a tiny bit while we make the Not Your Average Runner family and all the Not Your Average Runner coaching products even better.

Alright, so if you’re ready to talk about morning routines and learn everything about it, here is my chat with the fabulous Jen.

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Jill: Alright rebels, so I’m here with the fabulous Jennifer Lamplough. She’s very fabulous. For those of you who remember, Jen was actually on the podcast in February and she was on episode eight talking about her Chicago Marathon experience. And since then – so Jen and I have worked together. She’s been a client of mine for many years but recently she joined the Not Your Average Runner team as our director of nutrition and client education. And she’s going to be coming to all of the retreats and race-cations, she’s going to be cooking for everyone, educating everyone on race fuel and nutrition and helping with coaching, and she’s also really, really good at this life coaching thing too.

So I just wanted to kind of have a conversation with her about what she’s been doing lately in her own life that has been making a huge difference for her and I thought it’d be kind of fun if she could share that with you and then she and I are just going to sort of chat about it. So Jen, that was a very long introduction. Welcome.

Jen: I thought my title was chief awesome officer, but that’s okay. I’ll take director of nutrition and client education. That’s amazing.

Jill: It’s so fancy.

Jen: I feel so honored.

Jill: Good. Let’s talk about this because you actually introduced this concept to the Rebel Runner Unleashed folks in November when they were all here in Philly and we talked about this morning routine concept because you’ve just been rocking it out. And so can you tell our listeners what even is a morning routine, why has it been so important to you and then how do they make one for themselves.

Jen: Yeah, I did the marathon, we talked in – whatever it was, February, episode eight about my marathon and I had like, a little kind of setback. I kind of had stopped running for a little while and then I did a half marathon kind of out of nowhere without any training. I was dead last. I did it but I was dead last. It was very hot. It was in May and two weeks afterwards I broke my right foot and so I was not able to do anything really running related for about five months. Took a long time for my foot to heal because I work on my feet a lot and I’m not a tiny little stick woman. So it took a long time for my foot to heal so I had to kind of not go down a deep dark hole of going backwards and it was all mental. I mean, I was still able to do some exercises. Once I was out of my boot, which I had to wear for about a month, maybe six weeks. I think I had to wear it for six weeks. It was a long time. It felt like a long time. I could do things where I didn’t jump or have any hard impact on my foot so I did some strength training and some boot camps and stuff like that but I really wasn’t able to do a whole lot of exercise. I really had to like, not go down a mental rabbit hole.

And I was at a conference – I’ve always read about morning routines and I’ve always – I want to be a morning person, this was always a goal of mine, and I just always told myself, “Well, I’m not a morning person. Never going to be a morning person. I don’t like the morning, I don’t like to get up, I love to sleep.” Ask my husband, ask my college roommate. I would hit snooze like, 5000 times and…

Jill: Just for those of you listening, the husband is in appearance in the background.

Jen: Sorry. Like, getting his burrito in the back. Sorry about that. It’s life with a toddler and a husband. But you know, I always heard about morning routines and I was at this like, grandiose notion that I wanted to be a morning person. I wanted to be a lark, right? They call them a lark or an owl and I wanted to be a lark. And I just always told myself that I couldn’t, that I wasn’t a morning person, that I was too much of a sleeper. And everything I’ve ever read about super successful people, they always talk about their morning routine, and I was like, “What is this morning routine that they…” so I did a little bit of research about it and nothing really ever stuck. And then I was at a conference and I saw – she works for Apple, she’s a big wig at Apple. I can’t think of her name. Angela somebody.

Jill: We’ll put it in the show notes.

Jen: Yeah, we’ll put it in the show notes. She was awesome, but she talked about how important her morning routine was because it was really the only time in her whole day that she had to herself. And I work a full-time job, I work for you part-time, I have a book that just came out so that’s kind of like another part-time job, and I have a husband and a three-year-old. Everybody has a lot going on, right? I never like to say that I’m busy because everybody’s busy. But I got a lot going on and I don’t have a lot of time to myself, and I was like, that’s kind of like what clicked for me was like, oh, time to myself. This illusive – so I was like, alright, I’m the queen of setting the grand plan and failing every time because it has to be perfect. It’s like, I have to get up early and I have to workout and I have to journal and I have to read and I have to do this. I make all these grand plans and the alarm would go off, I’d be like, I ain’t doing all that, I’d rather stay in bed, right?

And so as you and I have worked together and we talked about setting small goals and just doing one thing, starting out small, right? And so I’m like, I’m just going to get up and I’m going to walk around the block because I couldn’t even run at this point. I cleared to walk from my doctor and I was like, I’m just going to get up and I’m going to walk around my block. It’s going to take my 10 minutes at the most. And so the first day that’s what I did. I’m like, I’m not going to do anything else. Just going to walk around the block. And I did that, and then my block got a little bigger and got a little bigger, then I started walking…

We live on a river and I love being outside and fresh air and nature and seeing the river in the morning really does a lot for my mental health. So I’m like, I’ll walk down by the river. So it’s like a half a mile walk down to the river so my morning walk turned into two miles every day and I started getting up every day and doing it and I was like, man, this is awesome. And then I was like, I want more time to myself in the morning. So that’s when I kind of started doing the journaling and I really started working on setting goals for myself because I was really kind of falling in – I had lost some weight and I was kind of falling into that like, I was gaining a little bit of weight back and I wasn’t really focusing on my goals. I didn’t have a running goal because I couldn’t run and I was like, I need to retool my brain a little bit.

So I started thinking about – you always had me talk about the compelling reason. You have to have a really good reason and it has to be really compelling to get your ass out of bed to do this. So I needed to always remember my reasons why. And so I started writing them down. I actually was looking through my journal today and I just had four little sentences like why am I doing this, and my reasons why were like, to be healthy, I want to be healthy and I want to always be playing with my son and I want to – I have it right here actually. I want to be strong, I want to be healthy, and that started to resonate with me and I was like, okay, then it started getting to be like, okay, what else do I want to write? I’m going to do my thought downloads.

So I started doing my thought downloads in the morning and on September ninth I said, I’m working on my accountability to myself because I’m – if you’ve ever read The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, which you had us read, your tendency there is to be an upholder, or an obliger, or a rebel, or a questioner, and I was an obliger. I only stopped at goals really if somebody else was keeping me accountable. That really bothered me. I really wanted to be accountable to myself. So this was like, one of my goals was to like, be accountable to yourself.

So what does that mean? Get up early and walk, then journal, and I had to set three alarms to remind me why I was getting up early. So one of them was like, my regular alarm but it said on the screen get up and walk. And then I found something called the talking alarm where you can record your voice and leave yourself a message that it said when your alarm went off. So I was like, “Jen, get up and walk.” And then I set my Google calendar to go off and I did them all in like, five to 10 minute increments because my alarm would go off super early and I’d be like, why is my alarm going off so early? And I would just shut it off because I wasn’t in the habit yet. And so I didn’t have the routine down so I had to literally remind myself through an alarm, which I thought was so…

Jill: I love that. Didn’t you say too that your husband was like, why are you talking to yourself in the morning?

Jen: He was like, that’s really annoying. I’m like, that’s my own voice. He’s like, yeah, I know.

Jill: So your morning routine kind of evolved organically from I’m just going to take 10 minutes and go for a walk because your foot was healing to sort of a full blown almost a ritual. Did you have a set list of things you do when you journal?

Jen: Yeah. So I get up and I do my walk or a run. I’m able to run again. So I get up and do my run or my walk and then I come in and the first thing I do is pour myself a cup of coffee. That’s like, the carrot dangling in front of me is my hot cup of coffee waiting for me when I get home.

Jill: Yeah, because it’s cold now because you’re in Chicago.

Jen: Yeah, it’s super cold right now. The wind chill was 16 this morning.

Jill: Good lord, and how much snow do you have on the ground? And it’s fucking November. This is insane.

Jen: We had a blizzard Sunday night into Monday and we had like, a foot of snow on the ground and it has gotten so cold that it’s turned into solid ice. So it’s just like, ice everywhere. It’s crazy.

Jill: Okay, so I just want to take a moment and I think it’s so important that you started this over the summer because it is a little bit easier to get ourselves up and out when it’s light out and so forth. But you created this habit over the summer that was so deeply entrenched that when winter came along, instead of saying fuck it, I’m not going to do this anymore, you’re like, how can I keep myself going?

Jen: Yeah. One morning like the first morning it got really cold and the temperature was like seven degrees wind chill outside, that was one of the first mornings it was really brutal cold and I had – you actually just talked about this on your Winter Running podcast and you said I had this thought, and my thought actually was, “My morning routine is more important to me than staying warm in my bed and getting an extra half an hour of sleep.” Now when I don’t do it, my whole day is thrown off because it has become such – everyone who knows me will die when they hear this. I don’t even need an alarm anymore. I wake up before my alarm goes off.

Jill: That’s amazing.

Jen: I used to hit the snooze like, 40 times, and I’m not exaggerating. I was the worst snooze-hitter. I never like, got up early. I was always running super behind in the morning and now I literally wake up before my alarm goes off, which is unheard of.

Jill: So let’s talk about that for a moment thought because I think a lot of people struggle with okay, for a week or two weeks I keep hitting snooze. They understand the first day it’s going to be hard and the second day, but then after like, a week or two, they’re like, this should be easier. And it took you how many – six weeks, eight weeks to get to that point. And so I think a lot of people quit before they get to the point where it feels natural because they just haven’t done it long enough. They just haven’t been willing to have that conversation with themselves 40 times before it works.

Jen: Yeah. So I do that. I get up, I get ready, I go on my walk around, I come home, I make a cup of coffee and I have a little – when it’s warm out – I have a really beautiful little enclosed front porch that’s kind off my room in the house. I live with two boys, so that’s like my room. It’s pretty and it looks out onto the neighborhood. And so when it’s nice out, I sit out there and do it, but it’s not nice out now, so I have a little spot in my kitchen that’s kind of like a little office for me.

So I just sit there and the first thing I do is I have sort of a wellness journal. So I write down a gratitude for the day. So the first thing I write down is what I’m grateful for. And sometimes, it’s just as simple as I’m grateful I woke up today. And on the days that I run, I run with my neighbor and she has to go super early, and so I’m always really grateful for her, knowing that I have to meet her, because I wouldn’t be able to go at 5:30 normally. I mean, I would, but I wouldn’t have to. So just knowing I have to meet here – and then sometimes it’s really profound stuff that I’m grateful for too.

So that’s the first thing. And then the second thing is like an intentional thought. So I do a thought model. I know that you’ve coached everybody on your podcast about the models…

Jill: Episode 33.

Jen: Episode 33 – and so I do a thought model and I write down that intentional thought for the day, like what I want to be thinking all day to sort of set myself up for whatever I want my day to be like or if I’m struggling with something. Like, there’s some days where I know I have a hard day ahead of me and so I’ll do it around that and it helps me sort of center myself. So I do that. and then I have sort of a checklist. I have alike a self-care checklist. So it’s whether I walk or run.

I have a list of beliefs about myself that I have cultivated over working with you for the last two years and I read those out loud every day. So I read those out loud to myself, so I check those off. And then I write down what my two biggest goals are that I’m working towards. I have a weight-loss goal and a running goal. And I know you and I are going to talk about goal-setting at some point, but I write down what those goals are to remind me, and then I write a plan for what I’m going to eat that day. And that all sounds like a lot, but it takes probably six minutes to do that.

Jill: That was going to be my next question. I was going to say, what is this, 15 minutes, 20 minutes?

Jen: It takes less than 10 minutes. That’s kind of what I did at first, and now I go a step further where after I write all that – that’s like my wellness journal, my tracking journal – and then I have just a plain regular notebook journal. And in that, I write down what was a win from yesterday, so what can I celebrate from yesterday. Again, even if it’s as simple as something like I went to the drive-thru and got fast food, but I didn’t get French fries, or something like that. Or I changed my intervals from – my intervals used to be two minutes running and one-minute walking before I broke my foot, and then I had to work my way back up. I’m not quite there yet, but I went from 45 seconds of running to a minute of running. So that was a big win for me, right?

So I write those things down and – one of my goals, I have a weight-loss goal, so one of the things I work on is around overeating. And so if I did overeat the day before, I analyze what caused me to overeat. So I either look back at if I did a thought download during that time or if I just sort of reassessed my day. And if I didn’t overeat I’m like, yay, I didn’t overeat, check mark. And then I write down my whys, like why am I doing this? Why do I have this fitness goal and this weight-loss goal? And I have basically four things. And those things have evolved, because I was, for a long time, writing down, like, I want to be healthy, and it wasn’t really resonating with me. And I was, like, I realize I am healthy. It’s not a compelling enough reason because I already believe that I am healthy, so I needed a more compelling reason because I already feel fit and strong and healthy. So I’m like, what are the compelling reasons?

So one of them is about being accountable to myself. That’s a big one for me. I’m really working on being accountable to myself. One of my beliefs, or one of my whys, is to always be active for my son, because I’m an old mom. I’m 44 and my son is three, and so I want to always be young and active for him, and that’s a really big reason to do this. And then another one of my reasons is to get faster, because one of my goals for next year is to do a Ragnar, which is a relay race. But I also want to do a 12-minute mile Ragnar. So right now, race pace, I’m about a 14.5-minute mile if I really push it, if it’s not super cold or super-hot. So I’ve got a ways to go. So that’s one, and I have another one, just to feel physically and mentally good, because when I’m, doing all this stuff, my mental health is good and the way I feel is good. It’s not really even about looking a certain way, but it’s about feeling a certain way. So those are my whys.

And then, I write down what I need to do to get there. So it’s kind of my to-do list of this is what I need to do every day. And I got to that to-do list by doing this whole goal-setting exercise that you actually taught me and I’ve sort of refined a little bit for myself, which we’re going to be talking about at some point, I think. But I really worked on this goal-setting process to figure out what I actually needed to do every day to get there. And so I write those things down too.

Jill: Oh, so good. I love that. I love that.

Jen: And again, that sounds like a lot too, but that’s really not. Like this whole process, minus the running, is less than half an hour.

Jill: Yeah, and so it’s evolved over time too. So I know there’s – because I’ve been in this process too, setting up a morning routine, and I know when I first started thinking about it, I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to do all the things and I would fail because I would give myself 10 things I had to do and then I would suck at it because my brain couldn’t get around that much. So I had to scale it back and start doing like one thing every day, exactly like you did.

So what are some of the things, for example, what if somebody starts doing a morning routine and they pick, say three things – like, how many things would you say to start out with if you’re creating a routine?

Jen: Yeah, I would just say start with one. And it could be just as simple as, like, getting up. Like, it doesn’t even need to be anything other than that. like, I’m just going to get up and get out of bed and go downstairs and just go start your coffee or whatever. Even if it’s that big of an obstacle for you, if the idea of having this morning routine is the equivalent of running a marathon without training for it – which kind of in my it was – make it really simple. And like I said, I used to start with walking around my block, which like I said, was less than 10 minutes. But you could even make it as small as just get out of bed. Like, set a time you want to get up.

I get up at 10 after six most days. The two days I run during the week, I get up at 5:15, which is early, but it’s not really that early. It’s not the middle of the night early, you know.

Jill: Okay, so start with just pick a time that you’re going to get up and get used to it. Even if you get up, go downstairs and go back to sleep on the couch…

Jen: Yeah…

Jill: Just the act of getting out of bed, okay. And then what would you suggest adding to the routine after that? So maybe they’ve done that for two weeks or three weeks, or even like 30 days…

Jen: Yeah, however long it takes for it to become a habit, where it’s not like your alarm goes off and you’re thinking, like, why the fuck is my alarm going off? That happened to me the first week. That’s why I had to find the talking alarm. So I was like, why is my alarm going off so early? And I would just shut it off. So that’s why I had to get the talking alarm. But I would say, add the thing that’s most important to you. So for me, I was missing running so much.

Like, I run outside all year no matter what the temperature because I need fresh air. I’m one of those people; I need to be outside and I need fresh air. Most temperatures, I’m out. Rain, I don’t love. I try to avoid the rain but I’ll do it if I have to. But that was the most important thing to me, like, getting outside and getting a little bit of fresh air. So that’s why I was like, I’m just going to start with walking around the block because we have just a regular city block, and that was the most important thing to me.

So it’s really what’s the most important thing to you. Like, if you’re a person who wants to get up and read or you want to get up and say a prayer or you want to get up and you want to do some yoga, or if you want to get up and you want to do some professional development. You know what I mean – do something that’s going to be good for you. Don’t get up and look at Facebook, you know what I mean?

Jill: Right, nobody needs to carve out time for more Facebook in their lives.

Jen: No, do that when you’re sitting on the toilet or whatever. Don’t have that be your goal. Have it be something that’s going to be good for you, whether it’s physically or mentally good.

Jill: That’s going to improve your physical health or your mental health or just your general wellbeing.

Jen: And don’t make it, like, I’m going to go run three miles. Make it like, I’m going to walk to the mailbox and back.

Jill: Give yourself a daily win.

Jen: For sure, even if it’s tiny, the more you can log those wins in your brain, the more your brain is going to look at this as a positive thing and not a negative thing. Not like, shit the alarm’s going off. It’s cold. I don’t want to get up. It’s, well the alarm’s going off, but I really want to do this because it makes me feel really, really good to do it. And when you get in the habit and you start doing it, it’s worse not to do it, so your brain starts to equate it with, like, you’re going to suffer today if you don’t do this.

Jill: Yeah, it just takes a little bit. You just have to stick with it long enough for that habit to entrench itself. Like, I always think about brushing your teeth. When you’re a kid, brushing your teeth is not a priority and you have to be forced to do it for years, probably. But at some point, you know that you’re willing to be late for work so that you can brush your teeth because you know the rest of your day is not going to be right if you don’t do that one thing.

And I think the habits, with this morning routine, that’s what we’re going for, that it feels like it’s so important to you that you’re willing to get up a little bit early or whatever, rearrange your schedule to make sure you get that done.

Jen: Yep, and the thought downloads are so important to me. And for a long time, I was waiting until I got to work to do them because I didn’t have a morning routine. I was getting out of bed, getting everybody ready and getting out the house in record speed every morning. So I would just save it for when I got to work. But then I get to work and I hit the ground running, so I’m like, I’ll do it at lunchtime. And then somebody calls a meeting during lunchtime and I just was never doing it.

And so I needed that dedicated carved out time because by the time I got home and made dinner and got the little guy to bed and sat down, I was exhausted. I’m like, I don’t want to do thought work. I want to lay on the couch and watch the Real Housewives, you know. So I realized that my best time to do this is going to be when nobody else is around or awake for me to be able to focus on me. And I had to make it a priority.

Jill: Now, did you have to have any conversations either with your husband or with your son to say, like, hey this is my time and I’m asking that you respect that I not be bothered during that time? Or how did you arrange that so that…

Jen: I mean, not really, because they’re usually asleep still. If my son wakes up, because he’s little, you know, he’s three and a half, so sometimes he’ll wake up and he’ll be like, mom where are you going? And he knows mommy goes running, even if I’m walking, I just say mommy’s going running. He’s like, but you’re coming back, right? I’m like, yeah, I’ll yell upstairs when I get back. And he just lays down with a book or I’ll give him his iPad in the morning sometimes and I just go. And then I come back and he’s like, mom, are you back?  I’m like, yep I’m back, I’ll be up in 20 minutes or whatever, because I want to sit down and do my journaling.

The other thing that I’ve added on too is I’ve added on a little bit of – I guess it’s almost like professional development. You know, in my full-time job, I’m also director and I have a big team and I coach a lot of people at work, so I’m always trying to find new things to share with them and share with myself and I heard about this book on another podcast. Steve Chandler wrote this book called 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself. And each chapter is like a page long and so it literally takes a couple of minutes – I think the longest is two pages.

So every morning, after I finish all that, I take a minute to read one chapter out of that book. And it’s so funny how – you know how you don’t notice things until you notice them? So if you’re talking about purple cars, all of a sudden, you see 10 purple cars because you’re now noticing them because you were talking about them. So things in this book resonate with me every morning. I was like, oh my god, I was just thinking about that or I was just talking about that with somebody, and it just really resonates. So I use it a lot in my coaching at work too, but it’s just like a nice one more little thing to, like, exercise my brain. So I consider this my self-care.

Jill: Oh, I love that. I love that your routine has evolved to so many different aspects of your wellbeing and life. It’s not just physical health. It’s like mental health and professional health and all of that.

Jen: Yep, and like I said, it sounds like a lot, but even with the running – like, I only go out for half an hour in the morning to run or walk, so with the run and with the writing and the reading and all that, the whole shebang is under an hour. So I don’t have to leave for work until 8:15, but I also want to get all this done before everybody in the house is up because I want the peace and quiet.

Jill: I love that so much.

Jen: So that’s the other part of it too. I could get up a little later and do it, but I really want that quiet time in the morning.

Jill: And then, when your family does get up, you can actually spend time with them and not be distracted by thinking, I really should be doing this other thing.

Jen: Right, or pissed because I can’t get my writing done or – so it’s like I’m done and clear, and then I have snuggle time and I have getting ready time and I have all that stuff. And our mornings are so much more peaceful because I’m not running around screaming at everybody to get their teeth brushed and get the hell out of the house, you know.

Jill: Yeah, that’s awesome. So it’s not just a morning routine for you; it sets the whole family up for success.

Jen: For sure.

Jill: I have questions because, like, here’s what I’m envisioning, because I know this is how my brain works. You set up this morning routine and you do it just fine for a week and then you skip a day, and then you skip another day, and next thing you know, a whole week’s gone by. What do you do? Is it just like, fuck it, I’m just not going to do it anymore. Or do you get right back at it? How do you address that? Because I know there are people that have this problem. I’ve heard that there are people…

Jen: If it’s not perfect they just throw the whole thing in the garbage, gee, I don’t know anybody like that. I’m looking at myself in the mirror at the moment. I have that tendency, but I’ve been working on fixing that too.

Jill: I think we all do and that’s the thing. So you have that tendency, I have that tendency, but you’ve created a routine that has sort of surpassed that. So what would you do – okay, let me ask you this; have there been days when you didn’t do your routine?

Jen: For sure, especially the wellness journal. Like, maybe I got up and I walked but I didn’t do that part of it because I overslept or whatever, or it was the weekend and maybe I just couldn’t get up or I just couldn’t do it. I’ve been sick – as you can probably hear – for the last couple of days, and so Sunday and Monday, I just didn’t do it because I had nothing in my – so I was sick. But the thing is, I was like – you know when something’s bothering you and you feel uncomfortable, it’s almost like your brain is itching?

Jill: Yeah.

Jen: I was like, why is my brain itching? And this was Monday and I was like, it’s because I haven’t done my morning routine in two days. And, like, I physically felt something wrong and I was like, what’s the answer to scratch this brain itch? And I was like, sit down and set up your journal for tomorrow morning. Lay everything out. Lay out your walking clothes, set your alarm and lay out – I use a premade wellness journal, but I pretty it up. It’s very black and white, so I color in and add stickers and that’s part of the ritual for me. And so I do that the night before, usually, so that I don’t have to spend time doing that part of it in the morning.

And so I just sort of said to myself, what’s going to make you feel better? And so I just did that. and so I’m like, even if I don’t get up in the morning and do it, I at least took the steps to set myself up for it so when I do wake up in the morning, it’s going to be so much easier to be, like, everything’s ready, just get your ass out of bed and go do it. And I did. And I still was a little bit sick, but I went out yesterday morning and – I mean, it was cold, you know, it was cold, but I just needed to do it, and I did.

Jill: So the message here is that it doesn’t need to be perfect. Nobody needs to be perfect. You might skip days and it doesn’t mean that you failed. It doesn’t mean anything. It just means you skipped a day and that’s okay and that your brain and body will be like, okay, it’s time to get back at it.

Jen: Yep, and my wellness journal is like the seven days of the week, and then there’s like a weekly review at the end. So in the day that I missed, so I don’t sort of screw it up, I just write in, didn’t journal today.

Jill: Yeah, I love that.

Jen: And if I feel like it and I have it in me, sometime I’ll say why. Like I was sick today and I just couldn’t do it, you know.

Jill: And now you use an Erin Condren wellness journal, don’t you?

Jen: No, I use the Life & Apples. They have – I was using the Erin Condren one for a while but I switched to this one. I just like the format a lot. Each day is two pages. So the one side is the section for the gratitude, the intentional thought, and then there’s like – it’s like two to-do lists, so I just put a cute sticker on it and I write in self-care for one of the lists and my intentional model for the other list.

Jill: Oh, nice, okay.

Jen: And then the second side of it, the right-hand side is your meal plan, so it’s got breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack, and then a rating, like, how did your day go? What do you want to do differently tomorrow? And it has an inspirational quote and it’s just really cute.  But I always color it and add stickers and stuff just to personalize it a little bit because it’s fun and I like stickers and coloring.

Jill: So here’s another take-home message from this, that you might not find the perfect journal for you; that doesn’t mean you can’t make it work. So you’re allowed to change what you don’t like and what doesn’t work for you and repurpose it. And I love that you decorate it too because Kristie Bittleston, who was on the podcast a few episodes ago, did a training for Run Your Best Life of like how to create a running journal. And she actually just uses a blank notebook and actually, you know, draws in it and stuff. She’s super creative. But I was inspired. I’m like, alright, I’m just going to use a blank notebook and I’m just going to put washi tape to divide the sections.

Jen: If you’re like a super creative person, you can do that. I am not creative in that way. I need a little more structure, so I take their model and I tailor it to myself a little bit.

Jill: I love that. So you don’t have to find the perfect journal, you don’t have to be perfect with it, you can get so much value out of this. So Kara Loewentheil, who’s a friend of mine and she talked a few episodes ago about how to love your race photos – she always says to me, you can get a lot of shit done in your life with a half-managed mind. You don’t have to be perfect. If you get half of it, you’ll be a rockstar.

Jen: Yep, absolutely. And I was using a different journal that I liked, but it wasn’t what I needed in the moment. And so I was like, I’m just going to stop using this one and use a different one. It’s okay that I didn’t finish this journal, you know.

Jill: yeah, it’s okay, I love that.

Jen: Nobody’s going to die, nobody’s going to tell you you’re a bad person, you know, it’s okay. And if they do, who cares anyway?

Jill: Because it’s your journal, and so the person who’s like, I have to fill out every page or I’ve failed, we’re giving you permission to not do that.

Jen: And like I said, I didn’t even start journaling with this whole process. I knew I wanted to get to the point because writing and doing thought downloads are really important to me, but like I said, I didn’t want to overwhelm myself and make myself hate getting up because I couldn’t get it all done, you know what I mean? So I added that in super slowly and it just started with the whys. Just write down why you’re doing this. Just write it down. And that started to evolve into, like, reading my beliefs and writing down the, like, what do I need to do to get there and doing my intentional thought for the day.

Those things were added a little at a time and now I kind of have my system down, but I never – I kind of write the same thing every day, but I never let myself look at the day before because I want to remember. I don’t want to just copy words. I want to remember, why am I doing this and what do I need to do to get there? I don’t ever want to look at what I wrote yesterday because I don’t want just to be copying down. I want my brain to be working.

Jill: Right, you want your brain to be, like, let’s see, what are my reasons? Yeah, I remember.

Jen: Yep.

Jill: My god, I love that. And so for anybody that’s in Run Your Best Life, we are going to be talking about this process in December for the whole month of December. We’re going to be working on goal-setting and this morning routine is going to be – we’re going to be talking about that. So if you’re on the fence about Run Your Best Life or anything like that, now is the time.

Jen: And like I said, you’re not going to go from doing nothing to where I’m at right now with my morning routine. It took me a long time to get here. So when we start this goal-setting process in Run Your Best Life, it’s going to be really small. It’s going to start with, here’s the one thing you have to start with and just make that work, and then we’re going to add onto it and then we’re going to add onto it and we’re going to keep adding on until it gets more robust and you can get to that point where you have your – now I have 10 things I need to do every day to get there.

And some of them are really easy. Some of them are – like number 10, the last thing I always write is, show up even if it’s not working. Like, that’s one of my to-do lists.

Jill: I love that because even if something’s not working, showing up for yourself is half the battle, because so often, we don’t show up for ourselves because we’re like, why even bother? But when you show up, you never know what could happen. It’s kind of amazing.

Jen: Yep, and that goes back to the accountability to myself thing too. So I’m really working on it being the most important thing that I’m accountable to myself.

Jill: So the other thing that I want to let people know is – so Jen’s going to be at all the race-cations. She’s a key member of the team helping with Rebel Runner Unleashed as well. And so you’re going to be coaching on all of that stuff there as well.

Jen: Yeah, and we started this with the group in November, like you said, and we sat down and we literally set a timer. Like, okay in three minutes, you’re going to do this and then you’re going to – we really worked it. Like, it was a mental workout. I think everybody was a little bit exhausted afterwards.

Jill: I know, but yeah…

Jen: Because running is all mental, right? I mean, running is…

Jill: You have to build that muscle to be able to finish a half-marathon. You can’t just like show up and expect it to happen, you have to build the habit day after day after day of the mental toughness and the physical toughness. So anybody who wants to join us in Seattle in June or Savannah in November, which is going to be amazing, just head over to…

Jen: And I’m going to be cooking for everybody. It’s not just…

Jill: Not only that, like, Jen’s really good at making race fuel. She makes some pretty yummy stuff. So if you want to find out more about that, go to talktojill.com, sign up for a call with the team and we will – basically, you’ll talk to Lauren, who’s one of my team members, and she’ll just kind of like have a conversation with you about whether it makes sense for you to come to one of these race-cations, what’s involved, what makes you tick, what do you love about running, what are you struggling with; she’ll talk to you all about that.

If it seems like you’re a good fit then we will move forward and then she’ll set up a call with me, and then I’ll talk to you about that stuff and we’ll just kind of refine the process. You can do that at talktojill.com. We’re going to Seattle in June. We’re going to Savannah in November. It is going to be amazing and I hope you’re there because Jen and I – so I did a Facebook Live earlier today and I was saying, Jen and I are having a bromance, except for girls. And somebody on the Live said, it’s called a hoemance. So you get to observe Jen’s and my hoemance, and Meghan. Jen hasn’t met Meghan in person but we’ve all – we have a very – the Not Your Average Runner team, we are all over the country.

So Jen’s in Illinois, Meghan’s in Michigan, I’m in New Jersey now, Lauran is in California. So we’re kind of a very disbursed team. And actually, our photographer – we’re going to have a photographer at these events to take some pretty amazing pictures of everybody that’s there, and our photographer’s from Savannah. So she’s got all the deets on the best places to go in Savannah.

Jen: I’m dying to go to Savannah because I’ve never been there and I’ve heard it’s amazing.

Jill: Yeah, we’re going to have so much fun; so much fun. Alright, so any last suggestions or any last words of wisdom for anybody who wants to do a morning routine?

Jen: We were talking about Gretchen Rubin before about the four tendencies, and she wrote this book, Better Than Before. And we were talking at the last retreat about this idea of perfectionism. And we all want to create these huge plans and then we just can’t help but fail at them. and so we were talking about the book, Better Than Before, and I think it was Shawnna that said, “I get it, I don’t have to be perfect, I just have to be better than before.” And I was like, yes, I love that. It was a little awesome nugget. So literally, start as small as you possibly can and then celebrate the win.

Like, that day or that night or the next morning, take a moment to be like, I got my ass out of bed yesterday, and celebrate that. And that’s all you need to do. And then your brain will just be like, yes, you are awesome, you can do this, you are a morning person.

Jill: Yeah, teach your brain to look for evidence of how great you are rather than evidence of how much you suck.

Jen: And stop telling yourself you’re not a morning person.

Jill: Yeah, so true, because that’s just a thought.

Jen: It’s just a thought.

Jill: It is, so awesome. Alright, well this has been amazing. I mean, I have to say, your morning routine has really inspired me to create one for myself and continually refine it and I can feel such a difference in my day now that I’ve created that. So thank you for that.

Jen: I’m so glad.

Jill: And for those of you who have decided that you want to do this, you know, let us know how it went. We want to know everything. And yeah, that’s it for today. So thank you very much, Jen.

Jen: Thanks for having me.

Jill: My co-host today. I think we’re going to have to do this again.

Jen: For sure, I love it.

Jill: Alright.

—

Okay, Rebels, I hope you enjoyed my chat with Jen Lamplough and that you have been inspired to create a morning routine of your own. And we’d always love to hear about it, so if you have created a morning routine, if you’ve found something that works for you, please let us know. Tell us all about it.

And also, if you want to join in the race-cation fun – because like I said, we are going to Seattle in June. We’re going to Savannah in November, and then in 2020, we’re going to add even more. But if you want to get in on the Seattle or the Savannah trips, please sign up for a call with the Not Your Average Runner team. It will be talktojill.com. That’s the website. Go there. All the questions will be there. You can set up your call. The call is free. The call is no-obligation. It’s just to talk to the team and see if you’re a fit.

And then after that, if you are, then you and I will have a conversation in detail about what it would look like for you to sign up for one of our race-cations, what’s involved, and everything. So go to talktojill.com, sign up for a call, find out what it’s all about; cannot wait to meet you. Until next week…

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you liked what you heard and want more, head over to www.notyouraveragerunner.com to download your free one-week jumpstart plan and get started running today.