Struggling to find and keep a positive frame of mind to efficiently conquer your goals?
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✨Enter our friend and Collaboration Consultant + Career Happiness Strategist, Baily Hancock. Baily has worked with IDEO U, General Assembly, and OMD USA, and is currently making sure workspace newcomer, The Riveter is partnering with the right people. Baily teaches people how to collaborate with their community to achieve their goals, and today she's sharing her tips and tricks for setting daily routines to keep manifesting those goals!
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Scroll down to find out what Baily's AM and PM routines are for conquering each day with confidence!
Admittedly, I was never one to have a morning routine, let alone a nighttime routine. Whenever I’d read about the routines of successful people I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the thought of waking up before dawn to write, meditate, or run (UGH😒).
I’m a girl who loves her sleep, but I’ve always been more of a night owl. That means if I’m going to get a solid 8 hours, this chick isn’t cracking an eyelid until well after the sun comes up. ☀️
Image by Linn Fritz
When I became an entrepreneur, I suddenly found myself responsible for every single element of my business including setting my own schedule. That meant I could technically wake up whenever the hell I wanted, which is every 9-5 worker’s dream. ☁️
In an ironic twist of fate, I suddenly felt immense pressure to jump out of bed and start working the moment I opened my eyes each morning.
My a.m. and p.m. routines are ever-evolving depending on what’s going on in my business and life, but for the most part, there are few elements that remain consistent:
Image by Monica Linda Photography
Movement/Mindfulness/Meditation/Manifestation
I start my day by dragging myself out of bed around 6:45am to turn off the alarm on my phone across the room.
⏰Plugging it in far away from my bed has been a game-changer for keeping me from playing the snooze button game every morning for 30+ minutes. I chug some water (no lemon though, I still can’t get on board with that wellness hack), throw on my headphones and head out for a 45-minute walk.
This accomplishes a few things: First, it gets my body moving which gets my brain moving. Second, it gives me time to take in information, be it from a news/business/career-focused podcast or a non-fiction audiobook.
Something I’ve learned about myself since taking ownership of how I spend my days is that I do my best thinking and creating in the afternoon/evening. The mornings are better for absorbing information and listening, so rather than fighting that and forcing myself to start working at 7am, I lean into it.
When I get home my body and mind are buzzing, so I head to the porch for a little Mindfulness, Meditation, and Manifestation. I light some palo santo and sage, (smudging sounds super hippy dippy but it’s awesome) and set my Insight Timer meditation app for 15 minutes with a bell going off every five.
Image by Monica Linda Photography
The first five minutes I get comfortable and relax, find my breath, come to terms with the outside noises (the garbage truck loves to noisily drive right past me as I’m trying to go zen) and settle in. The second set of five minutes are for manifesting.
I use this time to think about how I want my life to look in the not-too-distant future, whether that’s me speaking to a room full of amazing women at a retreat, signing copies of my book for fans, or hanging out with friends and family in the backyard of my dream home. I focus on the feeling I want to have in each of those situations and try to imagine all the little details around me to make it more real. The final 5 minutes are for expressing gratitude for everyone and everything in my life, both happy and challenging. 🙏🏼✨
Once I’m done meditating/manifesting, I pull out my notebook and write down any thoughts or ideas that came to mind during the last 15 minutes or on my walk. I save all of my notebooks and flip through old ones from time to time to be reminded of how powerful putting pen to paper on your ideas can be. There have been so many times when I flip open a notebook from a year ago only to realize that the idea I scribbled down half-heartedly has come to be. 💕Manifestation, y’all, it’s a thing.
I try to spend no more than 30 minutes on my porch time, since at this point it’s usually creeping up on 8:30am and my emails aren’t going to read themselves. However, when I don’t give myself the time to do my Mindfulness, Meditation, and Manifestation practice, I feel off-kilter all day. Taking that time to set my intentions for how I’d my day to play out is crucial for feeling grounded and ready to kick ass in my business.
Image by Monica Linda Photography
Checking in on my goals
Setting goals for yourself is one thing, but taking actionable steps to achieving them is another. 💃🏻I have a weekly calendar that hangs in front of my laptop so I can quickly see everything I have planned for that week. On it hangs a sticky note with all the tasks I need to accomplish come Sunday night. By keeping my goals literally front and center, I’m able to be mindful of my time and set realistic expectations for myself.
Baily's weapon of choice to tackle tasks
In my online course, “The 1-Year Career”, I teach people how to make big moves with small steps, which comes from my experience doing that for myself. It wasn’t until I started reverse engineering my goals (working backwards from the endpoint to where I am today) and identifying all the action steps I needed to take to achieve them that I was finally able to make shit happen in my career. Now, I check in on my goal progress week to week, which keeps me on track and increases the likelihood of me being able to cross them off and move on to the next (every Virgo’s dream!)
Image by Monica Linda Photography
Washing my damn face
I’ll be honest - I hate washing my face before bed. Always have, always will. But ever since I got the Moonlit Midnight Shift Oil, I’ve become a frequent face-washer. 🛁In all reality, washing your face takes less than five minutes, and the satisfaction I get when I crawl into bed with a clean face smelling like a beautiful lavender field is worth the mild annoyance I feel going into it.
Washing my face also now kicks off my new-found nighttime routine. Once I’m finished, I check my schedule for the next morning on my phone to get a heads up on what’s coming at me when I wake up so I don’t lay awake thinking about what I have to do the next day. I plug in my phone across the room, grab my Kindle, and read in bed next to my cats and husband until I fall asleep about 45 minutes later.
If you’re rolling your eyes at my a.m. and p.m. routines like I used to, I get it. All I can say is they’ve been a game-changer in my life, so it might be worth it to try out a routine of your own to see if it helps you in yours. You don’t have to become a goal-crushing, manifesting, morning walker and nighttime reader, but at least wash your damn face. 😉
Image by Monica Linda Photography
Baily Hancock is a Collaboration Consultant and Career Happiness Strategist who teaches people how to collaborate with their community to achieve their goals, whether that's making a career change or growing their business. Her 10-week online course, “The 1-Year Career” (next cohort begins July 9th!) helps people figure out how to make big moves with small steps, and on her podcast, "The Baily Hancock Show" she interviews people who have done just that.