I am sitting here thinking about how different my mornings look now compared to a few years ago.
Back then I was waking up for hotel reception shifts, setting three alarms because I dreaded getting out of bed, going through the motions of a life that felt completely wrong for me.
Now I wake up whenever my body is ready, make a coffee, open my laptop and just write.
However, this did not happen by accident. And it did not happen because I found some magical productivity system or followed a perfect morning routine I saw on Pinterest.
It happened because I figured out a handful of habits that actually work for my brain and my life and I just kept doing them consistently.
These are not glamorous habits, but they are the ones that actually move the needle for me.
I Read a Lot
I do not talk about this enough but reading is one of the most important things I do for my business.
Not business books necessarily, though I love those too. Just books in general. Self help, memoirs, essays, anything well written.
Reading other people’s writing makes me a better writer. It fills my brain with ideas, ways of seeing things, ways of saying things that I would never find on my own. When I am in a reading phase my emails are better, my blog posts are better, my Threads are better.
The connection is undeniable.
If you want to write well, read more. That is the most honest advice I can give you.
I Write In the Mornings With My Coffee
This is non negotiable for me.
Mornings are when I feel the most alive and the most creative and I protect that time like it is the most valuable thing I have because it is.
I never leave writing for the evening. My brain just does not work the same way by then.
The ideas feel flat, the sentences feel forced, the whole thing feels like a chore. But in the morning with my coffee, before I have looked at my phone or checked my emails or let the internet in, that is when the good stuff comes out.
My blog posts, my email diaries, my course content, all of it gets written in the morning.
Everything else can happen later. 😅
I Romanticize The Boring Stuff
Not everything about building a business is exciting and I think it is important to be honest about that.
Recording course lessons, editing, doing admin, creating content on days when you just do not feel inspired… it can feel really tedious if you let it.
So I do not let it.
I light a candle. I make a really good cup of tea. I put on a playlist that makes me feel like I am in a cozy little world of my own. I set up my workspace so it feels nice to be in.
And suddenly recording a course lesson feels like a whole vibe instead of a chore.
It sounds ridiculous but it does work.
If you have to do something that does not excite you, make the environment around it as beautiful as possible. Your brain responds to atmosphere more than you think.
I Treat Living As Part Of The Work
This year I made a decision to get out from behind the screen more intentionally.
Booking events, saying yes to dinners, exploring new places, being around people I find interesting and inspiring.
And I noticed something along the way. My best emails, my best blog posts, my most interesting ideas never came from sitting at my desk staring at a blank page waiting for inspiration to show up.
They came from living.
A conversation that stuck with me for days, a cafe that felt like a movie set, a trip that changed something in me before I even realized it.
The woman who has interesting things to write about is the woman who is out there collecting experiences, not just consuming other people’s content from her couch.
Going out IS the work. That dinner, that event, that solo trip you have been putting off, that is where your next great piece of writing is waiting.
I Am Very Intentional About What I Consume
I do not mindlessly scroll. I think about what I let into my brain every day and I am quite ruthless about it.
I curate my social media feed carefully. I unfollow anything that makes me feel small, anxious or like I am not doing enough.
I try to consume less than I create rather than the other way around. And I almost never look at what other people in my space are doing before I sit down to write because the moment I do, my own voice gets quieter.
Your ideas need space to breathe. They cannot do that if you are constantly filling your head with everyone else’s content.
Create first, consume later. Protect your own thoughts before you let the internet in.
I Practice Gratitude
Not in a toxic positivity, pretend everything is fine kind of way. In a real, sitting with it, actually feeling it kind of way.
Building something from scratch takes time and there are a lot of days where it feels like nothing is working and you wonder why you are doing this.
Gratitude is what keeps me grounded on those days.
Not gratitude for the big things necessarily but for the small ones. The fact that I get to write for a living. The fact that I woke up somewhere beautiful. The fact that someone replied to my email today and said it made their week.
When you are building something long term you need something to come back to on the hard days.
Gratitude is mine.
These habits are not complicated or revolutionary. They are just the real things that keep me going while building a writing based business from wherever I am in the world.
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If you are dreaming about building something similar, a blog, an email list, a business built entirely around your words, Her Blogger Playbook is where I would tell you to start.
It teaches you how to build a pretty blog without reels in less than 90 days. Everything I wish I had when I was figuring this out. 💌
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