The usual things made themselves the culprit for not achieving this elusive “morning routine”. Newborns, hormones, health issues, sleep training toddlers, staying up late with my husband because we can get addicted to a good tv show (Peaky Blinders, Agents of SHIELD and The Arrow, just to name a few), too many trips planned one right after the other then trying to “catch up” after being so busy, me figuring out I need at least 7 hours of sleep to feel my best. Eventually, I started beating myself up over the fact that I felt I couldn’t get into a routine. Thats just what you did, you know? I thought I was just being lazy, but I couldn’t figure out how to get myself out of this no routine funk! Not to mention the pressure from outside sources to just “get it together”.

After much trial and error, I finally figured it out. The answer. The pot at the end of the rainbow. El Darado. 

SCREW THE MORNING ROUTINE.

Tell that morning routine to go jump off a freaking bridge.

…everyone stay calm, just hear me out. 

With my newfound liberation, a few things became crystal clear:

I realized that in order to have a morning routine, it would have to be a “flexible” routine. Kids get sick, family is visiting, you stayed up late working on a project, your husband let you sleep in and took the morning shift with the kids (true story, my husband does this all the time and he is amazing for it) and all of the above. These might seem like small things. And really, they are. Easily conquerable things. But not to me. Not to my brain. If I do a routine I do a routine. To the T. To the max. If the said routine is interrupted or cannot be executed, then my whole day is one big eye twitch. It bothers me more to not have a routine carried out precisely than it does to not have one at all. I definitely had perfection issues. There was once a time when I couldn’t clean my bathroom because the living room had toys strewn across the floor and the dishes were dirty and the coffee table had clutter all over it. So obviously, those things had to be cleaned first before I even thought about cleaning the bathroom. Duh.

Seriously though, if you really look at it, “flexible routine” is one big oxymoron. 

This is from my good buddy Webster…

But after a lot of self reflection and a lot more of trying to be like my husband and let things just roll off my back, I no longer obsess about my house being perfect or waking up at 6 am every morning to work out and drink my coffee while the house still sleeps. I can now successfully have a living room that is messy and a kitchen sink which hasn’t seen the light of day in days and still clean my bathroom. Or let my kids wake me up and slowly make breakfast and have my coffee not knowing if I’m going to do devotions next or take the kids to the park.

With my perfectionist mindset, I was missing out on noticing some of the beauty of life. My life changed. For the better. I have three messy little boys that always track mulch and sand inside and leave their action figures on the floor or nerf bullets in the cushions of the couch. I have a husband that works hard all day and comes home and wrestles all over the house with the boys causing mass destruction. 

I started reading between the lines and found a beautiful story written there by non other than God Himself. 

After freeing myself from the necessary morning routine mindset of society, I found peace and messy, unpredictable happiness. 

If the type of mornings you are striving for cause more stress and unhappiness rather than order and peace, I would suggest trying the opposite and letting go. You might be surprised at what you find in those uncharted territories. 

Read between the lines sister, its a story worth discovering.