This 10-minute night routine guarantees success your next morning

This 10-minute night routine guarantees success your next morningThis 10-minute night routine guarantees success your next morningDesign trumps willpower. - ? B.J. Fogg, Stanford psychologistEvery night before going to bed, you can have the feeling, I already know tomorrow is going to be successful.This is the feeling you want to have.You want to anticipate success.You want to be so excited you almost cant get to sleep.You want to know EXACTLY whats going to happen.You want to be mentally committed to specific actions and outcomes.You want to have everything set up so that youve completely removed all friction and decision-making when you get up the next morning.Instead, you want to wake up and have immediate energy because you know exactly what youre going to do, and youve laid it all out.Heres how it worksThe simple science of behavior changeAccording to Stanford psychologist, BJ Fogg, Design trumps willpower. What he means by this is, menschenwrdig behavior generally defaults to w hat is most convenient.If there is junk food in your fridge, youre probably going to eat it.However, if there is junk food sitting right on top of your kitchen counter or table - out in the open - your chances of eating it skyrocket.When something is easy and convenient, we often act without thinking very deeply about our behavior. We default to the situation at hand.You can leverage this to your benefit.BJ Fogg has found that by simply placing a piece of dental floss on your bathroom counter next to the sink, that your chances of flossing increase exponentially.Hilariously, most people dont floss despite believing they should, simply because there is too much decision fatigue involved in doing so. In other words, there is friction to making the actual decision, and if there is friction, we probably wont do it, let alone make a habit out of it.In the case of flossing our teeth every night, what is that friction?Having to open a drawerFind the small box of dental flossOpen the boxM easure the right size of flossPull out a pieceand then start flossingAll of those micro-actions may only take 510 seconds to execute, but they are actually incredibly taxing to a persons willpower over time.If instead, you simply had to walk into the bathroom and saw a piece of dental floss waiting for you next to the sink, youd almost instinctively just plattl it up and start flossing.In other words, the decision was already made based on the situation at hand. The night before when you put out that dental floss there, you made the decision. That decision is now influencing your immediate behavior, and you dont have to sit and waffle. You just execute. Done.Make all decisions the night beforeDecision fatigue is the scientific term for willpower, and what it really means is that you havent actually made a decision.The reason peoples willpower becomes exhausted and depleted over time is that they are weighing in their mind what they want to do. In other words, they havent actually de cided yet. Theyre still thinking about it.Do I floss my teeth? Or not today?Do I eat the cookie? Or pass it up?Do I wake up at 6? Or hit the snooze button?In all of these scenarios, the person is waffling back-and-forth. They dont actually know what theyre going to do.Are they going to floss or not? Who knows.Are they going to eat the cookie or not? Who knows.Are they going to wake up early? Who knows.They certainly dont know.And this is why peoples willpower gets exhausted.The opposite of decision fatigue is simply to make a decision. When you make a decision, that means you cut off alternative options.The worst time to make attempt making a decision is while laying in bed, groggy and cozy and semi-unconscious. In such a situation, if you havent already decided what you were going to do, and set up conditions to make it happen, then you actually dont know what youre going to do.And this is where decision fatigue sets in. This is why being consistent and powerful and motivated can s eem so random and inconsistent.Make a few key decisions the night beforeIf you have more than three priorities, you dont have any. - Jim CollinsThe most fundamental thing you can do in your evening routine is deciding what youre going to do the next morning. Harvard psychologist, Ellen Langer, calls this a cognitive commitment.This means you actually write it down.You write down when youre going to wake up. And you write down the top 13 things you intend to accomplish with your morning.However, writing down what you plan to do isnt truly a commitment.In order to ensure you succeed, you need to remove ALL FRICTION. In other words, you need to set everything up the night before, so that when you wake up, you literally have nothing to do but get up and get moving.If you plan to go to the gym, then you have all of your gym clothes laid-out by the front door.If you plan on taking vitamins and other supplements, you have those laid-out next to your gym clothes with a cup of water already sitting there.If you havent removed all micro-decisions, which act as friction and decision fatigue, then your chances of getting out of bed are far less likely.Why?Because you have several things you need to do.Its the reason you dont floss your teeth regularly even though you think you should.You havent yet decided if you are going to flossYou havent removed the friction by simply setting up the environment so that its convenient and practically subconsciousPutting it all togetherHaving an amazing morning routine is one of the best things you can do in your life.If you get really good at morning routines, youll experience a huge shift in your life. In reality, with a solid morning routine, you could quickly become successful at whatever it is you want to do.With an amazing morning routine, you start to live your life on purpose. You stop living by default. You start meditating, visualizing, and strategically planning out your goals. You then begin living your days on a higher pla ne of activity and attitude.You begin to see success more because you tune your brain in to notice things you couldnt see before. Your eyes can only see what your brain is looking for. Hence, most peoples brains are far less effective than they could be because their brain is simply on autopilot, responding to whatever is happening in their environment.The reverse of this is to spend your downtime, which is usually in your evening, taking 10 minutes to decide what youre going to do the next morning and putting everything in place.Its really that simple.Decide what time youre going to wake up and set the alarm for that time (but put your phone or alarm clock in a different room so you physically have to get out of bed to turn it off).Have a few key objectives for your morningSet up literally everything that needs to be set up so that you dont have to waste mental energy during your morningIf you arent motivated to wake up in the morning, its because you failed the night before.You ma de it hard on yourself.You set yourself up for failure.While laying in bed after waking up, youre in no condition to make optimal decisions. The more micro-steps you have to complete to BEGIN your morning activities, the less likely you are to do them.Make the decision the night before.Put everything in place so that its convenient and mindless.Start doing this every day and watch what happens.Your behavior will change.Your motivation will change.Your confidence will change.Why?Because when you begin making true decisions, then you stop dealing with decision fatigue. You start simply operating how you want to operate. You stop living your life in a constant state of wondering, What am I going to do?You stop having to beat yourself up for continually lying to yourself about waking up or moving on your dreams and projects.Instead, you start building true confidence and character by living intentionally.You start making huge progress because you become consistent. You do what you said you would do.Youre excited.Every night when you go to bed, youre like, Tomorrow morning is going to be amazing.And then you wake up several hours later and youre like, Lets goThen you execute.Overtime, you see huge progress.Your life is in your hands.But you have to make the decision.The opposite of decision is decision fatigue. Dont make the mistake again to rely on decision fatigue ??Ready to upgrade?Ive created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.Get the cheat sheet hereThisarticlefirst appeared on Medium.