I don’t profess to be a morning person. In fact, I’m not really much of a night person either, but hey I do my best.
For years I’ve struggled with a morning routine, spending countless hours pushing snooze, only to wake up dissatisfied, already feeling like my day was a wash, berating myself for continuing to fall into the same shitty patterns that I’d been trying to break for so many days in a row. It’s a terrible cycle, to keep disappointing yourself over and over and over and over and over.
Are you familiar with the concept of a mulligan? (It’s a golf term, and while I find most of golf to be mostly incomprehensible and dull, a mulligan is an idea that I can get behind 100%.) My friend Wikipedia says that a mulligan is “ a second chance to perform an action, usually after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder”.
There is some debate around exactly who invented and first used the term, but generally in golf, it means you get a second chance to play your stroke without it counting on the scorecard. While I’m not a golf fan, I am all about second chances, so I’ve adapted this fantastic concept for my own life.
When I wake up and it’s later than I want it to be, or I woke up feeling cranky or less-than-motivated, I simply call MULLIGAN on the morning. It has changed my mindset in a huge way. You don’t have to wake up “on the wrong side of the bed” and let that affect your entire day. You can just call Mulligan and start over! Isn’t that a beautiful idea? And it totally works! (Although some of the fun effect might be from me dramatically yelling mulligan and throwing myself back in bed while my husband laughs at me and rolls his eyes from across the room.)
If you are struggling to master your mornings (or really, any time of the day) I highly encourage the Mulligan strategy. It is remarkably easy to implement.
- Decide that you aren’t going to continue feeling crappy or less than awesome for the rest of the day. (Hint: this works even if it’s super late at night and will help you go to bed feeling recharged and significantly more optimistic for the following day.)
- Yell MULLIGAN at the top of your lungs and throw yourself onto your bed (or couch, or desk, or really any surface nearby that will allow you to rest for a moment or two).
- Lay perfectly still, visualize how you want the rest of your day to go, tell yourself how you are going to feel.
- Get vertical once again and go on about your day, using what you just visualized to make your day more productive, more happy, and less in need of a mulligan. 🙂
Have you ever called a Mulligan on your day? While it’s not the only way to reset your mind, it’s one of my personal favorites.
I’m always working on my daily routines and trying to get better (even if it involves some creativity and/or unique coping mechanisms). Let me know what works for you!
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