How to Build Your Ideal Morning Routine in 2026
So around the New Year, you hear a lot of people talking about New Year's resolutions, new habits, maybe, yeah, new hobbies, things they wanna pick up. I feel like often when people think of new habits, the first thing someone thinks of is their morning routine or starting a new habit in the morning. Why are we so focused on mornings? Like, why do you think that it just seems like this thing that captivates us as human beings?
Alex Judd:As goes your morning, so goes your day is what I would say. And I think we we all know that probably because we've experienced the negative ramifications of it. And if you're a productive and intentional and even somewhat reflective person, you know, like, when things go well, oftentimes there's a pretty strong correlation of my morning went well. And when things go poorly, it's a lot of times like my morning was awful, and it was reactive, and it was destructive, and and I was just like running with my hair on fire. And no wonder my day became the same thing.
Alex Judd:So I think we all intuitively know as goes your morning, so goes your day.
Ben Loy:What's the cost of not having a morning routine or just kind of responding to what the day, you know, has in store when you wake up?
Alex Judd:The cost is exactly what you just said. You become someone that responds and reacts. And this podcast, at least, is for people that literally are saying, I want to lead. And by saying, want to lead, you're literally saying, I don't wanna react. And you don't set yourself to be able to do that if you are literally starting your day by reacting.
Ben Loy:Are there any misconceptions about morning routines that you'd wanna dispel before we get into this conversation? Or we
Alex Judd:could spend the rest of our conversation on misconceptions. Yeah. Because I think there's a lot of them. Right? Let's be very clear.
Alex Judd:There is so much content on this topic. Mhmm. The reason why there's so much content on this topic is because people listen to and love episodes about morning routines. Or some of our best performing podcast episodes in terms of number of downloads, number of listens, number of shares are morning routine episodes. Right?
Alex Judd:And I'm sure that's true for all the other podcasters out there and people pay attention to that. Now, what's unfortunate is a lot of people take that data and they start creating a bunch of morning content and they tell people, you have to do what I do. And I don't think that's actually really helpful because my morning routine is for me. And and certainly, there's hopefully inspiration you should get from that, but what I don't want people to do is get imitation from this. Right?
Alex Judd:What you need to do is say, man, I've been entrusted with my life, with my children, with my spouse, with my business, with my responsibilities, with my work relationships. I've been entrusted with all of this. And in light of all that, I'm creating a morning routine as stewardship of those things that I've uniquely been entrusted with.
Ben Loy:Is there a time when this really hit home for you or know, maybe a a a light bulb moment earlier in your life when you were like, oh, this is this matters. Like, this is the this affects the rest of my day. This affects the way that I lead.
Alex Judd:Well, I've been doing something every January for almost, gosh, I think I'm gonna be on year 10 maybe or something like that. It's called five at five. And so it's five miles at 5AM every morning in January except Sundays. And it's something that I started doing a long time ago. Maybe we'll do a whole episode just on that.
Alex Judd:But the first time I started doing it, one of the things that I recognized is January went so well. And circumstantially, January that year actually had a lot of really challenging moments, but January still went so well. And why did it go so well? Well, because I had a consistent wake up time. I had consistent physical activity in the morning that also provided space and time during that five miles to think, to reflect, to plan, to envision, to pray.
Alex Judd:And then I would come back and I'm like, the sun's not even up yet and I've got my coffee. I might as well open my bible. And it's like, there were all of these things that happened that January. Was even more cool than that five at five exercise. I still do that every year, but the reason why I do it every year is not because I'm gonna do it past January.
Alex Judd:The reason why I do it every year is because it sets the tone for mornings for the rest of the year. It's like it jolts my body and my mind and my heart and my soul into a more productive, sustainable rhythm because I've got belief in the power of mornings. And so I think that was a time that really hit home for me as goes your morning, so goes your day.
Ben Loy:Mean, you know, one of the first things that we do at Path of Growth with our coaching clients is we ask them to create a high return habit. So, I mean, it really sounds like five at five was your high return habit. Like, you committed to waking up and running at 5AM every day, but the implications of that bled into, like, the consistency of your wake up time, you know, the momentum that you had throughout your day, the alertness, the the tone it set. Like, all of those things had compounding interest, all from just the decision to say, I'm gonna wake up at five every day and go on a on a five mile run.
Alex Judd:I'm so glad glad you bring up that term because we created that term really intentionally, high return habit. And the question that we ask all of our coaching customers as part of fundamental one is what is the number one thing that you would do every single day that if you were to do it, it create would create a ripple effect into other areas of your life. This has been described in the book, The Power of Habit as a keystone habit, that there's certain things that if you do them, they are not isolated to the activity itself. Right? There's a ton of data that suggests that people who make their bed every single morning are better at sticking to a budget in their personal finances, and they're better in terms of making healthy eating choices and working out every day.
Alex Judd:And it's like, what is the correlation there? It's not correlation. What happens is you establish for yourself, man, when I start each day with a task completed, you become the type of person that does those things. And so it's exactly what you're talking about, and it's already a practical action that's coming out of this episode is thinking to yourself, what's the one thing that I would do every single day that if I did it, it would create a ripple effect into other areas of my life?
Ben Loy:Yeah. Elaborate a little bit more on that. Like would do versus maybe Could versus could. Could or more or aspirational in a way that, like, I wish I I wish I would, but, you know, maybe I'm not quite there to make that commitment. Like, can you break that down a little bit more?
Alex Judd:When we're coaching people, we're coaching people action items, not their wish list. Right? And and anytime you're saying, what could I do? Which is probably one of the biggest mistakes people make in the month of January, especially as it relates to habits. What could I do?
Alex Judd:It's it's a wonderful exercise to dream and imagine what could you do, but ultimately irrelevant if we're talking about what you would actually do. And so what people often do is they say, what could I do in 2026? They're like, I could wake up at 4AM. And what's crazy is driven, productive, intentional, excited people that maybe drank a little bit too much champagne around New Year's Eve. Right?
Alex Judd:And and got all about New Year's resolution. They actually could do that, right, for maybe two or three weeks. And for those two or three weeks, they're gonna be all amped up, and they're gonna have a ton of people cheering them on saying, oh my gosh. You're so amazing. 4AM.
Alex Judd:Oh my goodness. But then three weeks in, the momentum's gonna drift. The applause are gonna get a quieter. And then they're gonna wake up one morning, and they're gonna realize I could hit snooze and literally no one would know. And that's gonna happen.
Alex Judd:And then it happens again. And then it happens again. And suddenly, they they were nails of 4AM for three weeks, but it's not something they were ever going to do for a full year. Here's what I constantly have to reflect on myself that I just want people to recognize as we go into 2026 is a year's worth of mornings waking up at 05:30 and establishing a consistent routine is infinitely better than three weeks of 4AM followed by zero routine stability or consistency at all.
Ben Loy:So let's dive into, like, the principles to a morning routine or a good morning routine.
Alex Judd:Yeah. Well, I think it's it's helpful to to ask, how am I actually gonna go about designing this? And what do we always teach with Empath for Growth within anything we do? We say, well, we wanna start with the end in mind. Right?
Alex Judd:That's originally a Stephen Covey quote. And so before we get into what we're going to do, start with the person that you want to be and what you want to be able to say is true. So we always say success statements are answers to the question, what does winning look like? And so let me just give you as an example, three success statements that I think are really, really solid, simple success statements for your morning routine. These are not our action items yet.
Alex Judd:This is not our routine. This is just what we want to be able to say is true every morning by the time we reach 9AM or something like that. Number one, I am anchored in truth and what matters most. Number two, I am prepared to show up as a contributor in the places I lead and live. Number three, I set the tone for a day that is healthy, energetic, and productive.
Alex Judd:So why I think it's so important for you to either adopt those success statements or establish some success statements is there are a lot of people out there that get on this growth, personal growth, self improvement kick, and they get all excited about morning routines and the tail starts wagging the dog. And in reality, the reason why we maximize our morning is so that we can be of service to other people. There's a lot of people that are crushing their morning routine and they're miserable awful to be around because they're just like, oh gosh, it's just not healthy growth at all. It's becoming all about them building up themselves and they're gonna make sure you know about their morning routine and then they're just exhausted and not energetic. Right?
Alex Judd:And then they're, you know, they have no willpower at the end of the day, so they're eating unhealthy, all of that stuff. Right? And so establish what success actually is and what you're actually trying to accomplish and then design your routine based on those outcomes.
Ben Loy:Once you have that end in mind, are there steps that you can take to come up with a good morning routine?
Alex Judd:Yeah. So I think what's helpful here is is let's list some actions you could take. You probably shouldn't kind of commit yourself to taking them unless they align with what you actually want to accomplish in your morning routine. So let's say action one is just define what you want to accomplish and what you should accomplish. And the success statements I gave you, I think are actually pretty good, but if you want to design your own, you can design your own too.
Alex Judd:Just make sure you have an idea of what success is and you have a definition of what success is. Now, how do you go about achieving that? Well, I wrote down some actions of things that I do, and these are things that I do to achieve those results. And my hope out of this is not that you start taking down a checklist for imitation. Like we already said, the goal here is inspiration.
Alex Judd:That you hear some of this and maybe there's something that you're like, I might wanna do exactly that, but I am inspired by that to do something like that. And so the first thing I would say is to the degree that you can establish a consistent wake up time, that is so helpful for everything. And there is so much data and so much science that suggests that it's actually better for your sleep if you establish a consistent wake up time. But then also, it's how you kind of build your day into something that you lead rather than something that you react to. So establish a consistent wake up time that you would do.
Alex Judd:Now, I I used to be way more hard line about this. You can listen to previous podcasts we've done than I am now, and the difference is I had a child. Right? And that changes wake up time. So one of the principles that's helpful to keep in mind, that maybe we can dialogue some on this before we get into the other actions that I do in my morning routine is set your standard for the season you're in.
Alex Judd:So when I was single, I was pretty ruthlessly intentional about, man, I'm gonna be out of bed at the same time every single morning no matter what feet hit the floor. And the reason why is because I had a much higher degree of control over what time I was going to bed and what the quality of my sleep looked like throughout the night, and I knew how helpful it was for me to have my feet hit the ground every single morning at the same time. Now that we have a child and specifically, I mean, she has a very rare genetic disorder that makes her a high needs child in the night, and also the time for her that is most demanding in terms of us setting up her her dietary needs throughout the day to maintain her blood sugar is the morning. And so Aspen really benefits from my help in the morning, but Lily's sleeping routine is quite variable right now. And so I've learned, like, I would be an idiot to say, like, without a shadow of a doubt, 05:30 every single morning.
Alex Judd:Right? There's some mornings where I'm up at three. There's also some mornings where, man, she's gonna let me sleep till 06:30, seven. I'm going to do that. Right?
Alex Judd:And so what I've focused on, praise God, I get to own this business. And one of our core values is freedom and responsibility, is I'm gonna maintain consistency in my morning, but I actually have a little bit more flexibility in the standard of wake up time now. To the degree that you can control your sleep and bedtime, I will tell people it will benefit you to have a consistent go to bedtime and a consistent wake up time, but also set the standard for the season you're in.
Ben Loy:Mhmm. You're talking about the consistency right now in this current season. Yeah. Explain that a little bit more. Like, how are you creating consistency with a bedtime that's or, sorry, a morning time that's bouncing around
Alex Judd:like that. So these are still things that I'm doing every single morning. And let's be let's be clear. Most days, I would say there's a variability of, like, forty five minutes between wake up times. It's not all that variable.
Alex Judd:But but regardless of when I'm waking up, I'm finding time to do these things in the morning, and I'm actually doing these things before I look at my phone in the morning. And so when all these things occur can vary based honestly on Lily largely, but the fact that these things are occurring by and large, I would say to eighty five to ninety percent success rate, this is happening. First thing that happens is I try to move my body. So I do 52 push ups every single morning as a means of waking my body up as a means of establishing energy. It is just so helpful.
Alex Judd:I started doing this years ago. I actually started doing 40 push ups years ago, and then Aspen watched me one morning and she said, oh, I always thought you did more than that, which is the absolute worst thing to ever hear from your wife ever. And I was like, oh, we're gonna fix that. Right? And I don't know how I landed on 52, but I landed on 52.
Alex Judd:Right? So I do that in the morning and then after that, I drink water and that water right now is mixed with greens. I'm I'm way way way too frugal for a g one or whatever they call it, and they haven't sponsored this podcast yet. Right? So so I drink, it's called Amazing Grass, and everything that I've researched online suggests that it's it's actually comparable to AG one.
Alex Judd:So so Amazing Grass would be my recommendation. Maybe they would sponsor this podcast, which would be really epic. And then I mix it with protein powder and electrolytes as well. So I drink a lot of water with a bunch of different powders in there. Right?
Alex Judd:And then from there, I read and reflect on truth. So so I have a bible plan that I'm going through. I would tell people the principle here is exposure to truth guards against insanity. Right? You don't need me to tell you this.
Alex Judd:The world you live in is insane. The world you work in is going crazy. And every time you step into that, you you start to get influenced by that insanity, And you get just inches off course from what is good, right, beautiful, and true every single day because you're stepping into the cultural whirlwind that we live in. And so every single morning, what do you have to do? You have to expose yourself to truth.
Alex Judd:And that's what scripture is. It is truth with a capital t. And so you have to have a rhythm where you reimburse yourself in into the truth of how all of this was created and what it's all actually for. That's what scripture reading is. And so read and reflect on truth.
Alex Judd:Prayer comes after that for me, and we can go more into what prayer looks like in different seasons. I, you know, I actually subscribe to the idea that breakfast is a good thing. Right? I know there's a lot of dialogue on that right now, but I eat, and I would say the words that I look to characterize my breakfast by are are healthy, wholesome, and consistent. And the consistent one is a big one.
Alex Judd:Like, I I personally do not find it very helpful to be like, oh, I'm gonna have a ton of variety in my breakfast every single morning. Right? I eat healthy, wholesome, consistent. In any given season, it's always gonna be the same every single morning. Right?
Alex Judd:Be present with people. If you have the luxury to be able to do that within your routine, sit down with your kids and your spouse and have breakfast with them. Establish intention for your day. We can go more into what that looks like practically, and then I start to get into scheduled correspondence and all of that. But that that's kind of like the tactical building blocks of what I'm focused on every single morning at any given time.
Ben Loy:I mean, that's a pretty long list. Right?
Alex Judd:Yeah.
Ben Loy:Did did that start as that list, or were you adding things as time went on and you saw priorities maybe change or shift?
Alex Judd:It's it's hard for me to remember, but I can almost guarantee you it didn't. Mhmm. Right? Because there's no way. I I just don't think there's any way.
Alex Judd:I think what has surprised me is once you get one thing right, it's so easy to build upon.
Ben Loy:Mhmm.
Alex Judd:Once you actually do one thing every single day, once you actually do that, it becomes the anchor that you start adding things onto. And then what what we always talk about is discipline gets you started. Habits keep you going. Right? And everyone says, just need to be more disciplined with my mornings.
Alex Judd:Right? But, you know, I do this exercise whenever I I do team trainings on this topic around the country. And I I ask everyone, you know, raise your hand if you brush your teeth. Right? And they all raised their hand.
Alex Judd:There was one training that I went to where a guy didn't raise his hand. I was like, I've never had to respond to this before, but, like, that's not what this training is for. I said, okay, you brush your teeth. And then I say, raise your hand if you brush your teeth every day and they all raise their hand. And then I choose one person.
Alex Judd:I say, talk to me about when you brush your teeth. And then they say, well, I typically do it in the morning and the evening. You're telling me you do it twice a day every single day. We do not look at that person and say, man, that person is a poster child of discipline and and that person, Ben, you probably brush your teeth every single day. You don't look in the mirror as you're brushing your teeth and say, this is it.
Alex Judd:I'm in the grind. We're doing it right now. No. Because it's a habit. Right?
Alex Judd:Now my bet is mister and missus Loy, your parents had to discipline you for a period of time to build that habit, but eventually, it's just something you do every single day. And what's crazy is I can honestly say doing 52 push ups in the morning for me right now feels like brushing my teeth. Mhmm. It's not something I have to work hard to do. It's not something that requires absurd amounts of discipline.
Alex Judd:It's a habit. And once you have a habit, all of the science suggests, and James Clear is the foremost author on this subject, you can start habit stacking, and that's where you end up, like, a with a list that we just landed on.
Ben Loy:Yeah. Talk a little bit more about consistency.
Alex Judd:Where do we begin is what I would say. What you should look at your mornings as is not home run opportunities. I think a lot of us sit down and we we open the bible and we say this needs to be a grand slam today.
Ben Loy:And
Alex Judd:that's a tough expectation to say. I like entering scripture expectant, but I think that's a tough expectation to set because I don't think all scripture was written to make your individual day that you're going to have today a quote unquote grand slam. What does grand slam even mean? Right? Some scripture is, you know, what what do they say?
Alex Judd:It's like it comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. Right? Some of it is supposed to whop you upside the head and, like, make you feel extremely convicted. It might not feel like a grand slam. And so what we need to think of it as is a deposit.
Alex Judd:Every single bullet point on that list or on your list, you gotta think about it as it doesn't have to be a grand slam, and it's not gonna make me in the person into the person that I was called and created to be overnight. Rather, it is a deposit. What James Clear would say is it is a vote for the type of person that I want to become. Mhmm. And we can't demean the deposits.
Alex Judd:They're gonna feel oftentimes not like a grand slam. It's gonna feel small. It's gonna feel predictable. It's gonna feel, repeated. Right?
Alex Judd:It's gonna feel mundane, but that's what consistency is. The thing that you have to root your mind in is a belief that consistency in itself is so so so valuable. And just the person that consistency makes you into is so so so valuable even more than all the rewards that you will reap from that consistency.
Ben Loy:So what happens when you break consistency? Like, you get sick, something happens where you miss a day.
Alex Judd:Well, let's talk about what happens with most people. I and I've seen this. We have visual dashboards with our coaching customers. Right? And I have visual dashboards for myself in different seasons of how am I doing.
Alex Judd:Right? And here's what it used to look like for me. I'm green, man. I'm crushing my habits. Like, I'm checking the box on everything, and I I've got all of this moving so well, and I've got stability.
Alex Judd:I've got some consistency. And then I travel. And man, travel is, you know, travel or getting sick are two of the big ones. Right? And what you see is I use travel as an excuse, and maybe that's even okay.
Alex Judd:Right? Maybe you say, hey, this is meant to be vacation. It's meant to be a break from the consistency. It's meant to provide some variety. That's okay.
Alex Judd:What's not okay is that I come back and I'm still on travel schedule, but I have the same demands and responsibilities of like actual life that I live the other fifty weeks of the year. Right? And so you see green, green, green, green, red because of travel and then yellow, red, yellow, red, yellow, red, And there's no course correction. That's why that's why I believe so much in the work that our coaches do from a personal growth standpoint because I personally I personally need someone after I travel or after I get sick to say, hey, when are we gonna get back on the saddle? And here's what I had to define for myself.
Alex Judd:How do I measure excellence? Because I'm not aiming for perfection, but how do I measure excellence? Well, excellence is often measured not by the absence of falling off the horse. Excellence is measured in your rate of recovery. And what I focus on personally is how quick, how fast can I recover to the standard that I've set for the season that I'm in?
Ben Loy:In the last few minutes that we have, is there anything else that you would wanna say on that before, yeah, moving into maybe a a call to action or encouragement for the people listening?
Alex Judd:Well, I wanna call attention to attention that I am personally experiencing a lot right now, and my bet is that anyone that takes this content seriously, especially if they're in a leadership role, they will experience it as well. And I thought it was so perfectly described by one of our coaches on our team, Kyle, at one of our, most recent experiences. He he did a talk on balance, and and I love the way he framed the talk on balance because he said, this is something that a lot of people actually write off as a myth. They say it's not real. It's not true.
Alex Judd:And or they say it's completely unachievable or it's something that might be nice for other people, but not for me or not for the season that I'm in. And he said, this is what a lot of the people call balance essentially. And then he basically asked the room like, how many of you have ever called balance this? And like everyone raises their hand. Right?
Alex Judd:And then he says, let me give you a functional definition of what we want to think about balance as. And I think this was so helpful for me personally. He said, balance is intentionally managing the tension between change and stability for health over time. Balance is intentionally managing the tension between change and stability for health over time. The thing that I would highlight at the end of this episode that's in that definition is you do not avoid or escape the tension.
Alex Judd:You manage the tension. The people that are in the arena, that are in the fight, the leaders that are winning whenever it comes to their mornings are the ones that say, I'm going to fight and scratch and claw for consistency. And I know that the life that I have opted in for because I have a spouse and it's not all about me, and I have children, and I have a team, and things happen. The life that I've opted in for can have change and can even have chaos. And I'm I'm not gonna submit to chaos.
Alex Judd:I'm also not gonna expect total stability. I'm gonna manage the tension. That's where we win.
Ben Loy:Mhmm. If someone were to listen to this episode and you wanted them to go take one action or do one thing, well, what would it be?
Alex Judd:I would say do one thing. Right. Right. What is one thing that you would do every single day that if you were to do it, it would create a ripple effect that would make you into more of the man, the woman, the leader, the Christ follower that you were called and created to be? The number one thing that you would do, make it as small as possible, but do it every single day.
Alex Judd:And then let us know about it because we're we're gonna be cheering you on, but we're also gonna be challenging you, and that's some good accountability. Yeah. Thanks, Alex. Thanks, Ben. Hey, Thanks so much for watching.
Alex Judd:If you want more content like this, we've got some killer stuff planned. So make sure you rate, review, and subscribe. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
