Hello Mornings: How to Build a Grace-Filled, Life-Giving Morning Routine by Kat Lee

The Synopsis:

Are you ready to wake up for your life and not just to your life?
Don’t worry; you don’t have to be a morning person to start each new day well. Join Kat Lee and thousands of women from countries around the world who have learned to maximize their mornings. In Hello Mornings, Kat introduces a simple yet powerful three-minute morning routine that integrates Bible study, planning, and fitness into a foundational morning habit that fits into every schedule. She then helps you build each of these core habits for life-long growth.
Everyone can find three minutes. And instead of adding one more thing to the list, Hello Mornings lifts the weight off women by revealing a grace-filled way to establish a powerful morning routine that offers

a simple way to incorporate the most-sought-after daily habits into a simple morning routine: God. Plan. Move.
the latest research on habit formation and development
practical tools to help readers develop and grow their own personalized, adaptable plan for mornings
stories of transformed mornings from women in every season and stage of life

Hello Mornings helps readers renovate their mornings to establish and grow a powerful daily routine—a long-term, Jesus-centered habit to anchor them in every season. Each morning can then become a launch pad into God’s amazing plan for their lives.

Review:

So I saw a post once that said something like, “I’m not a morning bird, I’m not a night owl, I’m more like a permanently exhausted pigeon.” And I have never related to anything more.

As a grad student, mornings can be rough, especially as I also tend to be a perfectionist. For years I have tried to find the perfect routine, where I got in a good workout, spent a long time in my Bible, and still get a couple of things knocked off of my to-do list before I had to be dressed and out the door for class or work. I had this idea that if I just woke up earlier I could get it all done and still have time to spare, but I was never able to convince myself to go to bed early enough to get up at five. Then the next morning, if I even woke up early, I was rarely able to get everything done. Other days I would wake up thirty minutes before I had to leave for class, so all that happened was throwing on some clothes and grabbing my coffee (plus a guilt trip for not getting more done). And thus I created a vicious cycle of setting unrealistic expectations for myself, failing them, guilting myself for failing, and then continuing to set unrealistic expectations but with a few tweaks, and starting all over again.

Image accessed from Google. We claim no rights to this meme.

Thus enters Hello Mornings. Kat Lee starts off by telling her story of growth in this area. She has faced so many of the struggles that I do, and she was real about them. I appreciated this so much – I feel like so often self-help people are just naturally early risers who are full of energy, which I relate to in about zero ways. Kat continues by explaining the core of her morning routine: The three minute morning, which goes as follows.

God: Pray Psalm 143:8
Move: Drink a glass of water
Plan: Look at your calendar for the day and make a to-do list

So if I wake up thirty minutes before class, and this is all I do, it is still a success. I loved that this was so simple, but is so easily scaled. She makes so many recommendations on how to expand the three categories to fit in an actual workout and devotion time into your mornings in a doable way, suggestions on how to make it enjoyable enough that you actually want to get out of bed, and how to create habits that will not only improve your mornings but also your whole day. What makes this book special, though, is that it is based on grace. Her whole philosophy is reminds me of the Arthur Ashe quote:

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

She focuses on the long-term success instead of the immediate results, and this was just the perspective change I needed.

This book isn’t magic, but it’s pretty close. The processes within it require just enough discipline that I feel like I’m accomplishing something, but not so much that it’s overwhelming. I love that she writes in a way that equally involves scripture, scientific research, and personal experiences. Since reading this book, I look forward to waking up early and starting my morning. I enjoy preparing the night before, making sure I have a warm blanket and delicious candle ready. I even enjoy my exercise routine, which I don’t think I’ve ever said before. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to get more out of their mornings.