I sometimes felt tired and unmotivated in life until I adopted these 7 morning habits

by Lachlan Brown | May 13, 2026, 10:53 am

For a long time, my mornings were a mess.

I’d wake up groggy, snooze my alarm three times, reach for my phone, and scroll aimlessly while dreading the day ahead. I didn’t feel alive. I felt… stalled. Like life was happening without me. Business was fine. Relationships were fine. But I wasn’t.

It wasn’t until I made a few specific changes to my mornings—nothing radical, just small, consistent tweaks—that things began to shift. I started to feel focused again. My energy returned. Motivation stopped feeling like something I had to chase and started becoming my default state.

Here are the 7 morning habits that transformed everything.

1. I stopped using my phone first thing in the morning

This was the hardest habit to break and the most important.

Before, I’d wake up and immediately dive into the dopamine buffet—emails, social media, news, notifications. It was like throwing my mind into a storm before I’d even gotten out of bed.

Now, I leave my phone on airplane mode until after breakfast. That simple boundary gives me time to connect with myself before the world rushes in. I protect my mental space in the morning like it’s sacred—because it is.

Key shift: I replaced passive input with intentional presence.

2. I get outside within 15 minutes of waking

Morning sunlight is nature’s coffee.

I used to spend the first few hours of the day indoors, under dim lights, with a sluggish brain and an even slower mood. I didn’t realize how much of that had to do with light.

Now, one of the first things I do is step outside—sometimes with a coffee in hand, sometimes just standing on the balcony or walking down the street. The light hits my skin and tells my brain: Hey, it’s daytime. Wake up. Let’s go.

This one habit helped regulate my sleep, improve my focus, and stabilize my mood.

Bonus tip: combine this with movement—even 5–10 minutes of walking makes a big difference.

3. I drink a full glass of water before anything else

I used to go straight for coffee. But I didn’t realize I was waking up dehydrated—and that dehydration was making me feel foggy, tired, and on edge.

Now, before anything else, I drink a big glass of water. No lemon. No ritual. Just water.

It’s ridiculously simple. But that one glass is like a “reset” button for my body.

Why it works: After 7–9 hours without fluids, your body needs hydration to function properly. Water improves circulation, cognitive performance, and even mood.

4. I started journaling for 5 minutes—only 5

I don’t write essays. I don’t pour out my soul (unless I feel like it). I just open my journal and write three quick things:

  1. One thing I’m grateful for

  2. One thing I want to focus on today

  3. One sentence about how I’m feeling

It’s fast. It’s raw. It’s real. And it gets me grounded.

Journaling taught me: my mind is clearer when I clear space for it.

5. I made my bed (even though I used to think it was pointless)

This one surprised me.

Making my bed used to feel like performative tidiness. But when I started doing it consistently, I noticed something: I felt a tiny sense of completion. A small win. A clean slate.

It told my brain: You’re the kind of person who finishes things. And that identity—built slowly, one morning at a time—spilled over into my work, my health, and my relationships.

Momentum builds from the smallest action. This one takes 60 seconds and starts your day with order.

6. I stopped “planning the day”—and started visualizing it

There’s a difference between writing a to-do list and mentally rehearsing how you want your day to unfold.

Instead of just listing tasks, I close my eyes for 2–3 minutes and see myself doing them—calm, focused, present. I visualize the hardest parts and imagine myself handling them well.

This isn’t “woo.” It’s psychology.

Elite athletes use mental rehearsal to train the mind for performance. Why shouldn’t we do the same for our daily lives?

Big shift: From reaction to intention.

7. I started moving my body—gently, consistently

Not HIIT. Not a 10k run. Just movement.

Sometimes I stretch. Sometimes I do 20 push-ups and walk around the apartment. Sometimes it’s a short bike ride while listening to music. But I always move. Even for 5–10 minutes.

Movement releases endorphins. It wakes up the nervous system. It signals vitality.

But more than anything, it reconnects me to my body—after a night of floating in dreams and mental fog.

It’s not about fitness—it’s about aliveness.

Final thoughts: tiredness isn’t just physical—it’s existential

For me, constant tiredness wasn’t just about bad sleep. It was about disconnection.

I was disconnected from my body, my values, and my attention. My mornings were a reflection of that fragmentation—scattered, rushed, and passive.

These habits didn’t change my life overnight. But they gave me a foothold. They created structure without rigidity. Presence without pressure.

If you’ve ever felt like life is happening in grayscale—and you want color back—start here.

Here’s to brighter mornings.
Here’s to starting again—on purpose.

Lachlan Brown

Lachlan Brown is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Brown Brothers Media, a digital publishing network reaching tens of millions of readers monthly. He holds a Graduate Diploma of Psychological Studies from Deakin University, though his real education came afterward: a warehouse job shifting TVs, a stretch of anxiety in his mid-twenties, and the slow discovery that studying the mind is not the same as learning how to live well. He started experimenting with Buddhist principles during breaks at the warehouse and eventually began writing about what he was learning. That writing became Hack Spirit, a widely read personal development site, and his book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism became a bestseller. His work breaks down complex ideas into frameworks people can apply immediately, whether they are navigating a career change, a difficult relationship, or the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Lachlan splits his time between Singapore and Saigon. He writes about high-performance routines, decision-making under pressure, digital innovation, and the intersection of Eastern philosophy with modern life. His perspective comes from having built things from scratch, failed at some of them, and learned that clarity comes from practice, not theory.