Welcome to the Real Moms Playbook, where balance becomes a lifestyle. Brought to you by our premier sponsor, The Breakfast Club Coffee Co. In season three, we are building good foundations with your Monday morning wake up. So fill your cup, grab a notebook, and let's get going. Welcome to episode six of the Real Moms Playbook.

I'm your host, Lisa Autry. As moms, we often forget that we set the tone in our daily lives. In today's episode, I'm going to be helping you create peace and purpose through rituals to make your life calmer.

Per usual, I want to begin this episode by thanking our premier sponsor, the Breakfast Club Coffee Co, literal fuel for your soul.

Today in my cup is a very special seasonal s'mores inspired roast called campgrounds that captures the essence of everyone's favorite camping sweet treat. As we get into the holiday season, you'll want this delightful addition in your cup. Today I had mine with some sweet cream and sugar. So dang good.

Make sure you click the link in the show notes to grab yours. And reminder, if you grab the whole foundations flight, this flavor will be in there as well as all the others that I talk about in this season.

So let's start today with an affirmation to guide us over the coming two weeks.

Repeat after me. My schedule is fun, free. and flowing.

Try not to laugh with overwhelm as you write this. I want you to post this wherever on or near your calendar or planner to look at daily. This is something I want to accomplish together over the coming weeks. This is going to be a driver for your success as you begin to craft your time versus passively moving through one day to the next.

The goal is being proactive and growing in your life and motherhood. Today we're diving into how to create daily rhythms that set you up for success. The way we start and end our day is crucial because it sets the tone for everything in between.

So when we look at our whole day, we have those bookends and that's going to set us up for success.

So we all start with the beginning of our day, but I actually want to start our rhythms of success discussion with the end of your day. Why? Because the success of the following day begins the night before.

This means winding down in a way that helps you declutter your mind, prepare your home and reflect on what matters.

Creating an intentional bedtime rhythm at the end of the day also gives you closure. It means creating a space to reflect, reset, and prepare for the next day. It's going to provide you some structure, helping you feel more in control, less reactive, and more aligned with your priorities.

My goal through this is to bring peace to your evening. This is done with a power down hour. Before we create your own personal power down hour, I want you to answer the following questions.

Question 1. What tone do I want to end my day with? Question 2. How can I best get set for the next day? Question 3. What spaces are high traffic areas that tend to get cluttered? And question four, am I expressing gratitude for a day well done?

As you work through these questions, we can form your best bedtime routine to work for you and your goals of how you want your home and life to flow.

So all of it is about the creation of what works best for you. I'm going to be giving you the framework today, but you're building it based on your life and your circumstances and how you function and flow the best. I want you to block out the hour before bed for the following tasks. This is your framework, so make sure you write this down.

It is tidy your spaces, bedtime routines, prep for the next day, and reflection and review. So there's four things. Tidy your spaces, bedtime routines, prep for the next day, As we discussed in the last episode, tidying your spaces before bed helps create a calm and controlled environment and closes out your home for the evening.

We do this together as a family in order to have accountability for everyone in the spaces. This is not something I want you to do after your kids go to bed. I want them to be involved in the process no matter how young they are.

Next, we move on to bedtime routines. I want to challenge you here to make this fun, brushing your teeth and getting all the kids into bed is normally not so much fun. And for some of us, it's actually quite traumatic, but how can you change that? Can you listen to a song while everyone brushes their teeth?

Even mom! Can we say our final good nights after a discussion about everyone's day and things like this help create a fun, energetic and engaged bedtime routine and this helps everyone process their day for a peaceful night's rest. Or even family read aloud time before bed. We personally love this.

There is so much connection and bonding that can occur around bedtime with fun discussions, learning together, and just asking valuable questions of one another versus always rushing. So my fun challenge for you this week is to pick something that adds fun to your family If you are listening to a song, dancing before bed, brushing your teeth together, having a good night discussion or doing read aloud time, pick something that would work for you and your family and start instilling it this week.

So when you're looking at your evening, how can you change the tone and how can you make it a little bit more fun?

After we get all family members into bed, now it's time to prep for the next day and close out our nights on a personal note. If you currently co sleep and go to bed with your children, I recommend seeing how you can adjust to give yourself just 30 minutes of a personal closeout.

Does this mean setting them up with something to watch or to do while they wait for you? The choice of how you do this is up to you, but I recommend this small window for yourself and this is going to be a small shift that's going to make big impact in your life.

During this prep for the next day, I want you to mentally and physically prepare. That means setting out your clothes and tasks the night before, in addition to making your list of objectives for the following day. Now a quick tip for when it comes to setting your objectives. I've developed something called the power of six.

It's a simple system where you focus on six key key objectives each day, three big ones and three small ones. This helps you tackle your priorities without spreading yourself too thin. So as you go and make your list, try giving the power of six a try and see how well it keeps you focused and productive without feeling overwhelmed.

That's the goal. Six objectives divided amongst a 12 hour period. So you feel more in control and are still accomplishing a lot. At the end of the evening, I reflect on how the day went, express my gratitude through prayer and close out my evening.

The goal of this framework is to help you feel productive and calm closing out your evenings.

Now that we have a good foundation for our nighttime rhythm created, let's create a good morning rhythm for your success. Write this down as your foundation for creation. Number one, morning meeting and prep, and number two, transition.

That's it. That's all you really need for a great, successful system in the morning. As moms, we often try to pack too much within the first 15, 20, 30 minutes of our morning, and that instantly makes us feel defeated. Because oftentimes, it doesn't always work out the way we hope it to. The idea behind this framework is keep it simple, keep it moving.

The morning meeting and prep is key to a successful morning. The idea behind this is to reorient yourself based on your objective list that you made the night before and share with your family so everyone is on the same page. Children like knowing what's coming next and it's just getting everyone on the same page.

This also helps you subconsciously start tackling the objectives and makes you prepared for the day. Do any little final prepping that is necessary before transitioning into your day. Give yourself about 10 minutes in the morning to do all of this, the morning meeting and prep, and then begin to transition.

That's all that's really needed to be successful. It's that simple. Yeah. You can add little additional habits that can be built over time, but the framework for a smooth rhythm is what you are really after during your mornings and evenings.

One thing I want to give you perspective on that's been coming up a lot lately in the last couple months with my clients is starting your day with getting yourself ready first. I recommend this as you start your day if you need to leave the home quickly in the morning. So whether you need to go to work, take the kids to school, by starting your day By getting yourself ready first, you have the ability to feel in control of the rest of the objectives for everyone else prior to leaving the home.

It's like that philosophy of putting on your oxygen mask first in an airplane before anyone else's. You help yourself first to be best equipped to help others. This immediately takes a task off of your plate and helps build momentum for yourself for everyone else in your home.

So let's review what we learned in this episode and what action you'll be taking.

So you want to end your day with peace by creating your own personalized power down hour and close out and start implementing it immediately. What is necessary for your power down hour to feel successful? You know, we have that framework, build in those tiny habits that make it unique to your family and fun for your family.

And don't forget to have that task list period where you're prepping for the next day, because that's going to set the whole tone for the next day. Write it all out and set a timer to immediately implement the habit. Shift your thinking from, I have to do this too. I get to, and watch your days close out peacefully and in control.

It's a whole mindset shift and you're going to be far more prepared going into the next day with that shift in mind. Start your day with purpose by reviewing your objectives and sharing with the whole family to move forward intentionally together. Have your power of six objectives list ready to share with the family and then break with the family to transition into everyone's day.

days. This can be great for young children and this can be great for older children, getting everyone on the same page to start their days, whether together or separated. Set a time of when you'd like to start your morning meeting to ensure it's a priority so you can have it on a timer. You can let everyone know, Hey, morning meetings in 10 minutes, please come down and be ready.

And that's going to help set the tone going forward of the structure and the foundation of your mornings and your evenings. So end your days with peace and start your days with purpose, and you're going to find yourself in a rhythm of success.

One last action step for this week is to grab F. L. O. W.

That's my program that helps you transition your time and energy towards creation of control and freedom. Your time is finite and we want to make sure you're getting the most out of it. That's why I created F. L. O. W., the acronym for you to make intentional decisions for today and tomorrow. Grab it and dive on in so you can gain practical strategies for your time management success.

I want to add with all of my programs within the foundation series, they are meant to be instant success in your life. You grab the workbook, you listen to the audio bites, and then apply it to your life instantly. Your success is found in your intention. So whether you're working on a line, define, flow, or grow, you're going to be working towards creating a value based, tidy life that creates routine freedom and financial growth.

So now it's time to implement your rhythms for success. Tag me on Instagram at the daughter diaries and let me know how your rhythms are going. Share what you're doing as a family to close out your nights. Let me know how your morning meetings are going. And I just want to see how you guys are focusing on being more intentional to have rhythms for success in your life.

Next episode, I'll be diving into the concept between routines versus flow, and it's helping you understand how to make the most of your time in the chaos of motherhood. That's it for today. Until next time, I'm Lisa Autry. Thank you for joining me for the Real Moms Playbook, which has been made possible by our amazing sponsor, the Breakfast Club Coffee Co.

Make sure you check the show notes for links and access to the resources from today's episode. If you love this podcast, make sure you subscribe, rate, and share. See you next time. I'm Lisa Autry.