Mornings set the tone for the rest of the day – at least in my world they do. My mood and the mood of my littles can really impact the rest of the day. This is why I’m choosing to focus on mornings in May.

This project has been inspired by two separate books that I’ve read – The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin and The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.

I’m drawing inspiration from Gretchin Rubin and making changes each month to better my life. There are things I’d like to change and I know that change has to start with me. After some reflection, I decided mornings will be my focus in May.

When I started thinking about how I wanted this to look, I kept coming back to The Miracle Morning. I love this approach to creating a positive morning but the acronyms didn’t quite resonate with my life. So, I played around with them and found an acronym I love. I’ve shared it with a few friends and they loved the idea as well.

This May, I’m going to start saying HELLO to my day. I love how positive hello sounds and the individual parts I’ve chosen are easy to customize and make fit with my current season of life.

I bet you’re wondering what HELLO stands for. I’m going to give a quick rundown in this post and how each part will look for me. I’ll be coming back at the end of the month with an update post on how things have gone.

H – happiness

This is the self care portion of my morning. Each morning, I will make sure that I do at least one thing to “fill up my cup” and make me happy. This could be something small and simple like diffusing a special blend or something bigger like straightening my hair.

E – energize

This step is two fold. The first part is having my morning cup of coffee or tea. The second part is doing a little bit of exercise and movement to help my body spring into action.

L – learn

So far, we’ve focused on keeping my emotional and physical self happy. This portion of the morning is all about mental happiness. Learning new things through reading, listening, or watching is a great way to keep the mind fresh and happy.

L – list

This portion of the morning will be for writing. Some mornings, it may be in the form of a list while other mornings may be devoted to a blog post. Writing is a great way for me to process things so I wanted to make sure it was included somewhere in my routine.

O – organize

This step will help set me up for success all day long. I plan to take ten to fifteen minutes to get things organized for the rest of the day. This could be a to do list or it could be packing the diaper bag and making sure things are ready for any errands. The focus will be on making things easier later in the day.

This is just a quick overview of the system I’m hoping to put in the place. On an ideal day, I’ll be waking a little early to have time to myself. Mom life isn’t always ideal though so I’ll be finding unique ways to complete my tasks even with one or two kids underfoot.

I’d love to hear all about your ideal morning routine in the comments below!

Could your morning use a little bit of a makeover? I’d love for you to join me in May. After all, May is for mornings!