by Tiffany | Apr 16, 2015 | Self Care
The Evening Ritual
I’m excited to elaborate on part two in a three-part series of your Self Care = Success conversation. In part one of this series, we talked about the power of your Morning Ritual – how you’re waking yourself up, how you’re beginning your day, getting centered, getting grounded, investing in yourself, how you shape your day, to shape your energy, your focus, your passion, your enthusiasm, and your time. On the other side of the day is looking at your Evening Ritual and how you transition your day to sleep and preparation for the next day. The way you wake your brain up has massive influence to your life , results, and your success – and the same thing on the flip side is how are you putting your brain to bed?
Consider that. Do you just randomly get in bed at all different times of the night? Sometimes you’re in bed a 10:00 pm, sometimes it’s one in the morning, and it can be a range of time frames, right? And I’m not saying that everything has to scheduled to the exact minute, that isn’t how I live my life either. Yet it is having some awareness to how you’re showing up with your full wellness, including your sleep and reduction of stress in the evening. So let’s take a little inventory on the other side of your day – let’s look at your night. On a scale of one to ten, ten being high, one being low, do you have a regular, consistent evening ritual of how you transition your brain into going to bed or going to sleep? With the same scale, how would you currently rate your current quality of sleep? Are you sleeping well? Are you waking up energized with the day before you? Do you find yourself with lots of thoughts, and staying awake, or struggling with being able to turn off the mental chatter? Just tune into that. Do you feel like your day completes peacefully or in a hectic manner? Just simply become aware, and now with that new awareness you can ask yourself, “What would I rather experience in transitioning from day to sleep?”
Let’s take a deeper look at your evening ritual. There’s a couple of pieces and points I want you to consider. When you get clear on your ideal evening ritual, I want you to ask yourself, “When is my technology being turned off?” Some of you sleep with your technology, right? Like literally, it’s as if you’re cuddling that cute little iPhone or that Samsung or your iPad, whatever it might be. You might be a little too attached to that technology, right?
I have no judgement about it. Are there are times my technology has been in my bed? Yes. However, when we think about high-level living, conscious living, levels of creating high performance, I doubt it includes having our technology wrapped into us like a comfy blankie, right? So ask yourself, “When does my technology go off?” Does it always come in the room? Do you fall asleep to your technology, whether to a television or to the Internet or social media apps? What is that like for you? Now that you’re getting more clear, make a decision – when is my technology off for the most part? When is your ideal time frame to be complete with it? Maybe you give yourself a range within half an hour, typically, or an hour – decide what time frame your technology is off and out of your hands. I encourage you to have at least thirty minutes, ideally, that your technology turns off before going to bed or sleep. If you need to, you can start with fifteen or twenty. But fifteen to twenty to thirty minutes from the time you get off your technology before you try to go to sleep is the ideal range that working towards will support you increasing your high performance for the next day. Once your technology has been put to bed (pun intended!) that’s where we create a conscious evening ritual. Think of it as tucking yourself in, in a really gentle, kind way, that you’re taking better care of yourself so you can show up more fully present, passionate and alive with the people and the projects that matter most to you.
Now that your technology is off, consider implementing another success habit which is called Night Before Planning. If you’re especially the type of personality that keeps ruminating and thinking about all the things you need to do tomorrow, one thing that might help you tame that, and therefore sleep better, is to do a little night before planning. Outline what your number one priorities for the next day are, both personally and for business. Then list all the different tasks, or people you need to call, or follow up with. Some people keep a notebook right by their bed when ideas and inspirations come. But looking at your day of what’s to come the next day, you’re already starting to prepare successfully, to focus. Imagine when you wake up; you already have a game plan for the next day, and all night, your subconscious mind has been working those details out. I find that by writing it down, doing a little night-before planning, I’m creating a more peaceful night of sleep and a power surge to my productivity the next day. It’s like the weight is off, and I’ve put to bed all of the things that want to run around inside my brain, by writing them down. That might help support you as well.
Finally, consider what would feel like a restful activity for you. In that same thirty minutes, we’re off our technology, we’ve done a little night before planning, and now we are into some space to make a self care deposit. Whether that be reading, meditation, lighting a candle, making hot tea, taking a warm bath, writing a gratitude list from the day, or utilizing some products or essential oils that help you rest. Ask yourself, ‘What are restful activities for me? What would feel great and nourishing to me? What would be my ideal Evening Ritual to create?’ Keep in mind, this investment of a small amount of time, is a big deposit in your self care and thus your ultimate success in life and business. The way you put your brain to bed, has everything to do with the quality of sleep you’re receiving, which in turn has massive influence to how you begin your following day.
The topic of quality sleep is getting more and more attention today. Celebrity fitness trainer J.J. Virgin, who’s phenomenal in her content on weight loss and health and wellness, says if she can only pick only one weight loss tip it would be getting a quality seven to eight hours of sleep a night. There is also research surrounding the world’s wealthy. Looking at their attributes, (remember success always leaves clues) –the top one to 
three percent of the world’s wealthy, on average, get seven or more hours of sleep a night. Now that might contradict what you’ve thought before, that you need to burn the candle and need to work harder and more to make more money. The reality is – is the quality of your life and the quality of your relationships and your results has everything to do with the quality of your sleep and overall self care.
Make yourself a bigger priority in your life and become conscious of how you put yourself to sleep at night. Create your own turn-down time, and a little bit of time to just disconnect from the world, your technology, a little time to nurture yourself, maybe that hot tea, some journaling or reading a great book, some yoga, whatever may help put you in a more restful place, will be well worth every ounce and moment of that time to help increase the quality of your sleep, which then influences the next day, which then invests in your success– they just continue to grow upon one another.
You’re worth the time.
Try it out for 30 days and see the powerful impact of applying this effective success discipline. I look forward to hearing how it goes for you!
Cheering you on!
Tiffany Peterson
