JanYouary: The Intentional Bird Gets the Worm

This episode isn't just about getting up before runrise; it's a deeper exploration into crafting a morning routine that transcends the pursuit of hustle culture's badge of honor. We'll unpack the beauty of grace-filled mornings, where the pursuit of progress trumps the illusion of perfection. Together, we'll learn how initiating our day with mindful practices like prayer and affirmations can lead to a life that feels productive and profoundly satisfying. 

Join me in redefining what it means to rise and shine as we tailor our mornings to be the cornerstone of a well-lived day.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Hey guys and welcome back to that Girl Radio. It is your lovely host here, ricky Lee, and for today's episode of January, we are going to talk about the early bird getting the worm, or rather, the intentional bird getting the worm. I know you all have seen the very aspirational tic-tacs and Instagram reels of women waking up at the ass crack of dawn and just celebrating darkness essentially by getting up, working out and basically completing their entire to-do list before the sun rises. And to those women I say you're amazing and I want to give you a huge round of applause and I'm jealous. Okay, I'm really jealous, because when I say fatigue, be whooping my crack and the restlessness be whooping my crack, and me staying up at night until two in the morning scrolling on my 4u page be whooping my crack, like everything around me is not optimizing my sleep and getting me the rest that I need to be really up at 6am like ready to conquer the day. But I will say that I have learned over the past 20 days very, very good habits that are helping me to be much more of an intentional bird. That doesn't mean that I'm the morning bird, doesn't mean that I'm the first bird chirping and singing songs in the morning, but I do rise a lot earlier than I was before, and when I say a lot earlier, guys, I do mean a lot earlier.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Okay, ever since entering college and being on a built by me schedule, I have not been optimizing my mornings. I have been really optimizing my afternoon and the late evenings for work, and this is not good for your body, like working really late at night just keeps you restless, and obviously I just talked about how fatigued I am, so you would think that I would have changed my habits by now. But with my made by me schedule, often we're not on a set schedule, like when you're in college. You have Monday, wednesday, friday classes and then you have Tuesday, thursday, so your mornings could look entirely different for three days out of the week than the other two. And then you factor in the weekends and being out extremely late until 2-3 in the morning, not waking up until noon, and you have yourself a complete cluster clock of a schedule and it's really not good for someone who wants to be more of an intentional bird, because I'm not going to preach to you that you need to be waking up at the ass crack of dawn If that's not going to work for your lifestyle. That's fine.

Speaker 1: 3:04

You can still be just as productive and still just as intentional by making sure that you optimize your get to do list, by optimizing your block scheduling and truly sticking to that and holding yourself radically responsible for the things that you told yourself you were going to complete that day. And that's something that I have done, and I think college students do that very well, because we don't use the entire 24 hours of a day. We probably use like six to eight of them. The majority of them we use sleeping, some of them we use in class, the other we use sleeping. So there's only but a small window of time that we use to truly be productive and optimizing our time.

Speaker 1: 3:48

And just imagine if you were to carve out a few hours every morning dedicated to yourself, so that you can be the intentional bird and get the worm every single day. Because, if you think about it, there are millions of people out here in this world who probably have the same exact desires as you. They probably want to be a podcaster, they want to be a doctor, they want to be a lawyer, they want to be a singer, they want to be a dancer whatever it is that you want to do? You all are waking up at some point in the day and trying to get to the worm, the theoretical worm, which is the pinnacle point that you need to get to for that day to get you one step closer to being at your ultimate goal. And when you think about how many days you let 10 hours go by of just no productivity, you'll start to see that you're never getting the worm. You're allowing every other person in America get the worm before you do. And then you wonder why it's taking you seven years to accomplish what it could have been done in two. And it's because we're not being intentional with our time. We're allowing this sacred time in the morning that we could be using to really pour into ourselves and set ourselves up for the most successful day go by. We actually don't even have a morning because we don't wake up until we have something to do.

Speaker 1: 5:18

And I've been there. I did that for about two years of college and now that I'm a senior I've learned the utmost importance of having still time in the morning. I Don't wake up and go get the worm. There's a difference. The early bird gets up and they might go get that worm immediately. But for me, as an intentional bird, I don't get the worm first. I take care of myself first. I Might sing a song or two, I might chirp, I might like walk around, I might do a few things for myself first before I feel obligated to go get the worm.

Speaker 1: 5:55

Because society, especially like American culture, pushes work, grinding, living this hard, like go get it type of attitude and that works for a little bit of time. It works for the month of January, but what about the 11 other months of the year? No one has time to be waking up straight in the morning and getting on zoom or getting on meetings or Driving to class. Like as soon as you wake up. Like we never give our time, ourselves time to Wake up and just rise and like, just Live in the grandeur of like the fact that, oh my gosh, I was given another opportunity to breathe. Like I can smell the fresh air, I can like feel my soft sheets, I can splash water onto my face and wash it, I can comb my hair. Like there are so many different pieces of the morning time that are so sacred and just Gorgeous that we often gloss over because we are taught to just wake up and go get the worm. Well, wake up and get at them.

Speaker 1: 7:03

You know, and I want you to realize, that success comes from Crafting a morning routine that is intentional and that helps you to be your best. And your best doesn't look like a hundred percent every day, like the. The routine may be very minimal. It may be you just waking up, splashing your face with some water, I doing an ice roll. Like drinking some hot tea or coffee and reading a little bit of your favorite column, or Listening to your favorite podcast, listening to an audiobook, like whatever it is. It's gonna help you slowly get into the world.

Speaker 1: 7:42

We are in such a rush to go out here and get at them and be everything for everyone else and we forget to take care of ourselves. You're a machine. Do you not realize that, like when you go to a any Factory, they don't just go into the factory and just start turning on all the machines and whatever else? Like they check in and they assess Okay, what is our equipment looking like? Like it's everything in position, does everything look good? Like they have checklists that they go through before they start to turn on the machinery because in order for them to get any sort of produce or product or anything from their Machine lines. Everything has to be working effectively. Everything has to be in place perfectly for the day at the end of it to get that worm, to get the product.

Speaker 1: 8:36

So for many of us, we just wake up and we just go. We're like, oh, I'm the songbird of the day, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go get it. You know, and it's just like you need to get yourself, get yourself together. The first non-negotiable meeting of any day Should be you in that bathroom getting yourself together. It should be self-care. It should be 30 To five minutes. Five to 30 minutes like however minimal or however maximal it is for you. Set the time for it, set a timer and be very intentional about moving slowly and getting yourself into the groove of the day, because I feel like people who just go up, get up and go at them Like their mental health is not the greatest, because I can attest to that.

Speaker 1: 9:34

I was that person for quite some time at At different points in my college career and at the end of those sort of semesters, I always found myself having to Truly reset and take time away from a lot of different stuff because I was so burnt out. I Was so burnt out that I couldn't even think of a worm. I couldn't even the idea of a worm made me want to cry, because I was just like. I was so burnt out from showing up and being for everyone else that I had neglected myself and I couldn't even recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. And that's why you have to make sure that before you go get any worm you go get yourself. You make sure that she's cool and that she's ready to show up today. And if she's not ready to show up today, then she could stay at home like she's gonna rest, she's gonna chill. But there are no obligations that I'm gonna set for myself that I wouldn't, you know, want to set for someone else.

Speaker 1: 10:34

If I knew my friend was going through what I was going through, I would give her grace. So why not give yourself grace? You know what I'm saying. Like if you were to hear someone else was experiencing the things that you're experiencing, you would say, oh, okay, she needs a day, like she definitely needs a day. And so often we're unwilling to Be impartial and view what we're going through objectively and say to ourselves okay, maybe she needs a break and she being yourself, she being myself, and I've learned to remove myself from, like, out of my body, and look at myself and say, okay, girl, what is the state of you? Like, let's look at this hair, let's look at this face. Like, let's look at our heart, let's look at our spirit, let's look at our energy levels. Like, where are we at right now? Like, are we ready to go get the worm? Or is like, should we delegate for somebody else to get the worm today and we can maybe get the coffee, because we we're not in the mood to get the worm quite today, and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 11:37

I think people who are truly successful are people who are willing to take accountability and responsibility for what they are supposed to do and they realize that if they aren't able to play their part, hmm, everything else isn't gonna go right. So I'm gonna let you know that, hey, I can't play my part today. So is there someone else that you can like swap in for me or what? Or like, is there something else that you can have me do? Because, like, I still want to be a team player but, at the end of the day, like I still have to take out of myself, and I respect people like that. I respect people who are willing to advocate for themselves and just know that You're not in this nest alone. You have people in your family, you have people that are your friends, that can help you go get the worm, like. You don't have to go get it yourself, you don't have to be so independent and self-reliant.

Speaker 1: 12:34

God can help you get the worm when you don't have the energy or the resources or you know the map to go get it like. He will give it to you, he will give you the steps, he will order them so you can get them much easier. But first and foremost, you have to consult him. And so for me, at the start of every day, I consult him. God, give me the roadmap for the day. Okay, download into me the GPS directions To my purpose path for the day like. What do you intend for me to get done? And that's by me consulting my daily devotional and Embarking in prayer and asking him to order my steps and asking him to allow me to be a vessel and to invite more people into living a life like him and being a light and the salt of this earth. Like. I pray that prayer just about every morning when I speak with my mother and we do our Proverbs reading and I've been doing that for the past 20 days and when I tell you my days have gotten exponentially better. Every single day I've gotten some type of worm. They have been all types of varieties and I've gotten things that I never thought that I could have attained in just the day, things that would have possibly taken me weeks to get. I've gotten in a day Because I've changed the way that I spend my mornings.

Speaker 1: 13:55

I spend my mornings with God. I spend my mornings in the mirror, speaking affirmations over myself. I spend my mornings putting myself together instead of just rolling out of bed and immediately going forth to go get the worm. Like I actually intentionally spend time with myself, intending to her and like making sure that she's good before I stand before anyone else. Because at the end of the day, I have been that person who just showed up for everybody else and put myself together and did this and did that and it made me but a carcass of, or a statue of, what perfect should be, but on the other side of that was an absolute mess. It was an absolute mess and I had to consult myself and figure out like do you want to be just a model of what perfect looks like or do you want to just be, be in Totality, the perfect mess? On Certain days you're put together and on certain days or not, and you ebb and you float and that's fine. But that in and of itself is a work of art, because you are a woman and woman of progress, a work in progress, and so long as I am in pursuit of better and bettering myself every single day, that's fine. That's me getting the worm.

Speaker 1: 15:28

I am in pursuit of bettering not only me but my surroundings, my spirit, my people, like all of that is all encompassing of getting the worm, and I feel no pressure to rush that process. No one, no calendar invite, no job, no societal expectations or norms. None of that is going to pressure me into feeling like I have to succumb to getting up and Immediately tending to that, because I used to feel that immense amount of pressure that I needed to perform Every single day, I needed to put on my perfect act in order to get perfect outcomes. But just in the past couple of days, god has reminded me that there's no such thing as perfect. You can get your nails manicured as many times as you want to, but I'm going to break them every single time you get them done, just to remind you that you are perfect, even in your imperfections, because you remain in my image. So, no matter what you add to what you already are, you're already enough. And that is exactly what I needed. I Needed that affirmation for days when I don't feel like going into the bathroom and doing the 30 minute routine. But I know that, at the bare minimum, if I want to be the intentional bird, I have to at least do five minutes, because that's what keeps me whole, that's what keeps me going, that's what keeps me from giving up on myself and essentially giving up on God, because I have to tend my own garden before I try to bear fruit for others. There's no way that I can be a fruitful being, there's no way that I can be a giving being if I do not first give to myself. And so many of us have a loud society To rewire our brains to think that we're supposed to give first.

Speaker 1: 17:26

First thing in the morning You're supposed to give your attention to your emails First thing in the morning You're supposed to look at your social media First thing in the morning. You need to check the news First thing in the morning. You need to cook breakfast for your family first thing in the morning. You need to rotate your laundry like. Forget all of those things. The first thing you need to do in the morning is spend time with God and spend time with yourself, and If you don't have time for that, then you need to push everything else back or you need to find time to wake up earlier. You just have to, and even if you're not a morning person, this routine doesn't have to happen at the Crack of dawn. It can happen when you rise. Just make sure you're rising in a period of time that's long enough for you to be able to do some sort of routine for yourself and For me.

Speaker 1: 18:32

Over these past 20 days I've been habit stacking and slowly incorporating more into this morning routine. That is miraculous just for me, that it helps me to be a far more intentional bird so that I can get all types of worms. I don't just get one singular worm. These days I'm getting like a whole back full Because I'm so intentional in the morning and I have that quiet time with God and I make sure to put myself together, and so by the time I'm leaving my house I feel like I can conquer the day. And so many of us leave the house and we're not even ready to like Do anything. We're dreading doing anything because we didn't have time to ourselves.

Speaker 1: 19:17

And I know we hear the words of you know slow morning routines and Trying to craft those, but not all of us have the luxury of doing anything slowly. But then that makes me question why do you feel like you have to do everything fast? What made you think that you had to add all those things to your schedule To live this fast life? Because you don't have to live a fast life? I Don't ever recall reading of anyone's life in the Bible that lived a fast life. Everything seemed to be pretty slow back then and I really do wish that I could have experienced a glimpse of that at any point In my life. But I feel like everything has been relatively fast-paced.

Speaker 1: 20:00

But these days I am intentional about slowing things down and and slowing the people around me down. There's no rush. There's no rush. There will be worms Golden worms, silver worms, rainbow worms all types of worms at your disposal every single day, because God has given you the gift of life every day to embark on getting this thing, and so, with that in mind, there's nothing that you really miss. That isn't for you, but you have to go get it. You have to be willing to get yourself together before you go get anything. Get your mind right, get your heart right, get your spirit right. So many of us are dealing with people who haven't gotten it right. That's why you have people with attitudes in the office Because they didn't have enough time to get themselves together before they got to work, and so they're so disoriented in trying to remember if they did this or if they did that or if they feel their best, because they know they didn't put enough time or effort into that portion of their day.

Speaker 1: 21:14

And one thing I'm so appreciative of my upbringing is that my mother modeled for me what it looked like to be intentional with my mornings. She would rise and she would put herself together, no matter how she was feeling. She was going to put on that outfit and she was going to get herself together and play her gospel music or her jazz, and she just set the tone for herself for the day. And that's the difference between the early bird getting the worm and the intentional bird getting the worm. The intentional bird sets the tone for their day. They don't allow their supervisor or anyone else's around them, their agendas, to set the pace for them. They set the pace and, as that girl, you are someone who has to have autonomy over your calendar. You're no longer allowing your mornings to be filled with meetings or your mornings to be filled with senseless obligations. You're going to set the first non-negotiable meeting of the day to be self-care. Whether that be five minutes or 30 minutes, you're going to set that time and you're going to have a routine, and I think it's very important to craft both a minimal routine and a maximal routine.

Speaker 1: 22:32

So, at the very bare minimum, on the days where you can't do the full-fledged 30-minute one, there are a few things that you know you can do that will feed your spirit, that will get you aligned and ready for the day, and I think those three things for me are just doing my devotional spending time with God, praying, listening to worship music or like some really motivational music, and then I also like to wash my face and do a little bit of skincare, and these days I'm doing like skincare makeup, so I keep my foundation very minimal. During the week. I do like my little serum. I mix it in with my foundation and it's like a skin tint and then I'll do a little bit of concealer so I don't look so tired. And so when I look at myself, I don't feel like how I look. I might be tired, but I want to look alive and that helps me to change my attitude. When I look alive, I feel alive and I do well and I want to show up as my best in all of the spaces and places and be able to take up space.

Speaker 1: 23:35

And you can only do so if you take care of yourself and when you're intentional with your mornings and you craft your routine at the very bare minimum. That helps you to be prepared for the day. There's no reason why you can't get the worm because you've prepared yourself. No matter if you actually have a physical workplace to be at or you have an actual supervisor to report to. Every single day there's work to be done. Every single day. You have a purpose and God calls us to prepare ourselves for that. And I'm not saying you have to put on your best. I'm not saying you have to put on that stuff Like. I'm saying you just need to get yourself ready. You need to get your mind ready and that takes time. So all you need to do is just add a little bit of a buffer time before you're wake up and any of your obligations. I say at least 30 minutes, but everyone's a little different. But just start to add in more time slowly over the next few months and you'll see by quarter two that you have this miraculous morning routine that allows you to slowly ease into the day and be far more intentional so that you can go get the worm.

Speaker 1: 24:54

I really do hope you guys enjoyed today's episode of the intentional bird gets the worm. I had a lot of fun discussing this and I have seen the benefits of truly embracing the morning time, even if it's not the morning, if you're not someone who is an early riser whatever time it is that you wake up, being intentional about setting a buffer time for you to just do self care and have a routine that services you before you service anyone else. So I really do hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you're not already following the podcast, make sure to do so at that girl radio on Instagram. You can follow your lovely host here, ricky Lee, at Ricky Lee dot co on Instagram. I'm also on tiktok at me, ricky Lee, and if you haven't already rated the podcast, what are you doing? It helps us out so much so that we can reach more women like you and help them design their best lives. I love you and I will catch you next time.