Morning Routines: Morning Influences by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about morning routines. Not so much regarding getting things done so I can get out the door on time but rather putting my best foot forward, giving myself a good start to the day.

In my reading, I came across this essay by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on starting the day right. Her advice, penned in 1903, coincides with what today’s researchers have discovered: controlling one’s thoughts and habits and directing them toward the positive and the constructive increases effectiveness throughout the day.

Here’s what Ella would have told those researchers:

 

Morning Influences by Ella Wheeler Wilcox**

 

What do you think about the very first thing in the morning?

 Your thoughts during the first half-hour of the morning will greatly influence the entire day. You may not realize this, but it is nevertheless a fact.

 If you set out with worry, and depression, and bitterness of soul toward fate or man, you are giving the key note to a day of discords and misfortunes.

If you think peace, hope and happiness, you are sounding a note of harmony and success.

 The result may not be felt at once, but it will not fail to make itself evident eventually.

 Control your morning thoughts. You can do it.

 The first moment on waking, no matter what your mood, say to yourself: “I will get all the comfort and pleasure possible out of this day, and I will do something to add to the measure of the world’s happiness or well-being. I will control myself when tempted to be irritable or unhappy, I will look for the bright side of every event.”

 Once you say these things over to yourself in a calm, earnest way, you will begin to feel more cheerful. The worries and troubles of the coming day will seem less colossal.

 Then say: “I shall be given help to meet anything that comes to-day. Everything will be for the best. I shall succeed in whatever I undertake. I cannot fail.”

 Do not let it discourage you if the moment you leave your room you encounter a trouble or a disaster. This usually happens. When we make any boasts, spiritually or physically, we are put to the test. The occult forces about us are not unlike human beings. When a school-boy boasts of his strength, and says he can “lick any boy in school,” he generally gets a chance to prove it.

 When we declare we are brave enough to overcome any fate, we find our strength put to the test at once. 

But that is all right. Prove your words to be true. Regard the troubles and cares you encounter as the “punching bags” of fate, given you to develop your spiritual muscle.

 Go at them with courage and keep to your morning resolve. 

By and by the troubles will lessen, and you will find yourself master of Circumstances.

 

What’s your morning routine? This week we’ll be discussing this topic. Feel free to share your thoughts and your morning routine. Thanks!

Your Friend and Pep Pal,

Lauren

**Morning Influences by Ella Wheeler Wilcox appeared in The Heart of New Thought published by The Psychic Research Company, 1903

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