For nearly forty years, my mornings were anything but peaceful.
The alarm would ring before sunrise, and my day would begin at full speed. Breakfast had to be prepared, lunch packed for my husband, son, and myself, the kitchen tidied, and then it was a race against the clock to get ready for work. By the time I left for the office, it often felt as though I had already completed half a day’s work.
There was little room for quiet reflection. Those mornings were driven by responsibility rather than choice.
Everything changed in 2015 when I decided to step away from the corporate world and start my own consulting and executive coaching practice.
Ironically, leaving corporate life did not immediately make my mornings calmer. The next decade brought a different set of responsibilities—building a business, serving clients, caring for my aging mother, and managing the many roles that come with running your own practice. My mornings continued to evolve depending on what life demanded of me.
The last few years were especially difficult.
After my mother passed away, grief quietly altered my life in ways I had never imagined. Insomnia became a constant companion. Most nights, sleep wouldn’t come until four in the morning, making early mornings almost impossible. Someone who had always loved long walks suddenly struggled to even get out of bed.
With medical support and treatment for anxiety, my sleep gradually improved. It wasn’t an overnight transformation, but it was a beginning.
A few months ago, I happened to read a couple of books on running and the benefits of early morning exercise. Around the same time, a close friend encouraged me to give jogging a try.
I laughed.
“At my age? Run?”
She smiled and showed me photographs of women in her family who had taken up jogging and running in their eighties.
“If they can do it,” she asked, “why can’t you?”
That simple question stayed with me.
One morning, I finally decided to try.
At five o’clock, with a steaming cup of tea in hand, I stepped out into our apartment complex. We are fortunate to have beautifully landscaped gardens, tree-lined pathways, and quiet roads that become walking tracks before the rest of the city wakes up.
The world felt different at that hour.
The air was cool, the sky was slowly changing colour, and a flock of parrots had gathered on a nearby tree. They chirped endlessly, hopping from branch to branch as if celebrating the arrival of a new day. I couldn’t resist stopping to watch them or taking a few photographs.
There was something deeply therapeutic about those moments.
Before emails, before deadlines, before the noise of everyday life, nature had already begun its morning symphony.
Halfway through my walk, I decided to jog.
Not far—just under a kilometre.
But something unexpected happened.
It wasn’t just my body that felt lighter.
My mind did too.
That entire day, I felt unusually energetic. Tasks I had postponed for months suddenly seemed manageable. More importantly, I found myself sitting down to work on my sixth book. The words flowed with an ease I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
It reminded me of Robin Sharma’s The 5 AM Club, where he writes about how early mornings can improve productivity, happiness, and our sense of aliveness. While I may not follow every principle from the book, I now understand the power of beginning the day intentionally.
Since then, I’ve tried to remain consistent.
Not every morning is perfect. There are still nights when sleep refuses to cooperate. There are mornings when I would much rather stay in bed. But I lace up my shoes anyway.
Because I’ve realised that discipline isn’t about feeling motivated every day.
It’s about showing up, especially on the days when it’s difficult.
My father often used to say, “Discipline is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes.”
His words have stayed with me throughout my life. Whether it was navigating demanding corporate roles, building a business from scratch, writing books, or now rebuilding my health, it has always been discipline—not motivation—that carried me forward.
Looking back, I realise my morning routine has changed in more ways than one.
Once, mornings were about caring for everyone else before rushing to work.
Today, they are about caring for myself first so that I can show up better for everyone else.
The biggest transformation wasn’t learning to wake up at five.
It was discovering that healing often begins with one small promise we keep to ourselves each morning.