you Hello, my name is Michelle Arscott, also known as the International Life Coach, and I'm delighted to be here again in the Positivi-tea break session. So last week we began to look at how we could set ourselves up for success for our morning routines. And actually, there was just so much stuff there, that we decided that we would break those different aspects up over 3 more videos. So today in particular, I'm going to be looking at exercise. If you'd asked me maybe 5-10 years ago about exercising in the morning, I would have been like, 'No way, there's no way I'm going to get out of my bed earlier and exercise', but actually now, I find that if I want to complete the exercises I want to do, morning is actually the best time and there is a book called The 5AM Club and what they recommend is that you get up an hour earlier and in that hour, 20-minutes is for exercise. Another 20-minutes is for reflection and the final 20-minutes is study time. So, what's going to get you out of your bed to exercise in the morning? Well if you think about it, often, we don't do exercise if it's in the evening, because what happens is that negative voice in our head gets in there, the saboteurs, the procrastinating voice and we don't get things done. But actually if it's the first thing that you do in the morning, then you're very likely to succeed. So that's a really good reason. Also, there is a lot of research that says that people who exercise in the morning are sharper and that kind of makes sense because you've fully woken up. You've basically got the happy hormones like serotonin going, so you feel more positive and you've achieved something. So you really are setting yourself up for success. So, there's so many reasons to do it. And actually I can tell you about research and everything, but the best way to do it, is to try it and see, so as I said in the last video, try it for 5-days, try it for 7-days and then you might be thinking, 'OK fine. I'm going to exercise in the morning. But what can I do?' So just depends on you and how you are. Different types of exercise suits different people. I know I really like running in the morning, you know being outside. It's quiet. It's fresh, that lovely, burst that I get from it. So I love running in the morning and being amongst nature. So it's a great start for me, but different people like different things. So you might decide that you want something more gentle, like yoga is a great one. Maybe you still don't know where to start, YouTube is an amazing resource because everything is more or less free. So I highly recommend YouTube with Adriene. She does yoga for everything. Anything, when you feel sad, when you want a gentle morning, for beginners, power yoga, you know for your arms, your abs, whatever you're looking for. So if you feel like you want to delve deeper and you want to have that guide, then I thoroughly recommend her. There are many other people who do that as well. But Adriene is very popular. I believe she has currently 11 million followers. And also I love doing her 30-day challenges. That is another really good way to get into exercise, because maybe you'll do a 30-day ab exercise or 30-day arm exercises, whatever it is or full workout or how to do a handstand whatever, you name it. So maybe there's a particular goal that you would like to achieve at the end of 4-weeks and I love 30-day challenges because usually at the end of the first week you feel better inside. By the 2nd-3rd week there's often a noticeable change. By the 4th week people people also see it well, so it's a great incentive because you're seeing the change and as I said, this exercise doesn't need to be very long. You can even be for 5-10 minutes. Whatever is right for you. It's just going to set you up for success. So those are a lot of reasons why you can do exercises. Sometimes it's still hard, so we can think about maybe having an accountability partner. So it may just be somebody that you just tell, just a friend. 'Look. I'm going to be exercising for the next week' and maybe you send them a smiley, a photo or or maybe you're on Instagram or Facebook or whatever and you share it with your audience, be it friends or family or colleagues and you share a photo, you know, if it was yoga, it could be of you, or if you're feeling a bit camera shy, then it could be of the mat, whatever, but it's just basically encouraging you to show up. And the first day is always the hardest. So another way that can really help you is to visualize the success. And it's very simple. We'll just do a very simple technique now. So you take 3 grounding breaths. So breathe in. And breathe out. Breathe in. And breathe out. Breathe in and breathe out. if you want to close your eyes and visualize yourself tomorrow morning getting up and doing that exercise of choice. See yourself doing it. What room will you be doing it in or if you're doing it at a gym or outside, visualize the place that you'll be doing it. See yourself in what you're wearing. Really get in there, turn up the colors, have a look around. What are the things you can see as you're doing this exercise? And now tune in to what you can hear. Maybe it's what you're saying to yourself when you're doing this exercise. If you're running maybe it's the sound of birds. What are the things you can hear when you are doing the exercise? Now, tap into how it makes you feel to be doing the exercise in the morning? What feelings are coming up for you? And then I'm going to count you from 5-1 and then being back in present in the moment, 5,4, 3,2,1 and being back. A very simple visualization there and if that's something that you think will be helpful, just remember to VAK it - visual - auditory - kinesthetic. Kinesthetic - what are the things you see? What are the things you hear? How do you feel? Just go there and visualizations are a great tool for success, because you're dealing with your subconscious mind and your subconscious mind does not understand the difference between fact or fiction. So the fact that you've done that and visualized it, in your head it already believes that you've done it. So that means that when you actually do it, it's so much easier. So that's a top tip for success. So enjoy your exercise. Try it for a week, see how it is and just nail your morning. Have a wonderful rest of the day. Thank you very much.