We often judge mornings by a single myth: if you do not rise before dawn and crush a perfect checklist, you have already lost the day. Real life is messier and kinder than that. Your best morning is not a copy of someone else’s. It is a season-aware sequence that tells your brain you are safe, gets your body online, and points your energy at one meaningful priority. For mothers building businesses, that priority may look like a quiet email in the carpool lane or a focused call after drop-off. The power sits in the first hour’s intention, not its length. When you define a routine you can repeat, you claim the role of leader in your home and work without burning out.
The first core step is regulation before reaction. Instead of reaching for the phone, reach for breath, sunlight, prayer, or a short meditation. Three deep breaths can flip your nervous system from fight-or-flight to grounded focus. Morning light, even through a window, anchors your circadian rhythm, steadies mood, and cues alertness. Many of us underestimate the simple act of opening a window, stepping outside, or turning our face toward the sun for two minutes. That cue tells your brain you are safe and in control. If you need help avoiding social media first, queue an audio you love and set a 10-to-15-minute timer. A novel, a self-help chapter, or a guided meditation can create a gentle runway into the day without dragging you into comparison or urgency.
Movement is the next hinge. It does not need to be intense to be effective. A walk, light stretching, yoga, or short strength session wakes tissues, raises circulation, and boosts insulin sensitivity and mood. The trick that sticks is wardrobe: dress for the movement you want. Putting on gym clothes before you touch your inbox stacks the deck toward action. This one choice lowers friction the rest of the morning because your outfit makes the decision feel already made. Even if schedules shift, being dressed for motion keeps the window open for a micro-workout, a stretch between tasks, or a brisk walk after school drop-off.
Then comes strategic focus: choose one CEO priority. Not twenty. Ask, what is the single action that will move the business forward today? Write it down where you can see it. That task might be a proposal email, a pricing follow-up, or a short voice memo to a past client. Ten minutes counts. The discipline is clarity, not duration. If you struggle to identify the one thing, use a simple filter: does it create revenue, protect time, or deepen relationships? If yes, it qualifies. Tools like The Four Disciplines of Execution can help you define lead measures that you control daily rather than chasing lagging outcomes. Over time, small consistent actions compound into visible growth.
Finally, fit the routine to your season. A new baby, a launch week, or shifting school schedules all change capacity. A strong routine is not a rigid miracle morning; it is a repeatable loop. For some seasons, that loop is five minutes before kids wake. For others, it is an hour of deep work after school drop-off, or a weekly three-hour block when childcare aligns. Most parents find 15 minutes to two hours of usable focus per day. Anchor your steps to existing touch points—coffee brewing, opening blinds, or tying shoes—so the habit latches to life you already live. When the season changes, adjust the length, not the essence: regulate, move, choose one priority, and execute.
Try the five-minute challenge to prove momentum beats perfection: breathe, move gently, pick one CEO task. DM your choice to a trusted friend or mentor to add light accountability. These micro-wins lower resistance and build identity—you become someone who shows up. Leadership is born from consistency, not heroic bursts. The people you admire did not skip the hard mornings; they kept going when things felt impossible. Own your first hour, and you will feel the rest of the day rise to meet you.
Resources:
5 Minute Meditations for Kids Podcast
MyMommyStyle.com for family-friendly wellness and business resources
Download the free Ultimate Time Audit to help you design calm, consistent routines
Listen to more Call Me CEO episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
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Camille: 0:00
Now, as you create a powerful morning routine, this will also help to change your mindset and in your way show up as a mother, a leader, and as a CEO of your life and your business. So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family, and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO. Welcome back, everyone, to Call Me CEO. This is your host, Camille Walker, and I am doing a solo episode today. If you are new here, I interview women who are building businesses as they are building their motherhood, their families, their dreams. It is the best ever. I've been doing this for over five years, and I too have built a business from home for the last 15 years. And one of the things that is a common thread with all of the people I interview, and then in turn coach, which I do that as well, one of the key factors is having a successful morning routine. This doesn't mean that success is the same for one person as it is for another. Success means that you start your morning in a way that feels productive to you. Now it's interesting to me to consider what a productive morning has looked like for me over the years because in the past 15 years, I've been raising four different kids. And there were mornings that I was up all through the night. And so a successful morning to me was getting out of bed and getting dressed and keeping babies alive. A successful morning for me now is getting kids out the door, but also having a routine where I take better care of my physical health in a way that I wasn't able to before. Not because I didn't care about myself or being physically healthy, but that it looks different. So as you're listening to this episode, take it with a grain of salt of what does that success look like for you? And what is the season that you are in that translates to success for a powerful morning routine? Now, as you create a powerful morning routine, this will also help to change your mindset and in your way show up as a mother, a leader, and as a CEO of your life and your business. Why mornings matter is because every day that we start out, the first hour sets the tone for what the day is going to look like. When mornings are rushed and reactive and chaotic, that can bleed into what the rest of the day looks like. This doesn't mean that you need to have everything perfectly lined up in a row, but it can mean that you have specific signature moves, I like to call them, that will give you success. So let's talk about even 10 minutes of your day looking like they start with intention, that can give you a sense of agency and grounded leadership. So step number one is to start with regulation. So before you start with email, before you start with social media, before coffee or that drink that you reach for, start with regulation. This could be three deep breaths. This could be a meditation or a prayer. This could be stepping outside for a little additional sunlight. There was actually a time I was doing a liver cleanse. I had developed an allergy to whey protein of all things. And this is a really strange thing that I went through, but I knew that I needed to get realigned with my gut health and everything else. And one of the number one things that she helped with realigning my gut health and my liver was to see morning sunlight first thing in the day. And I thought, this is so weird. Why would that even matter? But there was something about grounding my body first that really helped me to realign my system and create a better sense of calm. So if you're not able to touch grass first thing in the morning, maybe you get into the habit of welcoming the day by opening your window or using some red light therapy or even turning your face to a window. It doesn't have to be outside directly, but it always helps. The goal is to tell your body and your brain that you are safe and that you are in control. One thing that I've really loved that helps me to not reach for social media first thing is I will actually have an audio that I'll have that I like to turn to, and I will set the timer for say 10, 15 minutes, and it will be a gentle entry into the day where it's either a self-help book I'm listening to, or it could be a novel that I'm enjoying. I feel like it's a really calm and interesting way to welcome the day in. I don't do that every single day, but whatever the regulation is that kind of helps you realign, recenter, connect with yourself, connect with the higher power that you believe in, whatever that is that helps you to feel safe and aligned, start with that first. Number two is to move your body gently. It doesn't have to be intense. It could be a walk, a stretch, yoga, or light strength training. This is especially helpful for you if you're looking to build energy without overwhelm. Hey, my friends, just popping in here really quick to say if you are drowning in a to-do list but never actually getting anything done, I hear you. This is the time to take back control of your day. And I've created a product for you for free that will help you to do this. It's called the Ultimate Time Audit and Productivity System. It is a free resource to help you pinpoint exactly where your time is going and what you should be delegating. My coaching involves a lot of time spent with business owners who are losing time, valuable time on menial tasks that they could either delegate or create a system around, but first needing to understand how their time is being used. So imagine having more time for your family, your business, and yourself without the constant overwhelm. You can grab your free copy in the link below or at CamilleWalker.co and start working smarter, not harder. CamilleWalker.co is the website, but go ahead and grab that link below. And I would love to help you take back your time right now. So for me personally, I actually really love to start my day with movement. My first moving body gently that I do after I go to the bathroom is immediately putting on my gym clothes. That is not what my movement used to look like before. Before it was very much maybe getting steps in by going for my walk or preparing, whatever it is, I think the number two is to prepare for the movement and get the movement in because the way that you dress will change the movement that you do. So for me, before I even fix my hair, brush my hair, brush my teeth, anything like that, I will put my gym clothes on. And that has changed everything because my body knows, and now it's just habit, if I put my clothes into something that are going to involve movement later on, I am, I would say 90% more likely. Sure, there are times that come up where something happens where my day doesn't line up the way that I think it will with getting movement in first. However, if I'm dressed for movement, it's more likely to happen. Step number three is to align your priorities. Ask yourself, what is the one thing that will move your business forward today? Write it down. Even if you only touch that thing for 10 minutes, it is worth it. So many times I think we get this idea that we need to have a list of 50 things that we're going to get to that day or a priority of even 20. But if you can focus on one thing to move your business forward that day, it could be a phone call, it could be an email, it could be reaching out to a past client and just touching base, saying hello. It doesn't have to be a specific something, but identifying one thing that will move the needle forward is huge. There is a book that I love that I've used in group coaching before called The Four Disciplines of Execution. And it is all about how to identify that one thing that you need to do to move your needle forward. So if you are having a hard time figuring out what that might be, give me a call or email me because I love helping people to understand and identify what that one thing is. Knowing that it could be 15 minutes in the carpool lane, it could be something that you're working on first thing in the morning or later in the afternoon. Understanding what that thing is and where you can fit in those minutes is key to finding success in doing that thing. Step number four is to create a routine that fits your season. So we talked about this before that a healthy routine is not a Pinterest perfect 5 a.m. miracle morning. It's something you can repeat consistently. For some seasons, that's five minutes before the kids wake up. And for others, it's an hour of deep focus. And maybe you're at a point in your life that it's six hours. Maybe there's one day of the week where you can set aside a block of time that you can totally hone in. But for most people that I've talked to, it is typically 15 minutes to two hours a day where they dedicate time. Now, if you have kids that are in preschool or napping, a lot of times it centers around that. Or when you know that you have thoughts that can be your own without multiple interruptions. So I want you to think about two things. This is my challenge for you today. I want you to try a five-minute routine where you are going to breathe first, move, decide what that movement looks like for you, and choose one CEO priority. DM me on Instagram at camillewalker.co or I have another account at call me CEO Podcast and let me know what you tried. I want to cheer you on because listen, these small decisions help to move the needle forward, and that's where you will find lasting success. Success comes from consistency every time. Every interview I do, it's the person who kept going when things felt impossible. And I promise we all hit those walls and you are capable to push beyond them. So I hope that you have enjoyed this episode. If you have, make sure that you are subscribed. I would love to hear from you. You can email me at callmeceopodcast at gmail.com. And if you are looking for a coach that has been there and understands how to build business while raising a family, I would love to talk to you with a free discovery call. You can find that at CamilleWalker.co. Thank you so much. And I'll see you next time. Hey CEOs, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment in a five star review. You could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at CallMe CEO Podcast. And remember, you are the boss.
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