Morning Motivation: Quotes to Start Your Day

For a fresh start

Every morning is a small reset. Yesterday's mess is still there, but you get to meet it with a night's sleep behind you.

They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:23, World English Bible

The "they" is the Lord's mercies, from the verse just before. Written in the middle of a book of grief, which makes it hit harder: this isn't a line from someone having an easy time.

Every morning I awake to find my field of vision growing larger.
Rabindranath Tagore, Glimpses of Bengal

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

For getting going

For the mornings when the bed is winning.

Just start. Start slow if you have to. Start small if you have to. Start privately if you have to. Just start.
James Clear, 3-2-1 Newsletter

If you do one thing each day, you'll reach your goal.
Leo Babauta, Zen Habits

Do one thing per day that compounds.
James Clear, 3-2-1 Newsletter

A good question to ask over coffee. Most of what fills a day doesn't add up to anything. One thing that does, like a page written, a walk, or a phone call to someone you love, is enough.

Pastime, like wine, is poison in the morning.
Thomas Fuller

Fuller lived a few centuries before anyone reached for a phone in bed. He'd have had thoughts about the morning scroll.

For the early risers, and the rest of us

I get up at five o’clock in the morning; evidently when I am old I shall get up at four.
Anton Chekhov, Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends

If you aren't a five o'clock person, take heart. The research on chronotypes is fairly clear that some people are wired to be later, and forcing an early start on a night owl mostly produces a tired night owl. Morning motivation doesn't have to happen at dawn. It happens at the start of your day.

Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

The first minute of action is worth more than a year of perfect planning.
James Clear, 3-2-1 Newsletter

For a morning prayer

For readers whose morning starts with faith.

LORD, in the morning you shall hear my voice. In the morning I will lay my requests before you.
Psalm 5:3, World English Bible

LORD, be gracious to us. We have waited for you. Be our strength every morning.
Isaiah 33:2, World English Bible

It is a good thing to proclaim your loving kindness in the morning, and your faithfulness every night.
Psalm 92:1-2, World English Bible

Making room for it in the morning

A quote only helps if you actually see it before the day takes over. A few small changes make that far more likely:

Read something before you open anything. Email, news and messages all hand your morning to other people's priorities. Give yourself two minutes first.
Charge your phone outside the bedroom, or at least out of reach. If it's the first thing your hand finds, it's the first thing you'll read.
Get some daylight early. Morning light helps set your body clock, which tends to make the next morning easier too.
Keep one line where you'll see it. The bathroom mirror, the fridge, the kettle. Or your Lock Screen, which you'll look at within a minute of waking whether you mean to or not.

That last one is the job Dailies was built for. It puts a quote on your Lock Screen and Home Screen that changes through the day, drawn from topics you choose, so the first thing you read in the morning is something you picked, not something the news picked for you. If you're working on a proper morning routine, how to stay motivated when the excitement wears off covers the part that comes after the first week.

Questions

What is a good morning motivational quote?

James Clear's "Just start. Start slow if you have to. Start small if you have to. Start privately if you have to. Just start." works well on a slow morning. For something gentler, Rabindranath Tagore's "The day comes to us every morning, naked and white, fresh as a flower" is a lovely way to begin.

How do I get motivated in the morning?

Keep the first step tiny and decided the night before, read something good before you open email or the news, and get some daylight early. Motivation often arrives a few minutes after you start moving, not before.

What should I read first thing in the morning?

Something you chose, rather than something an algorithm chose for you. A quote, a page of a book, a short prayer or a line from your own journal all work. The point is to start the day with your own priorities before other people's arrive.

Is it better to be a morning person?

Not necessarily. People have different natural rhythms, called chronotypes, and night owls forced into early starts are often just tired. What matters is having a good start to your own day, whenever it begins.

Morning motivation: quotes to start your day