Summary
In this episode Sasha brings back a favorite recurring guest on the show, her husband, Robbie, as they talk about rising with intention.
Robbie is a natural ‘morning person’, drilling in over a decade of military experience, his intentional actions and habits have created a powerful morning routine that we can all learn from. But, don’t let that scare you away… even Sasha, the ‘sleep marathon’ ‘night owl’ has been able to adopt many of his practical and tactical habits and routines to create a very impactful and intentional way to being her days.
Listen in to learn ways to set your future self up for success and establish your own routine to rise with intention every day.
Transcription
Sasha Star Robertson 0:02
Hey, hey sisters, and welcome back to another episode of the Intentional Abundant Life podcast. I’m your host Sasha Star Robertson and I know last month I joked about kicking my husband Robbie off of the podcast. And if you’re following along, you know that he actually wasn’t on his scheduled week last week. Funny story. We had it scheduled to record at a certain time during that time one day and the mapper decided he was not napping. Yay. The joys of parenting a toddler. But I wanted to give you some confidence and assurance that I’ve not kicked him off. He is here with us today. And we are talking about rising with intention. I shared recently on my social media, how my husband is the intentional abundance Father, to my intentional abundant motherhood, and I’ve learned so much from him and he’s got, you know, decades of experience in this intentional living. And so today we’re bringing to you how to rise with intention on the daily.
Sasha Star Robertson 2:04
Jingle
Sasha Star Robertson 2:17
All right, so here we are. Welcome back, Robbie.
Robbie Robertson 2:20
Hey, Sasha. Hello, everybody. How are y’all doing today? Oh, that’s really good to hear. I’ve been watching too much toddler TV.
Sasha Star Robertson 2:28
Too much Blippi. Ask questions and talkback,
Robbie Robertson 2:32
Can you spell my name? Great job!
Sasha Star Robertson 2:34
Okay, so we’re talking about rising with intention. And I’m super excited about this because I know you have so much to add to this conversation. And so it started out because we’re kind of entering into the season where, on the podcast, where we’re talking about scheduling and how to live with intention, like practical and tactical steps of how to live this productively peaceful, intentionally abundant life. And Robbie comes from a military family, military background, we actually met when he was on active duty in the Air Force. And I think some of it was kind of I don’t want to say beaten but drilled into you right, by your drill sergeants. Basic. Conditioned. Yeah, right. I think it’s like the only place where like, I don’t know, brainwashing and like manipulation and stuff like that is like, you get promotions for that kind of behavoir.
Robbie Robertson 3:39
They just cause you to think in a certain way. And that way is rewarded, the better you think that way. And for one thing, it’s pretty effective because it can lead to healthier lifestyles. And it also leads to us being the most dominant country in the entire world. I’m not going to get on that particular soapbox right now. Let’s just say that we’re the top dog and it starts with the mindset. A warrior’s most powerful weapon is his mind.
Sasha Star Robertson 4:13
Yeah. And I think it’s a mindset that, like I’m talking about, it’s almost like drilled into you, but at the same time it’s been really rewarding to see. And I’ll tell you, I was like the most unintentional, like lacking mindset, lacking self-control, like deranged, almost wild person when I met you, and I think that was one of the reasons you were attracted to me hahaha so I don’t know if deranged…
Robbie Robertson 4:41
You were feral in the morning I’ll be honest.
Sasha Star Robertson 4:44
And I’ve learned so much from Robbie. So I pointed out to him a few things that I just really love and admire about his lifestyle and things that he’s just naturally done that I’ve observed and then picked up on and now do. And so take it away, tell us how do you rise with intention?
Robbie Robertson 5:05
Well, first off, I love that term you used practical and tactical I’m going to definitely adopt that and utilize that into my everyday verbiage because that’s, it’s awesome. I mean it rhymes but it also is very, it’s very appropriate for how you’re supposed to address the morning so I for one, I’m a morning person,
Sasha Star Robertson 5:26
Can I interrupt you there because we’ve just changed the title to the episode? It’s practical and tactical ways to rise with intention.
Robbie Robertson 5:33
Practical and tactical ways to rise with intention. Fabulous, fantastic.
Sasha Star Robertson 5:37
So, you’re a morning person.
Robbie Robertson 5:38
I’m a morning person.
Sasha Star Robertson 5:39
I wasn’t.
Robbie Robertson 5:40
You were not, No, you’ve actually adopted the mornings. I feel like Bane. You’ve only just come to know the morning. I was born to it. My grandmother was also a morning person, and that was something that she and I shared. This is a little bit of backstory, but we had a routine in the morning. And I think that is going to be the core of what I’m going to say here is establishing a good morning routine. This happened for me back in high school. Now my mother, bless her soul, is anything but a morning person. She will rise joyfully at the crack of noon. That is, anytime before eight o’clock doesn’t really exist for her, and I don’t think it ever has. But my grandmother and I, different story.
Robbie Robertson 6:23
So she would rise around 4:30 or 5 o’clock in the morning and she would wait for the newspaper to hit the front door. She would read Harlequin novels which I did not realize were softcore pornography until I was much older. It’s true. She would just read those in her chair, drinking a cup of coffee as I would rise, I would go take my shower, get myself, you know teeth brushed and everything, come downstairs, make a bowl of cereal, I’d collect the paper, she would read her section, I would read my section, which was almost always the comics. And we would have the channel 10 news on very low in the morning and it would play. And that was just how our morning started and we both would be out the door. We would be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready for the day because we had peace, we had quiet, and we had time for ourselves to get our mindset where it needed to be in order to start the day. And there was no such thing as a Monday syndrome with us.
Robbie Robertson 7:21
Now after getting into the military, like Sasha had said this really drilled down a lot of things like, there are deliverables that you need to achieve and you need to achieve them right away. Days start quickly and they start efficiently because you don’t have a lot of time, especially in training. Training is very, very deliberate and every minute of your day is calculated. When they are only issuing you four to eight minutes at a time to eat, three times a day, you really understand the complexity of just what time scarcity looks like.
Robbie Robertson 7:53
So after I’d gotten out of training and into my normal routine of being in the operation Air Force, I began to adopt a lot of healthy habits, amongst all the unhealthy ones, where I recognized from the night before that I had a fully awake, alert mind that was able and capable to figure out what I wanted to do the next day, what I want to be prepared for. So I would lay my clothes out, I would lay my lunch out, I would put my keys, my wallet, all of my necessary items, my pocket items, if you will, they were in a very deliberate place, and when I went to bed at night, I went to bed with a peace of knowing that I didn’t need to worry about what was happening the next morning.
Robbie Robertson 8:38
And what that did is it created a space where my groggy brain didn’t have to worry about something I’d miss or forget. It also built in a measure of grace for, I missed the alarm, or hit the snooze button too many times. If I did end up putting myself in a lag measure, I wasn’t chasing the morning. I was just soaking up that grace right away. And I was able to get out the door. And to our lives that we have now outside of the military, I still like to do this, and I really appreciate that you have opted into this too because now you and I, as a couple, get this intentional time in our mornings, waking up 4:30 – which is an ungodly time of day – to state our intentions for the day to each other, which is a great way to rise and get your mindset right. And then we also pray together, which couple that prays together stays together.
Robbie Robertson 9:35
It shows us that we are on each other’s heart and that we don’t want to take the day that we have for granted. And when you really kind of grab the day early like that with a good mindset, you find that you have a much longer day to work with. And you don’t find yourself running quite as out of time as you used to. Beautiful days can be taken advantage of. And not so great days. You can find time for cozying up on the couch because you were intentional right at the beginning..
Sasha Star Robertson 10:10
Yeah, I love that. I know some of you might be thinking like I was, you know, over a decade ago at the very beginning of all this. Yeah. But Robbie, you even said you’re a morning person. I’m not right? We talked about this. Like, I am the exception a couple of weeks ago on the podcast. You’re a morning person. I’m not. You have had these kinds of habits almost ingrained. They’re like natural giftings of yours since childhood that were enforced by the military, that, of course, they’ve come into your life now just so naturally. And so for any of you who may be thinking that, yeah, but it’s not going to work for me. I want to encourage you back at the beginning of the episode, how much, you know, my husband said I was quite feral in the mornings.
Sasha Star Robertson 10:55
I, like growing up, my mom and dad can slip through a freight train. When you when we were stationed in England, somebody bought me this little plaque that I still have in our bedroom that says marathon sleeper because if there’s anything that I could do, and probably get an award for, it would be sleeping because I can sleep in. I can sleep through a lot of stuff sometimes, like, early stages of motherhood definitely caused me to have a lot more broken sleep. But the college that I went to, the university, our mascot was the night owls, I am not by textbook definition, a morning person. In fact, Robbie used to make me coffee every morning when I would get up, or whatever, he would always make me a cup of coffee, whether it was a coffee pot, he would pour it for me, or when we had the Keurig he would like make me my coffee. And I always thought it was this like act of love…
Robbie Robertson 11:53
It is.
Sasha Star Robertson 11:56
…until I did this program and sort of drinking these, you know, vitamin water type drinks with caffeine that would wake me up and kind of broke this coffee addiction where I would meet like four or five cups of coffee a day. And that’s when Robbie revealed to me that yeah, he didn’t make me coffee in the morning because he loved me. He made it because he was scared of me before my first cup of coffee. And it’s like whoa, I’ve got problems. You know that was like my glaring takeaway from that. So all that to say, I do not naturally, in my own skills and giftings, carry these traits in these you know intentional acts right it’s something that I have over the years like picked up on and learned and seen the massive amount of like fruits and benefits in my life on account of these switches and these shifts.
Sasha Star Robertson 12:49
And so I just want to encourage you that no matter how far off the mark you are, some of these things can be really, really helpful not just for you but also you know, in thinking about your kids and, and other things like that.
Sasha Star Robertson 13:03
So some of the things that Robbie pointed out were, you know, the night before he will set out his clothes for the next day. I have picked up on this. I have started doing this. Whatever I’m going to wear the next day, whether I have to get up for coaching calls or an appointment somewhere else or I’m just getting up to hang out with my son, I always know exactly what I’m going to be putting on the moment I roll out of bed. They’re either on a little hook in my room or they’re on the countertop in the bathroom and that’s dependent on you know where I’m going to be getting dressed because some days Robbie’s home and he’s sleeping, and I don’t want to flip on lights. I used to.
Sasha Star Robertson 13:46
I used to be so inconsiderate that I would wake up and just turn on the light and look for something and then make all kinds of noise and turn the light off and walk out. And it’s like, Man, I cannot even believe I was so obtuse and I’m sorry for all of those days that I did that. But if he’s still sleeping, of course, I’m going to put my clothes in the bathroom, where I’m gonna go be able to turn on the light without disturbing him, get dressed, and then begin my day.
Sasha Star Robertson 14:11
Another thing he talked about is, you know, sometimes we’ll prep the coffee pot, so all you have to do is turn it on, or we’ll make sure the Keurig is ready and the timer is set to go off.
Robbie Robertson 14:21
That is the best!
Sasha Star Robertson 14:23
Or recently I’ve been making cold brew. And so it’s just you literally just have to like pour the cold brew. And so these really simple steps that you can do before you go to bed, making sure everything is ready for you. And then here’s another thing, he talked about making sure I think your keys and you know what you’re taking for lunch the next day on your lunch pail is right there like ready for your lunch to go inside. For me, I’m a stay-at-home mom, I work from home, I do go down to another external building on our property to work but I make sure my keys are out of my purse sitting right there with my iPad that I know I’m going to need, you know, to take notes and serve my clients. And, you know, if I’m doing Bible study meetings down there, I’m going to make sure that I have the book or the Bible study or my Bible all right there by the door ready to go. And all of these things, just taking a few moments beforehand to set yourself up for success can be so empowering for you and the rest of your day.
Sasha Star Robertson 15:26
You talked about you know some of the things we do together as a couple in getting our day started and so we do this four days a week on Robbie’s work days. We get up – I didn’t realize it was so similar of a time to your grandmother – between 4:30 and five o’clock and like he gets ready for his day, I’ll you know make or strain the coffee or you know, get myself dressed or whatever else. And one of the first things that we do is sit down together to pray and state our intentions.
Sasha Star Robertson 15:56
So I talked about this in the episode that just came out prior to this about four ways that you can really set your day up for success and prioritize your day. And stating those intentions and praying over your days were two of those. So go back to that episode and listen to the rest because those are really really powerful things too. But kind of bringing this back is like what can you do now to set your future self up for success, whether that’s the you later today, the you in the morning, or the you next week, and then when you get to that space, trusting your past self knew what they were doing. And then just sticking to the plan.
Robbie Robertson 16:46
Sticking to that plan is, it can be challenging, there is great fruit to be had from trusting your former self, your yesterday self, and taking care of your tomorrow self. The way that I had kind of equated this, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, is: Think of yourself as a princess. And I’ll let you fantasize about that for a couple of seconds and the tiara and beautiful dresses and whatever else, maybe turning stuff to ice with your hands if you’re that kind of Princess. I don’t know if they exist, I’m just saying they’re out there. Imagine what princesses get in the morning. They get somebody that is a servant that helps them. If you’ve ever seen Downton Abbey you kind of have the idea of this. There’s somebody to help you get dressed. There’s somebody that hands you a cup of coffee, hands you your newspaper, somebody that gives you all of the things that you need. You have a servant of some sort that is taking care of all of these brain power things for you.
Robbie Robertson 17:46
Now realize that you are an everyday lady, you don’t have the luxury of a servant unless you are the servant that serves yourself. So make the night version of you the very best servant that the morning version of you could ever hope to want. And when you wake up in the morning, show that night servant deep gratitude and appreciation. Thank her for what she has done for you, and that will be a lot easier for you to kind of keep this going as an everyday thing. You don’t have to do all the things in one day, you don’t even have to do the things that we’re suggesting. Whatever works for you is what’s going to work for you, but take care of your own princess.
Robbie Robertson 18:31
Another thing, you might be thinking to yourself, just kind of like Sasha had mentioned earlier, Well, I’m the exception. Well, yeah, I’m really not a morning person or there’s, there’s really no benefit to me waking up in the morning, I really don’t have anything to like wake up in the morning necessarily for. If you let those mindsets kind of rule your life, then you’re absolutely right. You’re never gonna wake up in the morning and you’re always going to find yourself chasing later on in the day. The best tool that you can find, the best weapon that you have, is accountability. If you have somebody that you can share this time with, a spouse, a sibling, a Bible study, a zoom call, where you’re going to be meeting with other people, something that rouses you, and keeps you accountable, somebody that you’re going to disappoint if your presence isn’t there. That’s going to make it 1000 times easier to adopt this as your new habit and your way of life.
Robbie Robertson 19:30
I noticed that recently l had shifted my work schedule going from my day shift to working on the swing shift. I worked on swings for six months, I was going to work at four in the afternoon. I was getting home just after three O’Clock in the morning and getting asleep. And in that time, Sasha’s time of waking up at 4:30 and having intentional time and doing the things that she did, taking care of Princess Sasha with cups of coffee and baths and things that help her get herself to where she wants to be first thing in the morning, those started kind of falling to the wayside and I felt partially responsible for that because I’ve heard accountability. I’m her accountabilibuddy. Thank you, Robbie Burns, a guy I used to work with. That’s his quoted term.
Robbie Robertson 20:23
Without that accountability person there, it’s a lot easier for us to give ourselves unnecessary grace. It’s a lot easier for us to give ourselves the pass. I’ll just sleep in today. I just won’t get up this time. And then today turns into today, tomorrow, and then today, tomorrow turns into next week. And next thing you know, you’ve completely shattered this habit, because you’ve just been doing what feels good at that exact moment. So the best tool you could find to start is to find somebody to start with. And there’s a saying that misery shared his misery halved and joy shared is joy doubled. So when you have somebody else to do this with, the best parts of it are even better. And the worst part of it, you hardly even notice them.
Sasha Star Robertson 21:13
Right. When you were talking, I was just thinking about that quote, you know, you are the culmination of the five people that you hang out with most. And that was just really glaring to me because I think about this and that accountabilibuddy, that person that you are willing to bring into that space of helping you be your best and most intentional self, whether that’s somebody that you’re meeting with in the mornings via zoom, whether it’s your spouse, whether it’s a friend or a sibling, whether it’s a coach that you hire, you know, to come into that community with you and bring it into a text chat or whatever else. Like, make sure it’s somebody that you admire somebody that maybe even like, is it is a step or two ahead of you in this area. Make sure it’s somebody that is going to help rise you to your better and best self and somebody that is really going to be a very powerful presence in your life as one of those five.
Sasha Star Robertson 22:20
Well, I think that’s all we have for you all today. I thank you so much for taking the time to listen in on this. I hope that you have some very tactical and practical examples and inspiration for moving forward with rising with intention. God bless.
More about your Podcast Host
Sasha Star Robertson is an Intentional Living & Biblical Mindset Coach for busy Christian moms, wife of 13 years to her best friend, boy mom (blessed by adoption), travel addict, and Jesus freak. She is the founder of The Intentional Abundance Co., curator of the Life & Goals Planner, & host of the Intentional Abundant Life Podcast.
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