How Fitness Helps Author and Editor Meaghan Murphy Lead a High-Energy Life

I am happiest when I'm awake before my kids and the rest of the world. It's when no one is emailing me, no one is texting me — the morning is my own, and it's when I feel fully charged. In the same respect, I need to work out. Exercise is my magic. It's my medicine that I need to take to function, even if that means heading out to a class at 5:15 a.m., sitting in my gym clothes until three o'clock when I'm finally able to go out for a run, or squeezing in a Peloton workout between Zoom calls and not showering until later in the evening. I call it "cheating the day."

I'm not loyal to any one workout, either. Pre-pandemic, I'd power through an SLT class one day, and an Orangetheory or a hot barre class the next. But no matter how many classes I've taken, there's always this moment in the middle of a workout when I think I just can't go on. To muscle through it, I tell myself that 'I'm a person who does hard things, so I can do hard things in the gym and in life.' It also helps that I draw energy from those around me. If the person next to me in a dance class is killing it, I want to kill it too.

Along with a workout, my daily gratitude practice is a non-negotiable. Every day, I actively say aloud the things that made me say "yay" today, which is something I find joy in or actively pause and think, "That's pretty awesome." I keep record of them all on a "yay list" on I have on Instagram because I wholeheartedly believe that having an attitude of gratitude is mandatory for happiness — you cannot be happy if you do not have a grateful heart in some way, shape, or form. (

The key to this upbeat energy is staying flexible with your plans. My workout of the day might look a little different, depending on the circumstances of my life, but I make an effort to see it through in some capacity.

That's the beauty of the principles listed in my new book Your Fully Charged Life (Buy It, $19, amazon.com) — if you have a tool kit, even when life throws you curve balls, you can adjust.