It Took Me 13 Years to Finally Wake Up Early
This habit saved my life.
I talk a lot about building efficient and positive habits and routines.
Getting up early is the best habit I have built into my life, by far. Without it I would not be nearly as productive, happy, or fit (I do 90% of my exercising shortly after getting up).
I am sure a lot of you can’t relate to this yet, however that doesn’t mean it is not for you.
Like I mentioned, it took me 13 years to be able to wake up at 5 a.m. Over those years a lot of times I would do it for a day or two, then the next morning I would find a way to justify sleeping in when the alarm went off. Your mind is not the same when you first wake up, remember that.
The weekends always seemed to be the habit wreckers, two back to back days of breaking a habit or routine makes it very hard to recover from if it is new for you.
So about a year and a half ago, I finally found enough motivation to wake up at or around 5 a.m. seven days a week, for a few months. The first couple weeks of doing it, there was not a single day when the alarm went off where I was excited to get up. I just forced myself to do it anyways.
You might be wondering why you should care, or if this even applies to you. I have seen many articles discussing how waking up early isn’t for everyone, how it is a myth in regards to being more productive, etc.
Well, it is true that some people are naturally more productive later on in the day. But that doesn’t mean you should sleep in every chance you get. If you wake up 30–60 minutes earlier than you have to, it takes about five minutes to get going and then you can gain an extra 3.5–7 hours a week.
You should still get your healthy 6–8 hours of sleep, but think about what you could be doing after that instead of sleeping life away. So I believe that if you don’t think getting up a little earlier is “good for you”, then you haven’t been strong enough yet to try it for a few weeks or months (voluntarily).
As we can all see nowadays, life is going to change and be very challenging sometimes. Train yourself to be comfortable being uncomfortable, and you can handle curveballs life throws at you with much more ease. Challenging yourself to get up early for a few weeks is an excellent way to build tolerance to discomfort from any source.
Take care, stay strong, have fun!
