Waking early has been one of the best things I’ve done since I’ve changed my life. I thought I’d share my secret because if you had known me five or six years ago, you would have seen the ultra-snoozer in action. As always, my life of extremes was almost unbelievable… Ten snoozes on a work morning weren’t unusual… My partners hated me… BEEP BEEP BEEP *snooze* BEEP BEEP BEEP *snooze* endlessly until they were pissed off and I was late as hell… Once, on a day off, I distinctly remember hitting the snooze for two hours, resetting the alarm for 10:00 a.m. and then hitting the snooze until lunch... You heard that right, four total hours of hitting the snooze button... It was, and always will be a very good memory...In the past I have written about my morning routine, and thought you might like to know how I changed my internal clock and now get up at 5:15 a.m. every day with a smile…
As I said before, for many years, I was a late riser. I loved to sleep in. Even as a child my mom would have to rouse me several times until she would step in with her “discipline voice” and I would roll out of bed, groggy and confused… I spent the better part of my life getting up at the last calculated second in order to be where I was supposed to be… Commuting with a cup of coffee, tired, bleary and dazed…
Prior to the pandemic, in the middle of my glorious and quite unnecessary (Let’s talk about home workouts soon, mmkay?) return to the gym, I got a job with the county and I decided that I wasn’t going to forfeit my new found motivation and discipline because of a job. I started getting up at 4:30 every day and going to the gym, coming home to P90X3 and then shower, commute and work… This worked well for a few months and then March of 2020, the world closed… I didn’t know what to do so I started getting up a little later each day until I was rolling out of bed, putting on a t-shirt and a backwards baseball cap and sitting down in my underwear with what would turn into a pot of coffee working from home… Yeah, I said it, I have been to Team Meetings in underwear… I participated but you know, showing up anywhere in your underwear is showing up wildly unprepared and I am sure I reflected that… The only time it’s appropriate to show up in your skivvies is for sex and then you’re overdressed anyway… While I kept a “kinda, sorta” exercise routine and a “kinda, sorta” healthy diet, everything pretty much turned to shit for a few months… I’m not going to lie, there is a ton of vegan food out there in fast food land that will just make you feel fucking awful… Bean and Rice burritos with hella packets of Extreme Sauce from Taco Bell for instance… You know, five bucks can buy you almost 2000 calories for a single meal if you play your cards right, er, uh, wrong… Interestingly enough, Skittles are also vegan… So what I’m saying is I may have drawn a line in the sand, but it was far from any difficult goals… Just for you aspiring vegans, frozen cauliflower pizzas are so gross and if you eat enough of them, you will start to gag when you pass by them in the grocery store… I know that isn't about getting up early but listen, processed food is processed food is processed food… Its dogshit filled with flavor and chemicals and has a label slapped on it that says “VEGAN!” like that’s supposed to be healthy… Like I said, Skittles are vegan, but far away from anything related to healthy… That's some free information for today... No charge...
Sorry, I wandered away there for a second… And now, back to the show…
So, after degrading like a vegetable left out in the sun for a few months, I decided to stop being stupid and find a way to get back to some actual self-creation and I decided to set out to make waking up early a habit again. I started by getting up at 7:00 a.m. Then 6:30 a.m. and then 6:00a.m. and then 5:30 a.m. over a period of a couple of weeks. Yes, I floundered, yes, I failed, overslept, still groggy as hell but then something happened… I fell asleep exhausted one night at 9:00 p.m. and I woke up at like 4:15 ready to workout… I know, I know, old people fall asleep at nine and get up at 4:15 but hear me out… After consideration and a lot of begrudging acceptance, I came to the conclusion that all I was doing with my late evenings was sitting in a chair watching television and since these were pre-alcohol and drug recovery days, what I was really doing was getting hammered and passing out at midnight… My point is, I wasn’t doing dick after 8:00 except being stubborn and stupid… So I started going to bed early and guess what happened? Yeah, I adjusted quickly…
When waking up at 5:30 a.m. became a habit, then 5:15 a.m. wasn’t a problem. And last month, when I initiated the 90 Day Life Change Challenge I decided to get up at 5:15 a.m. to exercise, meditate and have a relaxing shower and a stress free commute on days I work in the office and pants on my lower extremities when I work from home… . Now, when I complete my 90 Day goal, I will have an established routine to wake early…
Here are my tips for becoming an early riser:
• Don’t make drastic changes. Really, don’t leap from 0745 to 0500 because you will fail… Start slowly, by waking just 15-30 minutes earlier than usual. Get used to this for a few days. Then cut back another 15 minutes. Do this gradually until you get to your goal time. If it takes weeks to make your goal comfortably, then it takes weeks. What’s the rush? Did realization of your laziness startle you? Relax, you have time…
• Allow yourself to sleep earlier. You might be used to staying up late, perhaps watching TV or surfing the Internet. But if you continue this habit, while trying to get up earlier, sooner or later one is going to give. And if it is the early rising that gives, then you will crash and sleep late and have to start over. I suggest going to bed earlier, even if you don’t think you’ll sleep, and read while in bed. If you’re really tired, you just might fall asleep much sooner than you think. I know, you might be thinking that you used to just be getting started at the time you are now going to bed… Remembering the days when a 10:00 p.m. shower and plans for “The Club” were exciting… Well, you used to also shit in your pants when you were younger and you outgrew that… Take your memories at face value, enjoy them and just accept that the stupid times are over and you have shit to do in the mornings now that don’t involve hangovers and vague recollections…
• Put your alarm clock far from you bed. If its right next to your bed, you’ll shut it off or hit snooze. Never hit snooze. If it’s far from your bed, you have to get up out of bed to shut it off. By then, you’re up and you just have to stay up. Now that’s the experts’ advice… Here is my personal experience… I hit the snooze one time now. That startling wake up and single snooze is a way that I adjust from a dead sleep to waking. I rarely fall back asleep but it is so comforting to lie there for nine minutes in the warm bed while my systems slowly come online and by the time the alarm goes off again, I’m ready to roll…
• Go up as soon as you shut off the alarm. Don’t allow yourself to rationalize going back to bed. Just force yourself to get out of the bed. My habit is to stumble into the bathroom and go pee and then IMMEDIATELY make my bed. By the time I’ve done that,, I’m fully awake and ready to face my exercise challenges. I know many of you will balk at the “make your bed” rationalization but listen to this motivational speech and you will know why I do it…
• Do not rationalize. If you allow your brain to talk you out of getting up early, you’ll never do it. Don’t make getting back in bed an option. Here is where developing a habit to make your bed will come in very handy…
• If you must, allow yourself to sleep in once in awhile. Despite what I just said in the previous point, once in awhile it’s nice to sleep in. As long as it’s not a regular thing. I don’t like to do it, because it fucks my whole day up. Once you get a rhythm and establish a habit, you won’t need to unless you’re sick or had to stay up late but try to sleep the same amount of time every day so you don’t throw yourself completely out of your sleep cycle…
• Make waking up early a reward. Yes, it might seem at first that you’re forcing yourself to do something hard, but if you reframe your thinking to make it pleasurable, soon you will look forward to waking up early. My reward used to be to make a hot cup of coffee, exercise and meditation in a quiet house. I’ve recently changed my coffee to after I exercise so I can have it on my commute, but I still enjoy the stillness of the earth and a quiet house. The silence is so soothing and watching the sun come up every day while I am exercising is motivation because it reminds me that I have become disciplined and I am in charge of my life. As much as you can, open a curtain or blind and look outside and watch the sky turn light. It’s beautiful. And it’s quiet and peaceful. It’s now my favorite time of day. Getting up early is a reward in itself for me.
• Find something that’s pleasurable for you, and allow yourself to integrate it as a pleasurable part of your morning routine. I hear so many people who say that they hate mornings but I don’t think they have ever awakened rested and watched the birth of a new day.
• Take advantage of all that extra time. Don’t wake up an hour or two early just to surf Facebook. In fact, only use your phone sparingly. Think of it this way, you weren’t checking your social media at 0530 before you started waking up so why the hell would you waste time to see if someone liked your post about some nonsense last night? Your email will be there after your routine, so will your messages… Don’t wake up early and waste that extra time. Get a jump start on your day! I like to use that time for exercise and meditation and then for me to relax and plan for the rest of my day. By the time 0730 rolls around, I am showered, ready for work and I’ve gotten more done than many people do the entire day.
Waking up earlier is a necessity if you want to succeed… Fuck even Ben Franklin knew that… “Early to bed, early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy and wise… Of course old Ben didn’t have electricity, Facebook, or Netflix but he did have the right idea and guessing Mrs. Franklin kept him up late once in a while...
Love ya, mean it with all my heart…
The 90 Day Life Change Challenge update… All systems go… After work, all I have is my guitar practice… What was difficult has now become a routine… Up, exercise, meditate, write, shower, work, guitar… Pretty easy once the dust has settled and the pain has subsided… Hard to believe that I am coming up on the halfway point and will be headed downhill from there… 45 days is long time to stay focused on such a monumental task but the longer I go, the more dedicated I become…
Get started… You won’t regret a thing… I Promise…
No comments:
Post a Comment