Many people believe that becoming a morning person is just not worth it, and that’s because they’re unaware of what they could get out of being a morning person. If they understood what they truly wanted out of life and if they understood that being a morning person would get them closer to what they truly wanted, then they’d quickly become morning people. But because they’re unaware of what they want or what the benefits are of waking up early, they’d rather hit the snooze button and remain asleep and comfortable. Here’s why you should become a morning person.
1. You Build Daily Momentum
Before I was a morning person I would hit the snooze button several times and then when I finally awoke to start my day the first few hours of my day would be frantic, anxious, and stressed because I felt like I was playing catch-up. By starting your day early you can wake up fully, get a few tasks accomplished, and you can purposefully plan exactly how you want your day to go. By doing this you become more confident, relaxed, at ease, and you’re able to be an effective decision maker and leader.
2. Allows You to Dedicate Time Everyday to Your Important Personal Tasks
Many people, I’d say nearly all people, have some kind of activity, project, or endeavor that they can never find time for but wish they did have time for. This was certainly true for myself. Some daily and weekly habits that I wish I was engaging in but wasn’t included reading, writing, meditating, exercising, cooking solid meals, and planning for my future. By waking up early, like at 4 AM, I now have a few hours to do all of those things. By waking up early you enable yourself to actually do those daily habits you wish you engaged in. It’s about making a commitment to yourself and finding and making time for what’s important to you.
3. You’re Empowered to Make the Most of Each Day
Like I mentioned earlier, I used to wake up late and be rushing frantically to catch up with the day. By living like that I wasn’t enjoying my day, I felt guilty and ashamed, I felt very neurotic and not at all present to the moment. By waking up early you give yourself time to wake up and become present. You give yourself time to feel gratitude and this enables you to go through the rest of your day fully awake, grounded, with mental clarity, and with the mental resourcefulness to make the most of your day. Sleeping in and delaying your responsibilities is the opposite of living fully.
4. Enables You to Minimize Distractions
During the day everyone else in your personal and work life is also awake, so you’ll likely be receiving many phone calls, text messages, and social media notifications. Waking up early gives you a safe and sacred space where you can be in peace and quiet with no distractions.
5. Your Evenings Can Be Spent Relaxed
By waking up early and prioritizing the tasks that are important to you, you’ve now knocked out your personal to-do list essentially. My work day starts at 8 AM and ends at 4 PM every weekday, so by starting my day at 4 AM my evenings can be spent relaxed and carefree with friends and family. I can engage in leisure and relaxation guilt-free.
Putting It Into Action
Becoming a morning person will never happen overnight, although through sheer willpower you could wake yourself up early. Turning it into a routine, though, requires that you practice waking up early for at least 21 days straight, after that it will come much more naturally to you.
The two most important things in my opinion to becoming a morning person are: 1.) going to sleep early and on time. You will never wake up at 4 AM naturally if you are always going to sleep at 11 PM. It also massively helps to spend the hour before you go to sleep just winding down, relaxing, meditating; and 2.) utilizing some tools that make sure you do actually get out of bed on time. This could mean placing your alarm clock across the room, buying an alarm clock that requires you to stand up, mental practices where you stop yourself from thinking – because you will rationalize why you should stay in bed – and instead leap from your bed and take action.
Success in the realm of becoming a morning person as well as success in every other realm doesn’t happen all at once or in one fell swoop. Success is created through a quiet and small daily commitment that you practice over and over and over again.