For the last 6 month I get up around 5 am. In general I have no problem getting up early. I used to get up at 7 am without alarm most of the days.
I must admit 5 am is a challenge for me. I need to use a lot of will power to get up from the bed that early. But once I’m up things start rolling.
I follow my super simple 20-30 minutes morning routine which is basically just washing my face with cold water, exercising for about 5 minutes, and making a tee. I have this routine for many year already. Now it simply happens at 5 am instead of 7 am.
Cold water and short exercise wake my body and brain up. Tee sets the stage for my 90 minutes writing session.
Making a shift to wake up at 5 am was hard. Then for some months it was easy. Now I see I’m back to hard times as winter approaches and it’s always dark outside that early.
It’s motivational and emotional ups and downs. Just like always in life.
But I have 2 key factors which I hope will move me through the dark time of the winter season just like they helped me in the beginning.
Compelling reason to wake up
Relying on motivation is a very slippery road. It’s better to rely on compelling reason.
This reason may be your desire to achieve one of your goals. Even better if your reason is based directly on your life vision.
Goals have an end point, relatively short end point. This means you’ll need to find another compelling reason once you achieve the goal. What if you don’t have one at that time? What if a new reason requires different attitude or location? Then you need to rebuild your existing system and habits. That’s a risk of braking them.
Having your reason based on life vision keeps it appealing for years if not decades.
Setting the stage the night before
Energy in the morning is an important factor. The main contributor to energy level in the morning is having enough of a sleep.
You’ve got to go to bed early enough to have a solid sleep at night. Scientists claim that on average people need 8 hours of sleep. Adjust this to your personal needs. Even same person may need different number of sleeping hours during different life seasons. When I was in my twenties, 6 hours was a great spot for me. Now in my fourties I really need 8 hours.
Be sure to add an extra half an hour. Sometimes you’ll need it as a time to get asleep. Sometimes as a buffer when you end up going to bed 10-20 minutes later. Life tends to make corrections to whatever schedule we make up for ourselves. When time to go to bed comes you may find yourself in a middle of a conversation, reading an exciting part of the book, wandering about interesting topic, etc.
Proper sleep time covers the need for the energy. Then you also need to clearly know how you’ll use this energy to contribute to your compelling reason.
You need to make sure that you can go strait to the work. For this you need to pick specific task and prepare tools the night before.
In my case of 90 minutes writing session, I have a task in Todoist (my todo app of choice) saying exactly what I should write or edit (an article, a newsletter, posts for social media). Sometimes it’s an admin task of scheduling my writings. What tools do I need? Only a charged laptop. So before going to bed I make sure that it’s plugged into charger.
Suppose your reason is being fit. Your “task” is something like workout or yoga. Then your task would include exact set of exercises or a video/audio guiding you through the session. And you’ll need your clothes and shoes ready waiting for you in exactly same place every morning.
That’s why and how I wake up at 5 am since beginning of spring. Please, don’t rush into changing your alarm to 5 am. I encourage you to be thoughtful and practical. When making significant changes in life you should clearly understand why you do this, have an idea how to do this, and be determined to a long journey. Once you cover these three items, now change your alarm 😉