Getting up early is not something that usually brings a smile to people’s faces. Even if it is for something exciting like getting on a plane to Disneyworld. Most people will get up for something like that but they probably won’t be happy about it.

So how do people get up early every day, like it, and still make it through the rest of their day and week?!

If, you had asked me a year ago if that was even possible I would have told you absolutely not. If you told me I’d be getting up at 4am and still crushing my day, I would have laughed in your face.
But today I get up at 4am and still have the most amazing days.
It certainly wasn’t always what I would consider easy and I had a few missteps before it became super easy.

Here’s how I did it –

1. Decide Before

First before anything else you have to decide this is what you are going to do. This may seem obvious but I think often times we softly decide and don’t really know if we are going to do something. We use phrases like maybe I’ll start getting up early and then it becomes time to set your alarm and your like oh heck no.

So when I say decide I mean you have to decide before you set your alarm the night before and it has to be a firm decision. No maybe or I might, I am going to get up at 4am. Or whatever time you are setting.

I would give yourself time to get used to the thought. I decided a week in advance which day I was going to start getting up early. This gave me time to get used to it and work through all the crazy objections I could come up with. Because you will come up with all these reasons not to and if you give yourself time to work through them then you won’t be trying to argue with yourself when you go to set the alarm.

2. Commit

I didn’t leave myself an out. This is what I was going to do for at least six months.
We tend to say we will see how something feels or see if it is for us but we don’t ever give ourselves enough time to really experience it.

I did not expect waking up at 4am to feel great. I knew the first week or more would be tough. It takes your body time to adjust to something new.

I am also someone that could never pull an all nightery. I could not go with minimal amounts of sleep, so props to all of you out there that function on like four hours of sleep.

I couldn’t do it, I would get physically ill. Like really sick. So I knew this was going to be something my body fought. I was going to have to work through is and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

But, since I had committed to six months of this it was what I was going to do.

The first week started okay but by Thursday my body was sooooo angry. I was sick all-day Thursday and Friday. Head pounding, nauseous, sneezing.

Weird side note I start sneezing when I get tired.

It was awful, but I stuck with it because I committed and by the end of week 2 my body started adjusting. Now I don’t have those issues.

3. Know why

I would not have been likely to be successful at getting up early if I wasn’t very clear on why I was doing it.

There is the surface reason your doing it, get more done, get to school or work on time, work out in the morning. Whatever it is for you.

But, what is the deeper reason. What are you ultimately trying to accomplish?
When you look at yourself in a year or five years what is it the result that you received by getting up early.

For me it was building my dream life.

I could so clearly picture it and when I started to lose motivation I could rely on that to keep me going. It was a why I really wanted and was important enough to me that it was worth anything else that I was experiencing.

Find what that is for you and put it where you can see it. I have a room in my house that is my space. I got a poster board and wrote out my why and hung it in the room.

As soon as I went into that room in the morning it was staring in my face. You could put it in your bedroom, save it as the background on your screen, on your bathroom door, a post note on your mirror, a note on your coffee pot. Wherever you will see it when you get up that will remind you why you are there and why it is worth it.

4. Thought management

I consistently get up at 4am in the morning. Some mornings my alarm goes off and I pop open my eyes jump out of bed and am onto my tasks.

Other mornings my alarm goes off and my mind immediately goes to, just sleep another hour, I hate you for putting on your alarm, why doe we do this, I don’t wanna.

My mind is flooded with all of these thoughts. BUT, I am prepared for them. The why helps but so doesn’t knowing that these thoughts are going to happen. When they do you have to be prepared to combat them.

Your immediate thoughts are not stronger than you. When all of these thoughts come up I just add that’s okay I am going to do it anyways to it. So, when I immediately think I don’t want to get up right now. I answer back I don’t want to get up right now but that’s okay I am going to do it anyways.

There is no magically way to make you love getting up every morning. There are going to be mornings you really don’t want to. Those mornings may even be every morning for you. Just be ready for them because your subliminal brain does not get to decide your life for you. You have that power.

5. ease into it

I didn’t immediately jump to 4am. I was regularly getting up at 6am before. I started with 5:30 for a week, then 5am for a few days, then 4:30am for a day and then I was like screw it I’m just going for 4.

Now you may have to do this at a slower pace. And that is okay. It is important to understand where you are at and meeting yourself there. You want to do what you 100% are able to.

So if you normally get up at 7 and want to get up at 5 eventually. Maybe the first week is just setting your alarm to 6:58. You want to build that confidence and commitment to yourself.

Then you move to 6:55 and then maybe its ten minute increments earlier every week.

Not many people will be able to jump right into that early morning hour. Don’t be hard on yourself about it just work with yourself and find a way that will make you successful.

6. Prepare

I wanted to focus on getting more done in my day and doing things that weren’t mundane tasks like laundry and cleaning. So, I started to prepare.

Every Sunday night I pick out my clothes for the week. What I will wear during the day, for yoga when I get home, and pajamas at night. I stack them in order and when its time for each of them I just grab it and put it on.

This keeps my brain from having all that chatter about it. I also don’t waste time trying on ten different outfits in the morning.

I do similar with my food for the week. I know what I will eat and often will prepare it ahead of time. I make it as simple as possible.

All of the random things I know I am going to have to do during the week like paying bills, making appointments, grocery shopping – all of it gets an assigned time during the week. This frees up my mind space to focus on other things.

I am not constantly trying to remember or have it in the back of my mind that I need to make a dentist appointment. It is on my calendar and then I can just focus on the task at hand. Its amazing how many things we have like that in our brain that are distracting us on a regular basis.

7. plan

Each morning I don’t even have to think about what I am doing. I open up my calendar and its already there.

I schedule out my weeks before I start them. Now you don’t have to do it that far in advance but I would say to do it at least 24 hours in advance. And get really specific about it.

Don’t just put workout on the calendar. When your alarm goes off you should know when you are getting dressed, putting your shoes on, filling your water bottle, grabbing the gym bag, when your drive is, and what you are doing when you get to the gym. Is it a spin class? Are you doing weight lifting circuit? Are you on the treadmill for 20 minutes? Get it all on there so that you don’t have any questions about it.

The more specific you are the less brain chatter there is. When I look at my calendar I know exactly what I am doing. It helps that I have planned from a better headspace than when I may not be so excited to sit down and work. 

I don’t always feel like doing what is on my calendar but I do it anyways. Its on there for a reason and it is important to keep your commitments to yourself. 

final thoughts –

Getting up at 4am is just something I do now. Its not something I have drama about.

It is absolutely possible to get up early. Before I switched my career I was working in a restaurant. I worked a lot of nights, some as late as 2am. So, I was very much used to being up late and then sleeping a good 8-10 hours. I did this for 6 years.

I understand that doing this isn’t easy but everything above is exactly how I get up at 4am every day now.

If your still finding this to be a struggle this is a perfect example of what I can help with as your coach. Go here to get started.