#gettingupearly

1. Set a goal you can reach easily, for example getting up before 8 a.m.

2. Get up before 8 a.m. every day for a week. (The exact time doesn‘t matter.)

3. in the evening write down 3 things you are excited to do in the morning or you normally don‘t have time for, for example read, practicing the piano etc. Find your why. Why do you want to get up in the first place?

4. Everytime you reach your goal (got up before 8 a.m.) proudly write it down somewhere or use a wallcalender and make a cross or a checkmark✔️.

5. The next week set your goal a little earlier (7.30 or 7 a.m.) and repeat the process for another week.

6. Do this until you reach your desired waking time, for example 6 a.m. and make it a habit. It is much easier now.

💤Watch out that you have to go to sleep earlier when you want to get up earlier.

💤I use the app ‚gotobedapp‘ where an unfriendly and relentless voice reminds me to go to bed. It works!

If you want to be extra productive but can't get up at "the magic hour" which is 5 a.m. according to the geniuses haha, here is my advice, and note that this is coming from a person who never ever woke up before the time hit 2 digits, and has complained about getting up early her entire life, so here’s how I’ve been doing it: 

DON’T! use an alarm, I noticed whenever I am forcibly awoken, my sleep feels violated, like suddenly stopping a movie mid way (my awesome dreams) and then I'm just pissed and want to continue sleeping. If instead you just wake up naturally, and get up the first time your eyes happen to open, it's much easier than when you force yourself to get up, and you will be surprised at how little sleep you actually need. 

For example I always open my eyes between 4 and 4:30 a.m. and since its so early I put myself back to sleep but it almost feels like I hit a ‘reset’ button and I need 8 hrs all over again. I’m always wondering how the hell some people wake up like they have springs in their butts with no lag at all (my husband), so I decided to listen to my body to find out when IT thinks it’s had enough sleep.

Today I woke up at 4:03 a.m. naturally (no weird sounds woke me, otherwise I go back to sleep), if you don’t get interrupted by anything from the moment you fall asleep, you can actually function with 5 to 6 hrs of sleep, it’s amazing, just look at the clock when your eyes open and that’s the time your body thinks you are ready!. Since it’s really hard to get motivated to do anything at that time, I realized the hardest part about getting up early, is the “reason”, finding a damn good reason to get up early has been the hardest mind game I’ve had to play on myself. My brain says “get up, there’s so much you could do right now”, my body says “or you can do it later” and then usually my body wins and I end up never doing what I wanted to do because with kids and working from home lets face it, there is no “later”. 

Finding something that’s motivating enough to get me up before the sun has been really tough, but I finally did it. I learned I have to make myself “love” the moment, the silence, the alone time and do something I enjoy, even if its to watch something I’ve been waiting to see on Netflix, or to just get on social media, Youtube, or catch up on reading, if you dedicate that time for YOU, then you will love it. You have to make yourself feel THE BLISS, ‘spoil yourself’ if ya will. 

Morning people VS Night people, has nothing to do with how much sleep someone needs (I thought I  needed 10 hrs VS Justin who operates fine with 4 lol) It has to do with your mind and what you convince it to do. I have a million ideas and projects I want to work on, but none of those seem interesting enough to do so early. Just thinking about getting up to go to my cold computer and learn JAVA turns me off, even thinking about getting up to crochet turns me off and I love crocheting! so even though I want to do those things and they are my goals, nothing seems good enough at that time. Instead thinking about a warm cup of tea while having my laptop in bed seems a lot more appealing so I tried that instead and so far so good.