You Can Be a Morning Person Too

Photo by Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash

I honestly thought I could never be a morning person until I quit labelling myself and forced myself into a new routine.

My plan was to wake up at 6:00/6:30am, go on a 10–20 minute walk, stretch, breakfast and journal. I kept on doing this same routine for 6 weeks and on weekends I would get up 30–60 minutes later.

For the first week, it was tough getting out of bed but my motivation to make it work was there. The second week was harder than the first, I realised that the weather made a huge impact on my mood (shocker) and me wanting to get up and go on a morning walk but I kept on going nonetheless. Later, I started going to the gym first thing in the morning and I truly began to love it. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t easy but I loved feeling like I had gotten so much done by 9am. A habit was born out of of persistence & consistency not motivation.

Things I stopped doing:

1. I stopped labelling myself as not being a ‘morning person’

You limit yourself by labelling yourself. The minute you say you’re not a morning person, you won’t be because you don’t believe you can be. Everyone can be a morning person if they wanted to. Yes, some people do wake up naturally early in the morning but that doesn’t mean you can’t train yourself to do the same.

2. Eating too late at night. You won’t have as good of a nights rest if you go to bed with a stomach full of food.

3. Looking at my phone before bed. This is one that I’m sure we’re all tired of hearing but it works you just have to make it a habit. Dim the lights, read a book 30 minutes before bed instead.

Things I started doing:

1. Placing my alarm closer to the bathroom in the morning and not counting to 3 before I get up. It’s a get up without thinking kind of thing. The moment you start thinking you want to stay in bed is the moment your sabotaging yourself.
2. Wash your face and brush your teeth to wake up. This is my little life saving tip to really feel awake, before I do this I’m basically a walking zombie trying not to go back to bed.
3. Going to sleep at an appropriate time. If you’re going to be up at 6:30am, it’s important to get a good 7–8 hours of sleep in there.
4. Setting out my clothes the night before. This just makes your life easier, you don’t have to think, you just put the damn clothes on.

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