I Tried To Be A Morning Person So You Don’t Have To

— June 8, 2018

I have never been a morning person and after this ridiculous attempt at being a morning person, I doubt I ever will. But do you have to get up at 5am to be a success? | DeviceDaily.com

I am quite happy to admit that I am not a morning person. However, it appears that if you look at enough ‘how to’ stuff online eventually you are going to be convinced that if you don’t get up at 5am then you are doomed to be a failure. So in some strange attempt to change a habit of a lifetime, I set out to try and be a morning person and get up at 5am. I failed. And that’s ok. I did it so you don’t have to. You can thank me later. However, from watching about 20 million videos about getting up at 5am, I learnt a lot about what I am supposed to be doing with my time by getting up so ridiculously early. Let’s explore this further…….

Not A Morning Person

I knew even starting this that trying to be a morning person was going to be hard for me. I like my sleep. I like my bed. And over the years I’ve developed a great love of the snooze button. Which by the way, is one of things the experts say you shouldn’t hit.

I did notice that all the great tricks and lifehacks people referred to for getting up at 5am basically involved setting an alarm and just getting up. There wasn’t really any great trick to it. It was down to sheer willpower and determination to develop a new habit. All these people talked about morning routines and how to spend those precious extra hours. It was somehow made to sound like by getting up at 5am you would somehow have more hours in the day. Like 27 or something. What they didn’t figure was that the 5am crew where flat out asleep in their beds at 9pm whilst us nightowls where powering on past midnight and rocking the market in Australia. Yep, because it may well be 5am on the east coast of America but that means it’s 10am in the UK. And if you run an online business then it’s 24/7 so it doesn’t matter what time you get up at.

Morning Routines

All the people promoting getting up at 5am and how successful it would make you, all had very detailed morning routines. From meditating when you woke up (I fell back asleep) to Yoga and workouts first thing. I skipped this part. The one I really couldn’t get to grips with was the no checking of the phone, emails or social media until the afternoon! I’m sure many would agree with me in thinking that doing this would put me out of business very quickly. There was also lots of things like writing out what you are grateful for, journaling, writing out your goals and lots of other lists about lots of other things. Most of it I found to be far too much for first thing in the morning and if you did it all then it probably would be afternoon before you got started on any work. But don’t forget their afternoon is shorter as they need to eat dinner at about 4pm in enable them to get to bed for 9pm!

Set Your Own Routine

I fully appreciate that there are some super successful people that make a habit of getting up really early and having these great morning routines. That clearly works for them. But it may not work for you. And just because some young 20 something with a YouTube channel says you won’t be a success unless you’re up and meditating at 5am, it doesn’t mean to say they are right. What matters is what you do with your time when you are awake and that you don’t waste it being tired and miserable because you dragged yourself out of bed at 5am to do Yoga which you hate and then eat a smashed avocado on cardboard.

Figure out your own routine and do what is right for you, your business and your family. Because I can rest assure you, getting up at 5am does not sit well in my morning routine when I’ve a kid to sort and a school run to do. And neither does going to bed so damn early either.

Do what is right for you!

 

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Author: Samantha Martin

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