How you can become a morning person, Part 3(of3): System for success

Now that we have gone over Part 1 and Part 2 of getting up early we will look at Part 3 which involves the actual act of waking up early.

Third, System for Success

Once you have your belief and your cause it is all a matter of setting yourself up for success. You need to make it easy for yourself to wake up each morning. This means developing a routine that will help you do two things:

• Get out of bed
• Get your brain working

Even with a cause worth completing, getting out of bed is often the hardest mountain you have to climb each morning. Getting out of bed litterally goes against the laws of the universe, at least so far as Issac Newton understood them. Consequently, it often requires being acted upon by an outside source, namely the alarm clock.

You are going to defy this guy!

The alarm

Selection of an alarm clock or alarm app is a highly personal matter particularly because waking up is such a sensitive subject. It is however and integral part of a system for success. You need to do whatever it is you have to do to get an alarm that works for you. Here are some suggestions

• An alarm you will hear (obvious right?)
• Depending on yourself this may need to be either load or obnoxious or calm and gentle, but be honest with yourself about it.
• Consider two alarms, one next to your bed one across the room that you have to get up to turn off.
• Consider those alarms or apps that make you complete some task before turning off.
• Consider spending some money on it so you feel obligated to use it

The Snooze

Snooze is essentially the worst invention to human productivity, ever. I believe this concept has wasted untold hours of human time and ingenuity, including mine. Essentially this is because the snooze is at its heart a liar, it attempts to tell you that you can have two opposing things, that you can sleep more and get up at a reasonable time.

You can not

Seriously, you can't, the snooze actually does nothing for you except rob you of both sleep and waking up. You cannot get any valuable sleep during snooze cycles, and it makes it so you can do nothing during that time. Don't fall into this trap.

If you can get an alarm without a snooze function you probably should.

The light

How soon do you turn a light on after wanking up? This will be personal, and may depend on your family and housing situation. Some people really hate lights in their sleepy eyes, but some people it can really help to get their brain going. This can be particularly true when you are first training yourself to be a morning person. The important thing is that you are honest with yourself about what you need.

The first thing

The first thing you do after waking up is key, you want to get your mind working. This can be accomplished several different ways, again personal honesty is the key. Some people like to do this by engaging the mind immediately in meditation or prayer. That's not me, I fall asleep again right away. I do say a prayer immediately upon waking up but it is very brief to thank God for a new day and ask him to bless the work I will do that morning. Even then I sometimes almost fall asleep, but for some people it works. 

For me currently I get my brain going by getting my body going. When I wake up I begin each morning by doing the Gorilla Workout which helps me get the blood flowing so my brain will be working by the time I start blogging. I think exercise is a great way to get going, and its great to have it out of the way right off the bat.  

For some people the shower approach works. I've used this one in the past as well. You hop out of bed and the first thing you do is hop into the shower this can really jump start your brain. The most important thing is to find something that really does work. You may want experiment with several different options.

The next things
After you have engaged your mind and fully woken up by the next things you do must engage you in the cause worth completing.  It can be a series of tasks or a single one, but it must engage you in that predetermined activity without distractions. Once you have developed a pattern of doing something that is important you, getting up early will become something positive that will help you accomplish your goals in life.

You can live better, I know you can if you want to. These three parts will make waking up early a better experience for you. Please share you comments and thoughts with us below.