1. Set Up 2 Alarms In Different Rooms
Set up an alarm in your bedroom where you sleep. As well as this, set up an alarm that is set to go off exactly 1 minute later in another room. Make sure it’s an alarm that you can’t ignore (for example it’s very loud or it will wake other people up). Once the first alarm goes off in the morning, you will have to jump up and get out of bed to stop the other alarm from going off. Once you’re out of bed, it’s easier to stay up.
2. Get Into A Pre-Sleep Routine
Every night, before you go to bed, practice what you will do the next morning. That means get into your sleeping gear, turn off the lights, set the alarm (for 1 minute from now) and pretend you are asleep. When the alarm goes off, jump up straight away and practice what exactly how you want to react when the alarm goes off in the morning. Do this religiously 3 times in a row before you go to bed each night.
3. Allow Yourself To Go Back To Bed (Eventually)
Give yourself a time that you must stay out of bed for in the morning once you have risen. Keep it short to start with if you need. After this time has passed, you are allowed to go back to bed if you really want to. For example, you could set yourself a 30 minute period that you have to get up and stay awake for, after which you may go back to bed. You can’t go back to bed any earlier. After a few weeks raise the time period and then do away with the back to bed clause altogether.
4. Get An Early Rising Buddy
Ask a like minded friend to be your early rising buddy. Agree on a rising time and every day at that time you must ring each other. If one of you fails to answer, that person must do something as a penalty (such as give the other person money)
4. Go To Bed Earlier
This is the obvious one, but it’s still important. If you are disciplined with getting up every morning at a certain time and you don’t then sleep during the day, your body clock will adjust and you will begin feeling the need to go to bed earlier each night.
5. Me Time
Allocate a certain amount of time every morning at a prussic time that you get to have all to yourself. It should be the first thing you do (perhaps after shower and breakfast) and it should involve you doing something that you love and makes you feel good, such as setting goals for the day, or praying, or going for a walk. Anything that makes you feel great. You will look forward to this every day and it will motivate you to get up early for it.
6. Shock Treatment
Keep a moist towel next to you and as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning, wipe your face with it. Water on the face is a great way of shocking you out of sleep. A bucket over the head is probably a bit much (not including when in the shower) but a wet towel should do the trick.
7. Exercise
Make exercise the very first thing you do. The exercising gets the heart rate up and warms up the body. Doing this every day at the exact time conditions the body to warming up and waking up becomes much easier. It doesn’t have to be intense exercise, it could just be a walk around the block.
8. Set Targets
If you think you will struggle to keep up the routine, set yourself a small target, for example 1 week. All you have to do is get up at a certain time each morning for a week and then you’re allowed to go back to getting up whenever you want. If you fail, the week must start again. Once you’ve succeeded, start again, but with a longer target and so on and so on.
9. Get In The Right Frame Of Mind
Realize that the accomplishment lies in the discipline of getting up at the time you have set for yourself. It’s great to have things to do once you are up, but if you place to much importance on those things, you can easily get put off based on how you feel about those things on any given day. Place the importance on the act of simply getting up at your desired time. Also, if you falter and fail to get up. Don’t let that stop you from getting back on the horse and starting again the next day. Try to learn something from it.
10. Keep A Diary
A great way to empower yourself to get up early is to keep a diary or write a blog about your early rising goals. Every day, you must write something about your progress and how you felt getting up on that day. Record your successes, failures and opinions on the whole process. This can be very liberating, rewarding and motivating.
