Boost Your Motivation: How to wake up at 6:00am Every Day

My Goal: To wake up at 6am every morning without fail

Where I am currently: Waking up at random times anywhere from 8am to 11am to even 6pm! Going to bed anywhere from 11pm to 5am. There is no structure to my sleeping pattern.

I’m approaching my 21st birthday and if I’m honest; I’ve never been able to wake up early on my own accord. When I used to have to wake up for school; as tough as it was I was able to wake up at around 7am. But at weekend I would always sleep in till midday.

Unfortunately this bad habit of mine has never really left. I’m still able to wake up if I have to go to work, but motivating myself to wake-up when I don’t have to go to work is a real problem. I’m now running my own business so I am my own boss. As great as this may sound, who’s going to have a go at me when I fail to turn up for work at 9am? Who’s going to discipline me when I’m missing valuable working hours of the day?

By reading this article I presume you also want to be able to wake up early? And so far have yet to find that ‘magical’ technique that’s just right for you? Well by sharing my personal experience with you maybe you will be able to relate to it and put your own plan into action tomorrow morning!

I’ve been researching many different techniques into waking up early over the past few years but nothing has really worked for me. Well, that said, I haven’t had the motivation to get my arse out of bed and do something productive with my day. Until now.

Over the past 2 months I’ve finally cracked the code of waking up and I’m proud to say I’m doing it! I’ve been waking up at 6am every morning without fail. My body clock has been completely re-programmed and I feel fantastic! I get so much more done during the day, my brain is 3 times more switched on and I have this constant buzz going through me! It’s brilliant!

But how did I change my life from being a ‘lazy bum’ to an ‘early bird’?

1) Reason: You must have a compelling reason to do it. You need a fundamental reason to leave your bed in the morning; a purpose to leave your cosy nest. This may seem obvious to some, but you do need to discover a reason or a purpose to wake up early otherwise your body will simply go back to the zzZ’s.

My reason for waking up early was that I felt I needed to achieve something. I’m trying to start-up my own business but I have no disciplined structure to my day. So I introduced a new motivational buzz; the gym. Having been a member of my local gym for just over a year I know I get an amazing buzz after an intensive workout so that gave me my first main reason to leave my bed.

2) Discipline: Again what may seem like another obvious point. I know I lack quite badly in self discipline, which is why forcing myself to get out of bed at 6am would be a major challenge. But I knew if I could change myself I would push myself further and achieve more. Being disciplined to wake up at 6am comes with many great advantages; long term goals and projects are maintained. I always promise myself I am going to do something long term. But after a few weeks or sometimes just a few months I forget all about my long-term goal.

But by maintaining a structured wake up time it hardens your self-discipline beautifully. You find yourself actually sticking to long term goals because you told yourself you would… all this simply by waking up at the same time every day!

3) Projection: What will happen if I do not wake up early? In my case it was simple. I would not change. I needed to increase my self-discipline to increase motivation and succeed on my business.

Take a moment to just think about your sleeping pattern at the moment and what it’s stopping you from doing…

…have you missed meetings/appointments?

…are you a reliable person

…could your time management be improved?

…maybe you would like more time during the day to read. Perhaps a new fitness routine, a light jog in the morning. Or even to increase your socialising, meet up with friend’s first thing to have breakfast together and catch-up.

Personally I needed to improve my reliability. By being unable to wake up at a reasonable time each day I was missing out on opportunities. This meant that I would sometimes miss important deadlines or miss out on meetings or phone calls. When trying to start-up a business you must be 100% reliable.

4) Realisation: Finally I realised that I needed to change before it was too late! For my business to succeed I needed to be a lot more disciplined and motivated. I needed to push myself harder to get the results I wanted.

The method that worked for me

Now here’s where I feel I cheated the system slightly. Whilst running my business full time, I have a part-time job which keeps me going financially. The work I do it rota based so sometimes I have to start at 6:30am.

Now, I’ve done many 6:30am starts and just gone to bed when I finish at 2pm. But once I had my compelling reason to wake up and I’d realised through projection what opportunities I would miss out on I saw the urgent need for change.

I had a 6:30am start on a Sunday morning coming up so I prepared for it as best I could. I psyched myself up and told myself I was going to wake up at 6am for the next 21 days. The reason I chose 21 days is that scientific research has shown that if the human body changes a habit and keeps doing it for 21 days it becomes part of the body clock. I.e. wake-up time. By forcing my body to wake up at the same time every day I would be able to re-program my body’s internal clock. BUT, you must wake up at the same time every day otherwise the pattern will not re-program your body. Yes, this includes weekends and days off. Not to worry though, on days off I can go on a nice early morning cycle ride, or watch the sun rise on a jog listening to my favourite music.

I went to bed fairly late on the Saturday night at about 2am. Waking up at 6am I’d had 4 hour sleep so I was quite a sight on the Sunday morning! But I waded through it and kept going. After work I met up with some friends and went out for the day. By keeping myself busy my body was distracted from how tired I actually was.

By 8pm on Sunday night I was completely shattered. Having had only 4 hours sleep the previous night I felt I needed a very early night! By 8:30pm I was fast asleep. This step was very important since I had so little sleep the night before and it would allow myself to have a lie in, but taking the lie-in off the previous day (I think that makes sense).

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Having gone to bed so early on the Sunday night, by 6am Monday morning my body had been resting for 10 hours so I was more than refreshed. Result: BINGO!

I woke up feeling fantastic! Which is incredibly bizarre for me at 6am on a Monday morning! I cycled straight to the gym and gave my body a real hard workout at the gym. By 9am I was back in the office calling new clients and arranging business meetings. What a success!!!

Nearly 2 months on and I’m still doing it! For me the hardest part was getting to the 21 days. By day 7 I was starting to feel the pain, and by day 14 I found it a really struggle to leave my bed. It’s also important to make sure your body is getting 8 hours sleep each night. By waking up at 6am I knew I needed to be asleep by 10pm. This meant going to bed at 9pm to begin with to give my body time to shut-down. By persevering I got through it and now I’m seeing so many changes to my daily life. I’m always on time, I’m always switched on, I’m efficient in what I do, and my communication has increased. If someone emails me, if I’m in the office I email back within 10mins. Which really impresses my clients. Once I hit the 21st day my body really was re-programmed and now I can’t lie-in bed even if I try!

So there you have it: reason, discipline, projection, and realisation. 4 simple steps to become an ‘early bird’.

Now it’s your turn. Go on, you can do it! Have faith in yourself. Find a compelling reason to wake up early in the morning and stick to it. Get in touch with me and let me know how you get on.

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