Rise and Shine: How Getting Up Earlier Helps You Achieve Your Goals

I recently read the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, I enjoyed the book greatly but most pleasingly, this was a self-help book where I was already applying lots of the learning. Rather than giving you a full rundown of the book, which in my opinion is excellent, I thought I would give you an overview of what works for me and how getting up earlier can help you achieve your goals.

Set that alarm earlier.

This is the hardest one, not just setting the alarm earlier but more importantly getting up when it goes off. To start with this might only be 15 minutes earlier, but you want to work up to about an hour to give you time to focus on yourself before the day starts. Once you are out of bed, try to be productive from the start, so no social media. It is time to focus on you.

Journaling

I like spending a few minutes every morning reflecting on the previous day. Thinking about what I achieved and my personal goals for the coming day. I like to write this down as I believe by doing so, I'll make more of an effort to achieve those goals.

I also like to use this time to reflect on my mood, which can be completely different to if I am achieving my goals, as someone who suffers from poor mental health at times, often, I do not see the low moods until too late, tracking both a daily score and an average helps me to predict dips before they happen, and sometimes put steps in place to prevent.

Exercise first thing

This one is not as bad as it sounds, and I'm not suggesting anyone runs a marathon first thing in the morning. However, some short exercise in the morning to raise the heart rate, helps me to get mental clarity for the rest of the day. Like a lot of people, I do struggle with consistency, however, if I remind myself that I'm doing it just to help for the next 24 hours, it becomes a lot easier. I've never felt good starting the exercise, but I always feel good about it at the end.

Time for self-development

Take a few minutes each morning to learn something new, this could be listening to an audiobook while getting dressed, reading a professional publication, or just learning some random facts from the internet or book.

The thing about personal growth is that it adds up to be greater than the sum of its parts, in other words even if you only do 10 minutes a day, the benefits at the end of the week will be better than 70 minutes due to the compound effects of personal growth.

More time in the day

This may surprise some of you, but getting up 15,30, or 60 minutes earlier, will give you more time on top of the extra you have gotten up, the reason for this is the increased clarity and productivity, which means that often I continue my day in a great way that I have started it, often I'll look back later in the day surprised at how much more I've achieved. Now this does not happen every time, however, if I do burnout mid-afternoon, I can still reflect on how much I've achieved during the morning.

Routine

Ok, I may have lied when I said that setting the alarm early was the hardest part. For me the key to making sure this works, I need to do this every day, including weekends. I know for some of you, this will be making you cringe, but I find that getting up in the same way, at the same time, every day makes it much easier. If you are someone who loves extra time in bed at the weekend, there is nothing wrong with going to bed extra early but by keeping your wake-up time the same, you will slowly adjust to this new routine making it slightly easier each day.

Give it a go!

If you are not sure if this is for you, give it a go for 2 to 3 weeks to see how you get on, try some of the morning tasks and see which work for you and over time you can develop the morning routine that is personal to you adding anything additional you wish.

I am sure if you try this you will find not just your morning but your whole day more productive and enjoyable.

Good morning let’s do this.

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Ben – It's That Sober Guy

Disclaimer – I am not a trained addiction or mental health professional, information is based on my own life experiences and shared in good faith to help others.