become an early riser

Well hello there. Yes I’m still here and still working towards goal number one.

To be honest I’m here because I lost all the great progress I made somewhere in the last year (or more? How long has it been?)

So much so that my wife has told me – at 1:30am – that she is sick of playing second fiddle to the computers.

Fair cop.

I’ve been missing out on family life in the mornings because of my late night habits, which saddens me greatly. I should be taking my son out for bike rides every morning for starters.

So it begins again. My iPhone alarm is set to 8:03am for every day of the week and that is my goal.

Who’s with me?

I fell off again, but this time I got really close to the end … last night I worked until 5am and got up around mid-day.

Sigh.

That wasn’t the first time either, so I’m now a few days into my two week exile from my favourite entertainment – pro wrestling.

How do I stop this challenge and start again?

For some twisted reason I tried sabotaging my challenge task late last week.

For three nights running I pushed hard through the natural signs for bedtime that I’ve come to understand how to read. Pushed so hard that I went to bed at 2am the first two nights then at 1:30am the next.

Ouch. That makes it very hard to stay up when the alarm goes off at 7am :-)

So hard, in fact, that I didn’t actually stay up most of those mornings. I did get out of bed though, at 7am, so I’m going to count them as successes – despite falling asleep on the couch for an hour or two shortly after staggering out to it!

So here I am at around the 21 day mark – that’s the time it takes to develop a habit, so it is said.

Last night I crashed at around 11pm, so today I was able to get up and get out for my morning walk – and still I am awake some three and a half hours later. Cool.

So my message to you : hang in there! The strategy I have used is to set a hard and fast get up time and learn to read the signs that my body gives as to when it is time to go to bed.

I didn’t really believe that I could make it this far at the beginning – however I am here now and I don’t think there will be any going back. I have the tools now and I can use them to my advantage every day. You can do this too.

Here we are at about half-way through the challenge and my body seems to be getting the hang of things.

Yes, this is a bit strange to me, but there you go.

This morning I easily woke about 11 minutes before my alarm would have gone off – and I’d left it in the pocket of yesterday’s pants!

So this is what, day 4? Another two days passed with me up and about at 7am.

Now we go camping for the weekend, that will make it even easier to get up early.

The routine thing is keeping me going – I have a definite set of steps & actions once I get up, that gets me past the first urges to drop back to the pillow.

Success again. This 7am time is working much better for the family in the morning – I get to make a pot of tea for my lovely wife and make sure the kids, if up, are dressed and breakfasted before they watch TV.

Did go to bed at 11:30pm last night though, and that is starting to feel like a late bedtime now. That has to be a good thing.

All I need to do is improve my morning routine so it becomes more automatic.

Your cheers are helping – many thanks!

Today I begin the 30 day challenge to get up at or before 7:00 am.

Today I was successful! Went to bed at 11pm which really helped … as did having my wife move her alarm later than the 6am it has been set to for a couple of years.

One day down – 29 to go!

Have completely fallen off the wagon.

Argh.

Will have to try the 30 days over again.

Another hard one … it was another late night (12:30am went to bed) and that’s just not helping. I now know that at the moment I need to be in bed before midnight to be able to get up early.

I did wake before my alarm, but that was probably my wife’s alarm which goes off around 7am – set to Nova 969 (which has a couple of comedians on the breakfast shift.) Fell asleep and woke with a start to my phone well into it’s alarm cycle. Whoops. Got up briefly then fell back on the bed until about 7:55.

I used to like listening to them in the morning (I think I still do) but when waking up to the talking I find I am irritated – like I’ve not really been sleeping for the last hour of my sleep time.

Now going to bed earlier will help – as will moving my ultimate wake up time to before that alarm goes off (which I think is 7am.)

Still, I’m positive that the 30 day trial will be a success!

Sticking to the plan! The challenges are getting interesting though.

I did move the time back (again) to 7:45am – still not early enough to fit in with the home routine. Kids leave for school at 8:30 and that’s just not enough time for me to get my exercise in and be ready to see them off (let alone actually help them get ready…)

So yesterday was the first 7:45 day. It was hard, but entirely my own fault. The night before I ate most of a large block of chocolate – a really dumb move. Yes it was a hot night, yes the chocolate was nice and cold in the fridge. A couple of pieces would have been fine, not most of the block!

As a result my sinuses were gooped up by the morning, meaning I probably had had a heavy night of snoring. I sure felt worn out when I woke up! Nonetheless, having been at this for a week now I was able to get up on autopilot.

Today the 7:45 wake up was much easier. I actually woke up a few minutes before the alarm which was a great sign. Soon I will have to move the time earlier again, but not today. Perhaps I’ll allow myself to naturally wake earlier.