Hi there!
Always impressed to see that you’re up super early and then on top of it actually seem to get shit done in the morning (how??). When do you usually go to bed and do you have any tips on establishing an early morning routine?
I really want to get up earlier but already struggle with going to bed on time and even if I manage, I’m very much like ‘nope, not doing it’ when my alarm goes off at a ghastly hour in the morning. Advice much appreciated ;)
Hello hello my friend!
To be fair: thanks to a little holiday I fell off the wagon two weeks ago, started going to bed later, and got a bit sloppy. Yet I decided to be kind because (heck!) I am not a machine. I completely sympathise with you though - it used to be such a challenge to go to bed and impossible to wake up in the morning. There is no instant cure. In hindsight, I see it more as an all-encompassing journey. For me it looked like this:
Getting up in the morning became more exciting when I gave myself a sense of purpose, something to look forward to. Luckily language classes from the comfort of my home did the trick. Someone held me accountable but there are no tests, no pressure to excel.
I stuck with a consistent sleep schedule and set a goal for myself. I would always get up at five. This routine made it much easier to succeed than setting different sleeping goals for every other day.
I started picking my well-being before somebody else's and my own whims. I had always feared missing out and felt the need to accommodate other people. Thanks to the work I did on myself with a counsellor it felt possible to resolve that achieving my long-term goals should matter as much or even more to me than my immediate wishes. This also meant asking the people in my life if they could work with me here: Meet up at other times, call earlier - just to be supportive and respectful of my new schedule in general.
I knew that I have trouble falling asleep and that lack of sleep makes it impossible to get up. So I tried to counteract this by planning more time to wind down and fall asleep. When I aimed for eight hours of sleep I went to bed at least an hour earlier and read or phoned a friend for a bit. Social media is strictly off limits then. I sometimes use guided meditations or yoga to help me settle in.
I stopped grinding myself down completely. You should not take the schedule I stuck to before May of this year as an example. There were no breaks for me and thus however much I slept was never enough. Give yourself space to relax and enjoy life!