How I Taught Myself to Get Up at the Same Time Every Morning
I get up at the same time every single day.
Back when I first started practicing this habit, it was hard. Getting up at the same early hour every morning — even when I felt exhausted and tired, and I had slept poorly — felt like a chore. Like with any habit, this first step was a challenge for my mind and body alike.
Now, doing it feels as easy as breathing.
I am not exaggerating when I say that it has become like a second nature to me. It feels no more challenging than opening my eyes or raising my arms. Even when I am genuinely tired in the morning, the act of getting up is not difficult or stress-inducing anymore: it just happens effortlessly.
It took me several months, but this is how I got here.
Step 1: I found a reasonable time to wake up every day
Do you want to be able to get up easily at the same time every day?
Then you must look at your long-term schedule and decide when the best time would be to wake up. This time needs to be applicable to every single day, with only very rare exceptions (like an emergency or important event temporarily altering this hour of waking up). I tried various different times of getting up myself, but eventually I settled on a time that gave me the chance to enjoy the evening of each previous day whilst also offering a chance to wake up earlier than most other people.
No matter what time you choose, make it one that works for you.
Step 2: I eliminated the option to press the snooze button
Sometimes, the easiest way to promote a good habit is to eliminate the ability or opportunity to do the opposite.
In the same way that someone on a sugar-reducing diet would empty their cabinets of sweets, I decided to remove the option to press “Snooze” on my alarm. Keeping an alarm in itself is not enough in this case, because it can easily be misused in instances where you feel like “making an exception”. A snooze button can quickly become a safety net that allows you to postpone the thing you ought to do that very second, rather than pushing you to rely on the one chance you have to get up and get on with your day.
So, deactivate the snooze option, because, in the end, you will not need it.
Step 3: First thing in the morning, I stood up from my bed
Waking up without getting up removes the entire purpose of the exercise.
If you want to create an effective morning routine, you need to teach yourself to wake up (and, therefore, get up) at the same time every day. This means that you need to teach yourself to stand up immediately after waking up. If you allow yourself to lie in bed for another minute or two, you will only be postponing the inevitable — and it will be no better than snoozing.
By doing this once, twice, then a hundred times, it will eventually become much, much easier to do, but it requires you to follow through each time.
Step 4: I found an appropriate time to go to sleep every day
Doing this is easier when you get a consistent amount of sleep each night.
Although I established a morning routine before I created my evening routine, the addition was well worth the effort — and now I have an alarm for both things. Of course, there are nights when I fall asleep later and get poorer sleep as a result. But because I have consistent habits for getting up and going to sleep, I know that these losses will find compensation in the long term.
And over time, these losses have become fewer and farther between, because my body has adjusted to these routines that I have repeated.
Step 5: I made the habit into a routine
Habits are only strong when they are consistent.
In this case, it means that it ought to be repeated at the same time every day. After all, the habit would stop being a habit if I simply stopped doing it. And, when the habit stops being a habit, the positive effects of doing it disappear.
Thus, it is important to maintain the habit — no matter how difficult it feels.
Over time, it becomes easy instead.
