According to me , the one biggest problem for Mankind is to
rise early in the morning ! … I had always wanted to rise early since my schooldays….I have to
admit that , being a lazy person ((I
sleep early as well !!!) with despicable standards of Motivation and Willpower
, early rising remained a pipe-dream …until
I found a solution after I read James Clear & Leo
Babauta.
Started small:
Earlier, My usual wake-up time was around 6:00 am in the
morning…In my earlier attempts to wake-up early, I would set the alarm to 5:00
am straight on day one… …So I would wake-up (irritated at my sleep getting
disturbed) ,switch-off the alarm (not even “Snooze”) and go back to sleep… What I did not realize is that body clock is more
powerful than the Physical clock
Instead , what I did was to start small…on the first day , I
set the alarm to just 5:55 AM , just 5 minutes before my usual wake-up time…It
worked…
Incremented small:
On subsequent each day, I set the next day’s alarm to 5
minutes before the wake-up time today…By this way I was able to tune my body clock
to a New Normal….So I did not feel tired during the day…Also I did not feel
irritated at the Morning alarm at all!
5 minutes may seem small…but in 12 straight days , I was
waking up at 5:00 am, day-after-day…something I had never done before…
Never missed the habit :
A key to my early wake-up routine was that I ensured not to
miss the Habit on 2 consecutive days…It is easy (even now!) for me to get back
into my lazy ways…It is okay to have an off-day…but not 2 off-days! The key to
new habit formation is the continuity, day-after day !
With the early wake-up habit, I was able to schedule a
jogging routine and Early-morning routine into my schedule….I used the same algorithm …to start small…increment small..and
be persistent…!
So forget Motivation…forget willpower…instead Start!