It’s no secret that I love the dark, quiet morning hours but will it come as a shock to you to know that I wasn’t always like this? Once upon a time, I was actually the quite literal opposite …

Before having kids, I was known … KNOWN!! to be a sleep-in-lover. As in, my friends knew not to expect me to answer my phone before noon on the weekends. I would only wake up early if I had somewhere important to be. I would sleep in HARD. I still love to sleep, and I still need a solid 8 hours to feel top shape BUT instead of sleeping from, say, 11pm-7am my wake & sleep windows have shifted dramatically. Now, I sleep before 9pm and wake up at 4:30 am 😱

I enjoy the morning hours because they seem to jive with my natural biorhythm better. When I sleep later and wake up later, I end up feeling sluggish for the majority of the day. Versus when I sleep super early and wake up super early, I don’t have big energy slumps during the day (but I do end up getting really tired at, like, 8 pm HAH). As a mom, I hate the feeling of “chasing the day” so I would much prefer getting up early to get some “me-time” in and then be prepared to greet my kids once they start waking up. If you’d told me 10 years ago that this would be the person I am, I wouldn’t have believed you and yet here we are.

I shared this on social media and got lots of reactions from people saying that being a “morning person” is something that they’ve always aspired to but could never do. So I have some tips for you on how to achieve the early bird status if that’s something that you strive for.

• Anyone can do it. First of all – I just want you to know … anyone can be a early riser if they want to. Some people don’t want to – like my husband. He prefers to be productive at night and just wake up at a normal hour. And that’s fine! But if you WANT to try to wake up earlier, wake up before your kids, wake up before the sun, whatever it is … just know: there’s no secret sauce to waking up early other than you have to make sure that you sleep early. If you get to bed on time relative to when you want to wake up, it won’t be that difficult to establish a habit of waking up earlier. If you sleep at midnight and try to wake up at 5am, that is of course not going to be effective for you.
• Move to make motivation. I saw a quote recently that said you don’t need to have the motivation to move, you move to MAKE the motivation. This applies with waking up early. Look, there are still days that my alarm will go off at 4:30 and even though I’ve gotten a solid 7-8 hours of sleep the night before I do NOT feel like getting out of bed. But I don’t use that as an excuse to forego the commitment that I made to myself and just sleep in. I get up and out of bed because MOVING this way will create the motivation that my body needs to feel awake. If you sleep early and just GET UP at the time your alarm goes off, without overthinking it or negotiating with yourself, you can get up. People do hard things all the time, all over the world. Forcing yourself out of your warm bed sheets in the early hours of the morning is only as hard as you make it for yourself. For me, I go from my bed straight to the toilet. I sit on the toilet, sometimes for 5 minutes, just letting myself wake up. It’s hard to fall back asleep when you’re sitting up on the toilet, you know? 😉
• Reward power. Someone shared this really cool Desiring God article with me that sort of ties in with the above point. It’s essentially saying that the secret to will power isn’t your will at all but keeping your eyes on the prize you want – reward power. If what you want (in this case, waking up early) is attractive enough, you will do what it takes to achieve it. If you find that you’re consistently failing at getting up early, have a come to Jesus moment and ask yourself if being a morning person is really something you want.
• Have a routine. Don’t just wake up early to go and sit aimlessly on the couch. I have a routine of getting up, getting workout clothes on, getting coffee, sitting down for QTs, working for an hour, and then exercising. I do this every day so my body knows what to expect and I can anticipate what my quiet early hours are going to look like. If you’re new to waking up early, stick to your new schedule for a few weeks and pretty soon you’ll find your body has created a new “normal” for itself in wanting to get up at a certain time, get coffee at a certain time, etc.
• Be realistic. Do you have a newborn at home who is waking up every 3 hours? This is probably not the right season for you to be an early riser. Do you have a situation where you’re working a late shift at work and can’t get to bed early? Don’t set waking up at 5 am as a goal for yourself. You get what I’m saying? Be realistic with what you can actually do given the circumstances you’re in. Even though I’ve been in the habit for waking up early for a few years now, I did take a break when I had baby A and she was a newborn. And I also took a break when the pandemic first hit last year because there was nowhere to go and 2020 was a whole dumpster fire so …. if I needed to sleep in until 8am to feel okay about that, then that’s what I did.
• Take baby steps. My last tip is to go slow. If you’re not waking up to an alarm at all right now, don’t just jump straight to a 4:30 am wake up time tomorrow. Start by setting an alarm that’s 15-30 minutes earlier than when you naturally wake up. Once you’re in the habit of waking up at that time, if you want to push it back further, do so but in another 15-30 minute increment. I did this – I woke up at 5:20am for many, many, many years (like 5 years). Recently, I decided I wanted to try and wake up at 5 am so I set my alarm back 20 minutes. Then after two weeks, I tried 4:45 am. I felt fine so after a few days, I went to 4:30 am and that’s where I currently am.

So .. you can do this, sis! If this is what you really want to do/try, you can do it! I’m not any better or any more disciplined than you, I just told myself that this is what I wanted and created the right habits to make it something sustainable. I’m cheering you on, friend!