Three Methods to Wake Up Earlier || from a former night-owl turned early bird

Are you a night owl struggling to embrace the early mornings? I'm raising my hand right now, because that is me! In this episode, I get into my journey of reform, from being a chronic night owl to an early bird. Plus, what that has changed for me in my daily life and why I stay motivated to keep up this practice.

I'll share three actionable methods you can adopt to wake up earlier without relying solely on superhuman willpower. Whether you need the gradual, immediate, or combination method, there's a way for everyone. Tune in and discover how waking up early can transform your life in ways both deep and practical, without the moral superiority.

Wake Up Early Guide

Related episodes: https://www.aboutprogress.com/blog/my-4-step-process-to-create-a-solid-easy-nighttime-routine, https://www.aboutprogress.com/blog/makeover-your-morning-routine, https://www.aboutprogress.com/blog/2-quick-tricks-to-get-to-bed-earlier-growth-spurt, https://www.aboutprogress.com/blog/how-to-shift-your-nighttime-routine-with-one-major-tweak, https://www.aboutprogress.com/blog/Create-Your-Own-Miracle-Morning

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica Packer: Hi, I am Monica Packer, and you're listening to about progress where we are about progress made practical

Early on after I started about progress, I was learning so much about progress outside of perfectionism, and so much of that translated to the way that I saw myself

along the way came the necessary push to begin to work on my personal habits, sleep being the most paramount.

Because of this, I decided to do an online challenge of sorts. It was both very informal but very viral for this very small instagramer at the time, I called it the wake up Early challenge. What it looked like was a simple 28 day challenge where every single day, me and anyone else who wanted to participate would just wake up early.

While it was all done with pure intentions it was poorly envisioned and planned and executed. And that's because for me, it all came down to one wrong thing. I thought waking up early was all about having the grit and willpower and determination to just decide and make it happen.

There were some things I was right about, namely the desire to wake up early.

There is so much to benefit from waking up earlier in the morning in ways that are both deep and practical, I was also right that doing so requires some level of grit and determination, but there are actually multiple methods to getting up earlier that are not wholly dependent on having that superhuman level of willpower.

Waking up earlier is a desire or even a necessity for so many of us. I actually fall into both camps. I wanted to wake up earlier and I needed to wake up earlier. Thanks to my family, if you're in that boat of wanting to make waking up early a priority for yourself today, I will share three methods on how you can do just that.

And mind you, it is all coming from a reformed night owl turned early bird. That's me. That's all coming up after a quick break for our sponsors.

Right out the gate, I wanna share a little bit of history because I am not traditionally a morning person, and I think this has been the way I've been since I was a baby. My mom has said many times that out of her seven kids, I was the fifth. I was one of the worst at sleeping. She would have to trick me into napping by driving me all over the place.

I was just never good about going to sleep or even getting up, and I remember that definitely happening in later elementary school into middle school and high school. Me getting into this habit really of going to bed quite late, and then waking up at the last second.

I had to, and since I was involved in so many curricular activities, some of them happening in the early morning, I had to wake up early,

so I was often exhausted and never really good at having a consistent pattern of both going to bed and waking up early. Naturally, for most of my life, I tended to be someone where my energy spiked at night.

It's when I could get creative, it's when I could be more productive. It's when I could reflect. I wrote Harry Potter fan fiction at night. I wrote and reread my journals. I even drew self portraits. I could almost find any and every reason to delay bedtime. And as part of that delay, getting up.

In college, I wasn't really a partier, so I would actually go to bed at a decent hour, but I was never an early riser, that pattern continued well into adulthood where I was someone who both delayed sleep but needed sleep.

And thanks to being a young mom and then also starting an online business, I really found it difficult to find enough hours in the day to get things done that I needed to, to get the rest I needed to do, and to feel like myself. It really wore me down in ways that became super apparent when I got my family pictures back.

My friend is a very talented photographer. She's taken so many of our photos over the years and has always done a wonderful job. When I was pregnant with our forest, she took our family pictures and they were beautiful and I love them so much. And almost a year later we took family photos again.

Now I did have a baby, but he was sleeping pretty well by that point, but I wasn't. At nighttime, I was alive. I was doing projects, I was working. I was working on the podcast. I was cleaning around the house. I was reading old journals.

And the effects of all those choices were really obvious. As I put my family photos side by side just a year apart. I looked at least a decade older from the year prior, and that's the moment where I realized I really need to shift my sleeping habits,

both in getting to bed better, but also in getting up earlier.

So with all that being said, let me tell you that that was almost six and a half years ago, that vanity moment, and I feel like I am now in a good place where it feels more natural, more like a habit for me to go to bed early and to wake up early as well.

So with that history in mind, I do wanna share with you three possible methods because it didn't take me six and a half years to get to this point. But I have gotten to the point of waking up early multiple different ways, and for multiple different factors.

Over the last six and a half years, I've also coached many women through this. I've even taught workshops on revenge, bedtime, procrastination, like how to have a good nighttime routine. But today is going to be more about the morning. And before we do that, I do wanna tell you something very important.

Getting up early isn't morally superior, but it can be really beneficial. I started with the fact that it's not morally superior, because I think we often have a lot of shame about not being a morning person, and I don't want to continue that. I'm not here to tell you that the only way to be a good person is to go to bed early and wake up early.

I do not believe that. We should follow the natural rhythms of our body and when we tend to have more energy. I also hate that everything online tends to be all about that in order to be a more productive or a good person. The earlier you wake up, the better you are, but at the end of the day, it really can just come down to it being very beneficial in ways that are both deep and practical.

Let's start with deep. If you're able to wake up. Earlier, you have more time to and for yourself. You have a little bit more quiet. You can have a break from your responsibilities, or you can lean into your responsibilities in ways that feel a little bit less chaotic or more in your control, or during a time where you have more of the brain power to do so.

And Getting up early is also a great time to have more spiritual based habits or movement based habits. Anything that is really about adding to your own energy well, in ways that aren't just about physical energy.

 On a practical side, getting up early can be beneficial if you have a very busy life and that gives you both time to yourself or to your responsibilities as needed. It helps you have the time you need to get ready, to be prepared to do what needs to be done.

 Which can also include not being productive by the way. For me, getting up early is both deep and practical. I feel better. I have time to myself. I feel more like myself when I'm able to get up early and practically it just works way, way better for my busy family. I'm able to have that time for myself to get some of my movement in, but I also work in the early morning as well now, which has helped because my work time is quite limited.

Having that time at the beginning of my day to do both things enables me to show up to all the curve balls that my daily life brings. So what is it for you? Getting up early needs to start with a desire, and it can't be about feeling like you're supposed to or you should, however shoulds can be chosen and that can happen when you really are able to name for yourself why a habit matters.

So take a little bit of time before you hear about the methods to get clarity on if getting up early truly does need to be a priority for you. And if so, why? With that desire in mind, I'm going to share the three methods I have, but first know a few things about any of them. None of these methods will act as a magic wand in choosing one or the other. They will. Each require you to have some level of focus and each method comes at some sort of cost.

Also, regardless of which method you choose, know that morning, start the night before, you will have to equally focus on night times in order to work on your wake up times. I have a couple episodes that I will link to you in the show notes that are specifically tailored to getting to bed earlier and a nighttime routine, and finally know that all three methods will not go smoothly.

In other words, they won't go perfectly. You can expect a little to a lot of that kind of rollercoaster progress. You will have things to tweak and you will perhaps have to make entire pivots on your path to becoming an early bird. All three of these methods come with pros and cons.

It's up to you to choose which method is right for you and for your season of life right now. So let's begin. Here are the three methods to waking up earlier. The first is the gradual method. The second method is immediate, and the third is a combination. Let's start with gradual.

This is actually quite simple to gradually wake up earlier. You choose the ideal wake time that you want to work towards, and then you gradually work backwards to that time in 15 minute increments. And I'm not gonna get super specific about how long you should have a wake up time before you're ready to back up to an earlier time.

 But it tends to be either a couple of days or even a week at a time, and sometimes even a couple weeks at a time dependent on your season. The pros of this method is that you can gently wake up earlier in ways that are not super jarring nor disruptive to your current life. The cons to this method is that it requires time and sometimes a great deal of time.

It also requires you to focus on the big picture and to be okay with a slow but sure method. While keeping your eye on the ultimate prize, some good situations. Where this method may be right for you include things like if you're recovering from childbirth or a surgery or a health challenge.

Maybe this can work for you during daylight time changes or other seasonal shifts where you have the option to do so that you don't have to necessarily wake up at a certain time, but you do need to wake up earlier eventually. This came in handy for me after my last birth, before my baby was born two years ago.

I had already done a lot of work on my sleep in general, I was at a much better point. I was probably going to bed around 10 30 and then usually waking up at six. But I knew going into it I would need to prioritize sleep above anything else, and that meant putting my normal bedtime and wake up time routines on the back burner.

However, I did want to gradually get to the point where I could wake up early before my family because of my own mental health. I forgot to mention this earlier, but waking up early for me in ways that are both deep and practical is just that time to myself. I'm actually a big time introvert, being around other people.

Leeches energy for me, and I'm around a lot of people in our household, so because of that, getting up early before my baby. The rest of my family would enable me to have better mental health to deal with the stressors that come with having a newborn. Now, I set an ideal time of six 30, and I gradually worked up to that time as my baby was sleeping better, but then the next year I worked to gradually move that up to six.

So. that Was a really gentle and gradual situation. Sometimes you can do gradual, even within a month timeframe. It doesn't have to take literal years. It can take even a month, but it will still be more gradual as you are inching back to the wake up time you desire.

Again, the first method was gradual. The second method to waking up early is immediate. It starts the same. You choose the ideal wake time, and then what you do is you wake up at that time. I know rocket science, right? But here's the thing with the immediate method, you have to acknowledge that the cost is going to be very, very high.

The cost to your energy, the cost to maybe your mental health, to your stress levels, the cost is gonna be high with immediate method. Now there are some pros with this. You get the time you want and you need right away, right away. The cons include that it will be very jarring and disruptive to your current life, and it will also still require time to adapt even if you immediately wake up at the time you need.

It's gonna take your brain and body sometime for that to feel like a habit. There are some good situations where the immediate method is appropriate, maybe shifts to a new job or seasons or schedules that require you to wake up early. This is true for back to school, right? We can't just gradually inch back our

wake up times. We have to wake up so we can make it to school on time at the new earlier time, and this is true for so many other situations like that. Another possible situation that may be good for you to adopt the immediate method is because a later wake up time is just so disruptive to your life that you are ready in all caps to pay the price for a more major and immediate change.

Now, here's the biggest part I want you to know about the immediate method. I said this pretty clearly, but I'm gonna say it again. The cost will be high. So when you do this, if you have to do an immediate method, I want you to wanna acknowledge that and as part of that, own that you will only be able to work on your bedtime and wake up time during this transition.

Don't pile on all the other habits, whether it's exercise or. Meal planning or meditation or journaling or whatever else it is. Don't do the new year. January joiner thing where you're doing all the new habits all at once, including a way earlier, wake up time. And as part of that, an earlier bedtime, which by the way, the two have to go hand in hand.

If you're gonna wake up early, you have to go to bed early too. So just know this about the immediate method. You can only focus on your bedtime and wake up times during that transition. And as part of that, be really gentle with yourself. In all other areas of your life, you're gonna feel a lot more tired and grumpy.

You're maybe there'll be some shifts to your mental health because of that, or your relationships will be stressed. So do your best to take really good care of yourself, the best you can in every other area of your life. Now, you may think that, I think the immediate method is not the best method. I'm pretty neutral actually, about all three methods I'm gonna teach you today.

And there are some situations where the immediate method is the most appropriate. And I recently counteracted that kind of situation with a coaching client he was working from home also as the full-time primary parent without childcare, and she's been doing this for so many years, but with big consequences to both her health and her relationships, and she was ready to finally own that what was going to make her life run much more smoothly was to wake up early.

And we talked at length about why that was and also how she had to accept that this was coming at a high cost. We also utilized some strategies about how to get to bed early with the sticky habit method that you hear me teach about all the time. We had a really clear when then pairing for her to get to bed We also tried to remove some obstacles to help her wake up early, such as plugging in her phone across the room.

So she has to get up to turn off her alarm that phone issue helps her get to bed earlier as well. But even with all of that, we knew this was going to be rough. She's now about three, four weeks into it and actually doing quite well. The first week was pretty terrible, but after that she's been able to both stick with the habit because her bedtime and wake up time were the only habits she was focusing on.

She's been really gentle and supportive with herself in other areas and her body is starting to adjust as well. So the second method to waking up early was immediate. The third method is combination, and this is where you get to combine both gradual and immediate.

In this way, again, it starts the same. You choose your ideal wake up time to get there. What you do is you immediately make a 30 to 60 minute leap back towards that time. So let's say that right now you wake up around 8:00 AM and your ideal wake up time is 6:00 AM But that is such a big leap right now.

You know that you won't be able to immediately jump to 6:00 AM that's two hours left of sleep. But at the same time, you must wake up earlier because perhaps you're starting a new job and maybe seven 30 or 7:00 AM. Will still work, but not be super ideal in terms of the ideal version of what you're wanting.

But it's enough for the time being so you make that leap back and you are now waking up at, let's say, 7:00 AM. From there, you can gradually back up more towards your ideal time. In 15 minute increments. So let's say you do 7:00 AM for maybe a month or two, and it's starting to feel more natural and you're sleeping a little bit better at night, and you're better able to gradually.

Work back, both your go to bedtime and your wake up time. So you start with 6:45 AM and then after a couple days you're like, Hey, I can do six 30. And then maybe after a couple of weeks you're like, okay, I can do six 15. And then gradually you get to that 6:00 AM. So the combination method is to choose the ideal time,

make a 30 to 60 minute leap back towards the ideal time. Then gradually back up more to the ideal and 15 minute increments. The pros of this method is that get some immediate benefits. It requires less time overall, but you don't have to pay so high of a cost to do so. The cons is that it still does take time and there is still a cost.

It's not as high as when you do the immediate method, but there still is a cost. Some possible situations that would make this method a good one for you. Include maybe you need a faster change, but it doesn't have to be completely immediate. Maybe the new job, a new season, new schedules, perhaps daylight savings time.

Like if, you know, I do need to jump back a little bit, but getting back to my normal ideal, it's okay if I take my time to get there. I'll still have enough time to get ready for the certain thing in the morning, and I'll just have to skip other habits until then. And if you just for whatever reason need to bump things back, or let's say you typically wake up at a decent morning time hour, but you want to inch that back even further, this is a good situation for you.

I did this recently with the Daylight savings change.

I already told you that it took me about two years to gradually inch back to my 6:00 AM time. I was probably more times than not make waking up at six 30 and even closer to six, but 2024 was more about, okay, 6:00 AM is a wake up time heading into 2025. I knew my biggest goal that I've ever had in my entire life of writing a book would require me to write in the morning, and because of that.

Wake up a full hour earlier. I'm really proud of myself because from January through March I was able to do that. I actually did the combination method there of starting with five 30 and after like a week or two, I bumped it back to 5:00 AM now with daylight savings.

I couldn't do it. I just knew I couldn't jump from waking up at 5:00 AM according to my body, and then waking up at 4:00 AM according to my body, even though it was technically the same time. So what I did is I did the combo method instead of waking up at 5:00 AM. With this new time change, which was really feeling like 4:00 AM I woke up at five 30.

It was still a leap, but it wouldn't come at such a high cost that I was going to be a nightmare to be around. And it's now been a week and a half and I gradually inch my time back to 5:00 AM In the last couple days I've been waking up at 5:00 AM more times than not.

So whether it's daylight savings for you or a new job, a combination method could be right for you if you want to make an immediate leap, but then gradually inch back more towards an earlier and more ideal time. The three methods to waking up early. were Gradual.

Immediate and combination.

Again, I want to say getting up early is not morally superior, but it can be beneficial, both deep and practical. And if you are ready to change your night owl, ways to become a morning bird, let me act as a testament to you as well as the countless clients I've worked with this on that.

You can do it. and it doesn't have to be wholly dependent on willpower and determination, but with some grit end prioritization. you will be able to change the way you go to bed and wake up, I guarantee it.

I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants you need to grow. There is no formal progress pointers for this episode, but I did create a free handout that lists the three methods, including how to do them and the possible good situations may make you a match or that method,

and it also includes links to all the other episodes that you should put on a playlist that will help you go to bed and wake up early. You can find that handout by going to about progress.com/wake up early. And for those of you who are already on my newsletter, you're gonna automatically get that in this week's email, but if you're not yet, go to about progress.com/wake up early. I am going to give you a do something challenge this week, and that is to choose a method, whether it's gradual, immediate, or a combination. I want you to choose one of the methods and just to try it out, and if it doesn't work too well for you, then maybe you need to try one of the other methods because that's how it is sometimes.

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Naturally, for most of my life, I tended to be someone where my energy spiked at night.

It's when I could get creative,

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