Six sides, endless possibilities
Waking up in the morning can be the hardest part of the day. If you start your day with the challenge of waking up before dawn, you’ve won your first mental battle and have set the tone for the rest of the day.
It feels good to know you’re starting your day while most people are still in bed.
Mornings are often a blur of activity, rushing to get to work on time after hitting the snooze button until the very last minute. Waking up early gives you the freedom to have a leisurely breakfast, a luxurious shower, and any other activities you may want to fit in before the day really starts.
The way you start your day has a big influence on your mood for the rest of the day. If your mornings are hectic and stressful then you’ll carry that with you.
Waking up earlier can give you more time to achieve your goals. It often feels like we don’t have enough hours in the day, but waking up earlier is more likely to improve your productivity than staying up late. Some people are night owls, but most of us just want to chill out by a certain point in the evening.
Here’s a list of highly successful people who wake up early, and how they use that time. Their careers speak for themselves.
Virgin Media founder Richard Branson wakes up at 5:45 am every day, even while staying on his private island. He likes to use the time to exercise before starting work.
Many believe that Kobe Bryant's work ethic was what made him great. He consistently trained between 5 am and 7 am before school, and continued to rise early to get ahead of the game throughout his life.
Steve Jobs woke up at 6 am every day to get some work done before breakfast with his family.
Current Apple CEO Tim Cooke wakes up at 3:45 am every morning. He says he likes to get ahead of the other time zones in the US and work on his emails.
Fashion consultant and 'Project Runway' star Tim Gunn loves to get up before sunrise. He starts every day at 5:30 am with coffee and a newspaper.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz reportedly goes for an early morning bike ride with his wife and still arrives at the office by 6 am every day.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey wakes up at 5 am to meditate and go for a six-mile (a little under 10 km) run.
Former Cisco and Motorola CTO Padmasree Warrior wakes up at 4:30 am to read the news, work out, answer emails, and get to the office by 8:30 am.
So it’s clear that many of the most successful people in the world are in the habit of getting up before the sun. Here are some tips for getting into the routine.
It can be a shock to the system to suddenly start getting up three hours earlier. It’s better to start rolling back the clock gradually.
Get up 15 minutes earlier every week until you’ve reached your target time. This will allow your body to adjust and make it easier to achieve.
Most early risers swear by consistency. That means waking up at the same time every day, even on weekends.
Your body doesn’t know the difference between Tuesday and Saturday. If you sleep late on the weekends, it’ll be much harder to get back to your 5 am routine when Monday comes around.
Hitting the snooze button repeatedly leaves you groggy and disoriented. It also increases your chances of oversleeping! A tip for getting straight up is to put your alarm on the other side of the room so you need to get out of bed to turn it off.
Research shows that you remember something better if you write it down. It can help to write "I will wake up at 5 am" before going to bed. Internalizing this information can make it just that bit easier to get up when the alarm goes off.
Decide in advance what you’re going to do when you wake up. If you don’t have a clear sense of why you’re getting up, then it’s a lot easier to roll over and go back to sleep. It’s also nice not to have to think too much when you first wake up!
If you start getting up earlier, then you also need to go to bed earlier. Some presidents run on five hours of sleep, but most humans need approximately eight hours.
Try to get excited about your new routine, and all the things you’re going to accomplish with those extra hours. Maintaining a clear focus and motivation will give you that extra push to get out of bed.
See also: Hate waking up early? This is why
Imagine seeing the sunrise every single day? Many would argue that sunrises are far more beautiful than sunsets.
There's something magical about the hours before sunrise, the peace and privacy when it feels like you're the only person in the world awake. That's not enough to make most people wake up at 5 am every day though! Olympic athletes, entrepreneurs, and CEOs often swear by their early morning routines, but they have crazy training schedules and 24/7 high stakes careers.
Do you need some convincing? Let's take a look at the benefits of waking up at an ungodly hour and how it might work for the rest of us.
Why and how successful people rise before dawn
Is it time to join the 5 am Club?
LIFESTYLE Routine
There's something magical about the hours before sunrise, the peace and privacy when it feels like you're the only person in the world awake. That's not enough to make most people wake up at 5 am every day though! Olympic athletes, entrepreneurs, and CEOs often swear by their early morning routines, but they have crazy training schedules and 24/7 high stakes careers.
Do you need some convincing? Let's take a look at the benefits of waking up at an ungodly hour and how it might work for the rest of us.