Becoming an early riser

I am not a morning person. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Never have been. My mom says even as a baby and young child I was more of a night owl. Of course, I can get up early when I really have to but it’s a chore for me – a task I really hate doing. I just don’t “do” morning.

Yeah, I’ve had jobs and other essential times in my life where I have been forced to get up early and I always just plain hated it. And now, what with children having to get up early for school, I’ve become a semi-early riser even in the summer and non-school days. Most of the time, I’m awake by 7:30 when there is no school. During the school year, I’m up shortly after 6.

But what I’m talking about here – and my intention – is to change that. Not that I like waking up early any better, it’s just I’m ready to bite the bullet and do it anyway. Instead of it being a chore to get up at the crack o’dawn or sooner, I want to actually do it because I WANT to. Not because it’s essential or because I HAVE to.

In short, I’m trying to change my attitude towards mornings and getting up early.

Instead of thinking of it as a chore, I want to think of it as fun and exciting. I want to get things started in the morning and just have time to do things in the quiet before everyone else is up. I want to relish in that quiet moment.

I was thinking about this yesterday and I realized that if I get up at 7:30-8 here on the West Coast, it’s already 10:30-11 a.m. on the East Coast. Practically lunch time! If someone over there is an early riser and gets up at 5-6 in the morning, they’ve already been up for about SIX HOURS before I even get out of bed! LOL Imagine what I could do in that amount of time! While I’m not going to get up 3am just so I can be on the same schedule as someone in Eastern time zone, I do want to get up early enough that I can feel a sense of accomplishment every day. Becoming an early riser is all about blazing trails, pushing the envelope and breaking all the rules.

Because sometimes, it’s our own constraints that need to be broken in order to move forward.

What are you going to do this week to break the constraints of your life? Tell me in the comments . . .

Until next time . . . keep blazin’!