Waking up is hard to do...

I found this bit of advice helpful the other day...

How to Wake Up Enthused Every Day

Posted: 12 Sep 2008 07:06 PM CDT

Written on 9/12/2008 by Ali Hale who writes about healthy eating for busy people at her blog, The Office Diet.

Photo Credit: chazzvid

Have you tried, and failed, to become an early riser? Do you set your alarm clock for 6am every day, only to hit “snooze” repeatedly until 8? It can be incredibly tough to crawl out from under the duvet and launch into the day, when all your good intentions have evaporated overnight.

But don’t beat yourself up for a lack of self-discipline, that’s not the reason why you’re struggling to get up. I bet there have been plenty of times in your life when you got up at the crack of dawn because you wanted to: your birthday, Christmas, the first day of a new job, etc., any time when you were just too excited to stay asleep.

So I’m not going to give you the usual advice of “go to bed earlier” and “set several alarms”, because that’s not what you need. Instead, you need to wake up enthused about every single day, so that you can’t wait to get going. And here’s how…

Start your day with something meaningful and enjoyable
It’s hard to jump out of bed when you know your first hour of the day will involve doing the dishes, taking out the trash and feeding the cat.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a fun, and meaningful, task to start your day. This could be anything you want. Most people find that either working on some sort of project (writing a novel, designing a website, etc) or carrying out a personal-development type activity (meditation, exercise, journaling, etc) is ideal.

Dozens of highly successful people around the blogosphere emphasize how important it is to start your day well: here’s quotes from just a couple of them who you’ll probably have heard of...

If you want a highly productive fast-tempo day, make that first hour as such — get up and go straight to work on your #1 project. – Steve Pavlina, The Rudder of the Day

Now, I have a renewing morning ritual, I’ve gotten so much done before 8 a.m., my kids are early and so am I, and by the time everyone else gets in to work, I’ve already gotten a head start. – Leo Babauta, 10 Benefits of Rising Early and How to Do It

Enjoy a good breakfast
As a health/diet blogger, I’m well aware of the importance of eating breakfast to kick-start your metabolism and get your body and brain into gear for the day. But as someone with a slightly greedy streak, I’m also well aware that having something tasty to look forwards to for breakfast can be a strong motivation to throw off the duvet and get into the kitchen!

Stock the cupboards and fridge with a few of your favorite breakfast foods: brands of cereal which you love, oatmeal (one of my favourites), fresh fruit, English muffins, pancakes, etc. You might just find yourself springing out of bed as soon as your alarm goes off.

Have a job you love
This tip isn’t so easy to implement – but it will make a huge difference not just to your motivation to get out of bed, but to your whole life. Spend your day doing a job that you love. If you hate what you’re doing for eight hours a day, five days a week, no wonder you want to stay in bed.

Why not read some of the advice on Dumb Little Man about figuring out if you should quit your job and finding your dream and living it? My one tip – especially for those trying to generate morning enthusiasm – is to devote the first hour of your day to finding and getting that job. For me, that meant months of getting up at 6am to work on my freelance writing and website portfolio before going to my day job. I was able to quit the day job and freelance full time just over a month ago.

Now that I have a job I love, and one where the effort I put in is directly proportional to the results that I get out, I find myself a lot more enthusiastic about getting up in the mornings!

How about you? Do you wake up tingling with excitement about the day ahead, or do you just roll over and curl up under the duvet again? What could you do to encourage yourself to leap out of bed at the start of each brand new day?

-Ali