We all have a similar story when it comes to trying to add something new to our day.  Maybe we’re trying to start exercising, maybe it’s spending more time with the kids, parents, or grandparents, maybe it’s working on something we’ve been putting off for some time.  And we talk about it and say we’re going to make time for it but it never seems to happen.  Why is that and what can we do to change it?

During a large part of our days we basically function in auto pilot, probably more than we would like to admit.  We have these habits and routines that we’ve built over time and before we know it a big part of the day passes by.  Granted many of these are things that we need to get done, but if you challenge yourself you will probably find that many aren’t, but we’re not here to talk about that.  Then we have our dear friend instant gratification, the part of us that loves to spend time on things that usually don’t gain us anything and are simply self-gratifying; social media, watching TV or Youtube videos, video games, you name it.  We can get into how to limit time spent on this but we’re not here to talk about that either.  Finally, we all have obligations, things that we have no choice but to get done which of course also take time.  And so at the end of the day we’re not left with much time at all, certainly not to fit that new thing in our day, and we tell ourselves, “maybe tomorrow”, and call it a day.

This brings us to making time, adding new hours in the day by taking hours that are currently being occupied by only one thing and replacing it something that will allow you to add the new things to your schedule.  In case you haven’t guessed it, it’s getting up earlier.  I know, it’s not an out of this world idea and can sound very simple, but yet it is so hard for most people to make this change.  Let me better explain what I’m talking about first, if you usually get up at 6am to have time to get ready for work and arrive on time, then you change your schedule to get up at 5am instead and use that time for either directly the new thing you want to add, like exercise, or to do something you usually do later in the day so you free up that time later to say spend more time with the kids.  There are a ton of success stories out there from people that have made this type of change so it’s certainly a proven method.  There’s also a great book out there called “The 5AM Club” by Robin Sharma about this concept.

But it has to start with being able to get up earlier which again is the hard part.  I’m currently trying to make the change to getting up earlier and I’m not a morning person by any means.  But this is how I’m approaching it, if you have a trip planned out to some awesome place and your flight is leaving at 7am, you can pretty much bet you will be getting up before 6am to make sure you don’t miss that flight.  That place you will be traveling to, that destination, that is your driver, your motivation.  And so that’s how we should think about it every day, we need to get up earlier to catch that flight because what we’ll be able to accomplish by getting up earlier leads us to that awesome place, that better place in our lives. 

NOTE:  Since we’re all different, the approach I mentioned to getting up earlier might not do it for you.  The good thing is that there are tons of methods out there to getting up earlier, you only have to spend a few minutes searching online to find them.  For example, Mel Robbins, author and motivational speaker among other things, says she would count down from five to make herself get up, and this worked for her while she was going through depression.  I’ve read about another person that would verbally beat himself up to get out of bed by telling himself things like, “come on, don’t be a wimp”.  The book I mentioned, “The 5AM Club”, also talks about methods to getting up earlier. And of course don’t ignore the obvious, you can’t stay up late and expect to be able to get up early.  Bottom line, find that thing that works for you, it’s worth the investment as it will enable everything else you want to accomplish to get started.