Tip #11: Practice Waking Up

I am a big fan of Steve Pavlina and his blog Personal Development for Smart People. It’s one of the key things that pushed me towards the area of personal development back in 2005, and I have never regretted it. In his article How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off, Steve offers a very original wake up technique I’ve never seen before, yet it’s quite simple.

Here is how it works. There are thousands of things in your life that you couldn’t do at some point but you can do now. Walking, reading, driving a car, swimming… The list is endless. How did you move from not being able to do it to now being able to do it without thinking? You have learned it! And how did you learn it? You learned it through practice.

Putting two and two together, if you want to wake up early in the morning you should practice it.

How to Practice Waking Up

Now comes the tricky part – how do you practice it? Steve suggests you do it just like you do any other practice – during the day.

Go to your bedroom and darken the room
Put your night clothes on, take off your glasses – do everything you usually do before going to bed in the evening
Your goal is to set the conditions as close as possible to what they are when you go to sleep
When you are ready, set your alarm for a few minutes ahead, say 3-5 minutes
Lie down, close your eyes, relax completely and imagine you are sleeping
When the wake up alarm goes off, do what you would usually do in the morning – turn alarm off, sit on the bed, take a deep breath, stretch your limbs, then stand up and proceed to your next actions, e.g. go to the bathroom

Repeat this whole procedure several times.

Train Your Subconscious Mind

Your goal is to put your subconscious mind to work. Alarm goes off – you stand up. Alarm goes off – you stand up. Rinse and repeat.

After you do it for some time, say 5-7 times every day for 3-5 days, you will notice you start doing some things on autopilot. This practice pairs perfectly with creating a morning ritual — you’re essentially rehearsing your routine. And this is exactly what you want to achieve – let your subconscious mind drive your behavior.

Try to follow this pattern exactly in the morning when your wake up alarm goes off. Don’t think about what you need to do, don’t rationalize, just repeat your routine. And remember to put your alarm clock far from your bed so you have to physically get up.

I could not try this wake up trick because by the time I’d read about it I already had built a strong habit of waking up early. But if you still struggle with it and have difficulty waking up, you should give it a try.