It’s been my first week of attempting to get up early. In order to make this work, I know I need it to be a gradual process. Building a habit takes time (allegedly 21 days), and the last 7 days have been a challenge.
I decided to take it easy, not bursting straight into my ideal 6am, or “the” ideal 5am (shock, horror), and to just get up when the alarm goes off at 7am. You’d think it would be simple, but no, this was really hard.
I did OK for most of the week, it started slipping to 7.15 by the end. This is years and years of habit that I’m trying to unlearn.
Then came the weekend. I didn’t even think about the weekend. Saturday mornings, my most favourite time of the week. Lazily lying in bed with my husband, not feeling the need to do anything. It’s utter bliss. But no, in order to form a habit you need utter consistency, otherwise it’s almost impossible to trick your body/mind. This is where the link in the chain broke (apparently a new habit is a chain, and as soon as you break it, it’s like a broken link in the chain and you need to start again) – I got up both days at 8.30. And that was hard enough.
Still, once I was up it was easy. I come downstairs to my front room, probably the nicest room in our house (we’re renovating, look here for the blog on that!). The sunshine (when out) floods into this room in the early morning, which helps. Then I have my new morning ritual of 1. Making a cup of tea 2. Writing a page in my journal 3. Doing a ten minute meditation from the HeadSpace app. Well, number 3 didn’t happen during the week as usually after the tea and journal I’d hear the call from upstairs that the bathroom was free and to hurry up otherwise the bath would go cold (we only have a bath right now and only enough hot water for one go at it!). And so would follow the mad bath – clothes – breakfast dash before running out of the door for the bus. But this weekend has allowed me time to do point 3 and I feel amazing! It energized me, grounded me, and set me up for the day – and really shake off that morning-wakeup-lethargy spell that I’m always under in the morning.
So this is encouraging. I know that persevering with this is important. Perhaps the challenge this week has been that I’ve not woken early enough to do anything that I can receive instant reward from. I probably need at least 45 minutes on top of my normal wake up hours (and at least some time before other life forms start moving around the house) to reap the benefits.
So, despite the broken link, I am going to continue this week and attempt the 6.30 get up.
Shimmy Shimmy Bang Bang 