How can I have more self discipline, such as getting up at 6 every morning?

To wake up at 6 am, you don't need self-discipline. Well, not much of it.

Think about it: every day, millions of people wake up at 6 am or even earlier to be on time in their jobs.

Do you think they muster self-discipline for 5 days a week, 20-21 days a month, and about 220 days a year to wake up?

It's not that they are positively anticipating a day at work. 70% of employees are not engaged in their work. That is in the USA, where this rate is the best in the world. They reluctantly drag their butts off their beds and grudgingly go to work they don't like or even loathe.

Why? Because they have appropriate habits, not because they exercise their self-discipline every day.

You Need Better Habits

Habits are not optional. The trigger appears, and the activity follows. When an alarm clock rings, employees wake up and go to work. They don't ponder if this is a good day for work. 70% of them don't consider any day fitting to work. They just do it.

To achieve a specific outcome, you need a specific habit.

To wake up at six am, you need a habit of being obedient to the signal of your alarm clock. If you have some troubles with that, you amend the habit, not exercise more self-discipline. If you sleep deeply, make the sound of the alarm louder. If you tend to hit a snooze button, move the alarm clock farther away from your bed. That way, you will need to come out of your warm bad to silence the monster.

Yes, there is some amount of self-discipline involved in creating good habits. You actually need to design your habit, take time and effort to tweak it when you fail, and track the habit in the forming phase. But once the habit becomes automatic, as proper habits are, you need little to no self-discipline to follow through.

Self-discipline Is like a Muscle

If you want more discipline, you need to train it. It won't grow on its own; it's not a grass.

How to train it? Obviously by doing things that need self-discipline. Cold shower is one example. You need to overcome internal resistance to go under cold water.

Anything that feels unpleasant, but provides benefits down the road, will do. You may exercise self-discipline by eating raw broccoli instead of pizza, doing your homework before turning Netflix on, delaying checking of your email or Facebook before you tackle a work project, and so on. Be creative and you will find your own unique self-discipline exercises.

Reframe

A very useful technique in getting things done is reframing your experience. Replace your current thoughts with affirmations or arguments that will enforce your self-discipline.

When going into a cold shower, don't think "F**k, I hate this," but rather "Great, I'm building my self-discipline, and it's a fundament of success."

When waking up at 6 in the morning don't think "Mmmmm, I would love to sleep two hours more," but rather "Great, the day has already started, and I'm going to do my best."

Each experience can be reframed. It just takes a conscious effort to overcome the automatic thoughts your subconscious suggests. By the way, thinking the right thoughts was considered by Wallace D. Wattles, the author of The Science of Getting Rich, the hardest work a human being is capable of. I agree with him 100%. Hence, reframing itself will grow your self-discipline.

“If you want to be healthy study health... if you want to be wealthy, study wealth... if you want to be happy, study happiness.” – Jim Rohn

If you want self-discipline, study self-discipline. Pay attention to it. Make it an important part of your life. Watch for signs of discipline and signs of laziness and love of comfort. Focus on it.

In the end, this is how any improvement has been ever achieved.

Understand that you wake up in a particular way just out of habit.

You open your eyes, do some stretching, snooze in, stay there for longer just because you’ve wired your brain to be like that.

Everything you do habitually is a neurological loop - a neural pattern in your head.

And the way to start loving getting up is to reconstruct the neural network of your brain.

How do you do that?

By getting up faster.

This process is called neuroplasticity and it’s a constant process.

The more you have certain reactions, do certain things, have certain habits, the more you will exhibit them in the future. And staying in bed for longer than you should enforces the habit of staying there even longer the next morning.

Understanding this is crucial.

I'm not perfect and I sometimes indeed stay a few minutes longer in bed than I should. When it does happen, I quickly use some of these techniques to wake up while I still can.

• Don't even think about it - As soon as you open your eyes, roll out of bed.
• Ask yourself 'WHY' - Why do you want to get up? You maybe have some goals or a bigger reason to work towards. If you remember why you do something, you can get instantly motivated by the results you'll eventually get, but only if you wake up first, that is.
• Remind yourself neuroplasticity - This is crucial because you wanting to sleep in is a habit - it's a neural pattern and not bound to who you really are. Every moment spent in bed conditions your brain to prefer it in the future. Every decision you make ultimately creates the person you are.
• Move your body - Throw away the blanket and start doing jumping jacks, push-ups or immediately take a cold shower.

Your brain adapts to the conditions it gets exposed to the most. The more you do something, the more you’ll keep doing it in the future.

I also have a free E-book for restructuring your brain for loving waking up early: Wake Up Empowered Book - Siim Land

Stay Empowered

Siim

Thanks for the A2A.

I would start with asking, “why do I want to wake up at 6am each morning?”

Is there any particular reason for waking up at that time?

Did you just read that successful people wake up early in Forbes magazine? Or is it because you want to work on your side hustle before your day job starts at 9am?

Answer this question for yourself, then ask yourself if your answer is really a good enough reason.

Having a strong “why” is more important than knowing “how”.

A strong “Why” will push you on the days when you feel like giving up.

Let's assume that you decided you have a strong reason to wake up at 6 am each day.

Now let me share my strategy for waking up early:

1. Set a loud alarm for 6 am and put it far away from your bedside. The idea is to be forced to get up and walk a short distance to turn it off.
2. Drink some water to help jump-start your brain.
3. Splash your face with some cold water in the sink, that helps me wake up a little more and feel fresh for the day.
4. Go outside and get some sunlight. Sunlight gets all kinds of helpful hormones running in your body. These hormones tell your body, “hey buddy, it's time to be awake. Let's go.” If the sun is not out yet, get under some bright artificial “blue” light at the minimum.
5. BONUS: If you're really struggling, there are web apps you can install that will post embarrassing things to social media if you won't wake up in time to disable the app. Do a google search and see which one works best for you.

P.S. Don't count on anyone to help you wake up. Not your parents, not your boyfriend or girlfriend, and definitely not God. None of these beings will care about you waking up early as much as you do.

You have to count on yourself, and hold yourself accountable. If you fail, it's on you, and you alone. Remember that.

Good luck!

Here’s the thing: Just Do It.

There’s no magic to it. Get up and go.

But maybe a few practical pointers:

1. Make your alarm effective again! Move it away from your bedside, so you have to arise to turn it off. Also set you phone to give you a wake-up alarm maybe ten or fifteen minutes later, and place it, also, away from your bed. Have a friend call you then maybe ten minutes after that. Just get the hell up!
2. Stay up. Take a shower. Do some jumping jacks. Make the bed!
3. Get dressed and ready for work/school/whatever. Leave early, and go straight to it. Lean into the day. Be the first one at the office. Scare everyone: “Who is THAT guy? Looks like Andrew, but he’s NEVER early!”
4. Do this three times in a row. Then do it again.
5. JUST DO IT!

I always wonder about those people who freeze up at the door of the plane when they go skydiving for the first time. What did they THINK was going to happen? Just blank your mind for a second and lean forward until it’s impossible to stop. Don’t over think it - don’t “think” it at all.

Just do it.

Literally, prayer and action.

I ask God for right action and right thinking and I am lead to be a better person. Just for today.

Also, believe in yourself. Tell yourself that you CAN. Instead of groaning about how “awful” something might be, look for the positives! Find gratitude in ALL areas of your life. Life is nothing but a matter of perspective. If we look through a selfish and bitter muddied looking glass all will seem “not right.” But when I seek the beauty in daily living I will see it.

It will take practice. But I went from being a very self-centered person that could care less about showing up to appointments late (if showing up at all) to being a mother of a daughter and being very courteous, respectful of others and reliable. I couldn't have done it without the power of God on my side through prayer!

You can do it!!

Hi Amanda and Andrew

I am not a self made morning person at 16 I was getting up if I could at 4pm

Turned it around by getting up a bit earlier each day and first thing I did something I really liked

It's a brain hack I now have realise but then just thought if I hate getting up early and the people that are morning people love it

I thought I would join their tribe and began to hang around early risers and asked them why they liked getting up early

Found the things I liked about the morning practised them and I just wake up before the alarm goes off now

If I miss a day I don't beat myself up I enjoy the fact I slept :) because I needed to

Keep setting the alarm a bit earlier each day don't try 4:30am you will probably fail and hate it negative re-enforcement try the positive re-enforcement of 5 minutes earlier for a month keep track do that thing you love in those five minutes

I hate discipline it sucks and usually does not last make it a habit and it can last a life time as it is just who you are

Hope that helps

All the best and foster wisdom wherever you see it

The key to building new habit is asking yourself why it's important for you to reach this Goal? After you have the WHY figured out, you're ready to start, Baby Step at a time!

If you want to wake up at 6am everyday, start with walking up 10 minutes earlier than you normally do. So if you normally wake up at 8am, It'd take appx 2 weeks to finally waking up at 6am. You'll have bad days, account for those too, don't beat yourself up, start again the day after, pick up where you left off . Remind yourself of why this is important to you along the way and keep reaching for your goal. Good luck!

Initially it will suck if you aren't use to waking up early. However, the best way I know without destroying your soul is by gradually setting your alarm 5minutes early each week. Eventually you'll get to the point of waking up at 6am and it won't feel hard at all. Another way is getting enough sleep, get at least 5–6 full sleep cycles and then you can feel more alert when you wake up! I tried this and even now I play around with my sleep because I'm learning my body and it's needs.

Hope this helps.