Reclaiming Your Morning Swag

College and mornings. Two words you almost never hear in the same sentence. Just like awesome and georgia tech. They clash violently.

I’ve never considered myself a morning person. Getting up at 6:45am each morning in high school wasn’t easy. After football practice, dinner, and homework for AP classes, you were lucky if you got to bed by 10:30pm.

Coming into my freshman year at UGA, I had 8am classes Monday through Thursday and a 9am (my “sleep in day!”) on Friday. At first, I was like, “Ah man this is nothing! How hard can it be? I did this everyday in high school. Mornings are easier than eating cupcakes!”

I should write a blog post sometime called 10 Things They Don’t Tell You About College Until It’s Too Late. Somewhere on that list would be “8am will feel like 5am.” I don’t know why this happens. But oh boy, trust me… it does. That first semester, I totally lost my morning swag. Getting up for an 8am class became a nightmare.

I started taking naps on the reg and drinking coffee like it was water. I got sick several times throughout the year and the struggle to get eight hours of sleep each night became harder than my PreCalculus homework. PreCal was hard. I wrote a blog post about that one time.

I say all of that so you will know where I’m coming from. I feel your pain with mornings. They’re tough. I’m that guy who will read some blog post about the benefits of being a morning person, get really fired up about it for a couple days, get up early for an astounding two mornings in a row, and then go back into old habits of sleeping in until the sun is high in the sky.

So don’t think I have it all figured out. I don’t. But I’m working on it. And I think you should too.

I won’t bore you with the all the studies and numbers that say that morning people tend to live longer, be healthier, make more money, and get more done. I just want to share my personal experience with mornings and some keys to developing the right habits.

Here’s what I think are the best things about being a morning person, based on my personal experience.

1) It creates unbelievable momentum.

At the time of this writing, it’s 8:42am on a Saturday morning. I’ve been up since 5:45am. I went to Chick-fil-A and ate two delicious chicken biscuits, drank a couple cups of coffee, read through all of Galatians, spent time in prayer, showered, got dressed for the football game later today, chatted with a friend staying over at our house, and began writing this blog post. After this, I’ll do some homework and then go to the football game with my friends. All in a mornings work.

I don’t say that to brag.  Trust me, I have no room to brag (again, kinda like Georgia Tech) because most of the time I never do this. Sometimes I sleep through both my 9 and 11am classes. I know- embarrassing! But when you actually get up and at it, it’s mind blowing when you realize how much you can accomplish. It’s 100% worth it. If you don’t run the day, the day will run you.

2) It allows you to be still and reflect.

Have you ever woken up with 15 minutes until class started? If you’re like me, you probably jumped up, put your shoes on, and raced to class. It really brings that old country song “I’m in a Hurry” by Alabama to life. Seriously, though. It feels great to wake up and just sit there for a second. Being still. Reading the scriptures. Spending time in prayer. This is highly undervalued in our “always on” culture. No one will die and nothing will blow up if you can’t check Instagram within 60 seconds of waking up- I promise! Take time to get up early and create space for the things that matter most.

3) It clarifies your vision for the day.

I feel like half the reason some of my days don’t go as planned is because I never take the time to map out what needs to get done that day. I just jump into it head first like an Olympic diver. The slight difference between me and the Olympic diver is that instead of nailing a perfect 10, I belly flop.  Not a fun experience. Kinda like going into an accounting test without studying. Without a vision for what needs to get done that day,  you’re essentially going into the day blind. By taking time to map out the day and creating a game plan, it makes your daily tasks much easier to execute.

4) It helps you tackle the tough things first.

Studies have shown that humans only have a limited amount of willpower and that it’s typically strongest in the mornings. Don’t believe me? Try starting on a 10-page research paper at 1am. Yeah. Didn’t think so. When you get up and at it early, you have more gas in the tank and motivation to start hacking away at the big huge scary stuff you have to get done. I’ve also found that your mood and outlook tend to be the most positive when you’re fresh, which also helps you get rolling on the tough things.

 5) It prepares you for your future.

I read an article by John Piper the other day that talked about how the single you will be the married you. Marriage doesn’t magically change anything and make you a completely different person. The same thing can be said for college and mornings.  Your sleeping habits in college will be the sleeping habits in your real job. Nothing magically changes… other than the built in accountability to show up or get fired. Does that force you to suck it up and get up early? Sure it does. I mean, not failing a class forces me to get up early too. But it won’t teach you how to strategically approach mornings in the first place. Want to tackle mornings well in your career? Learn to tackle them well now. The college version of you will be the real life version of you.

So… how do you actually become a morning person?

(I’m glad you asked. I’ve been on the edge of my seat the entire week waiting for someone to ask me that question. As you can see from my five illustrious, detailed, and well-punctuated points above, I’m basically an expert.)

There’s tons of resources and blogs you could read up on to figure this out. I just want to focus on one key idea that I think, if really taken seriously, can be a game changer for your mornings.

The idea is this simple: Mornings start at 9:30pm. (Or whenever you’re about an hour away from going to sleep.)

The quality of your morning is directly determined by the quality of your nightly routine. You’re welcome to tweet that. That sounds like one of those zingers you always see on Twitter. I guess I’m just tweetable like that.

Here are a few (semi) pro tips for your nightly routine:

• Take 10 minutes to plan the next day, or even the week.
• Layout your clothes- just one less decision you have to make when you wake up.
• Screens are sleep killers. They keep your brain awake. Try to stop looking at screens at least 30 minutes before going to bed.
• Keep your room cool. Sleeping in a hot room is like drinking a cup of hot coffee right after a long run.
• Use a fan for white noise, if it helps. If other people in your house are still awake, a fan can help drown out distracting noise.
• Reading helps. I’ve found that reading tends to get my mind off what I’ve got going on the next day and helps my mind drift off before I go to sleep.

That’s about all I got. Maybe it’ll help. Make your nightly routine awesome and watch your mornings become awesome.

Are you a morning person? What are your keys to making mornings awesome?

 

 

For more, check out Michael Hyatt’s blog post: How to Become a Morning Person