Wake Earlier and in Silence

This is the first in our series, 12 ways to change your life

Waking earlier gives you an opportunity to gently enter the woken world before any distraction and hustle begins.

If we have a look at the practices of the most successful people in history we will note that most of them have one thing in common; they are early risers. According to an April 2016 article in Business insider UK,  the following  successful people are self proclaimed early risers. Tim Cook, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey,  AOl CEO Tim Armstrong, and Xoerox CEO Ursula Burns. We also know that Richard Branson is up by 5:45am, Ellevest Co founder Sallie Krawcheck wakes at 4 am so she has time to as she says  “think creatively”.  Kayak co-founder Paul English wakes up by 6 am to meditate. Many early risers claim one of the benefits of rising early to be the ability to find creativity and inspiration in the early hours of the morning when they are not as yet at the behest of the world’s demands.

Rising early also allows the opportunity to enter the woken world in a gentle way. At a time when you are not yet pressed to react. I have been practising waking early for a little while now, and I noticed very early the difference it had made to my day and my family. Although I expected change, I had not expected it so quickly. The level of anxiety surrounding my entire day reduced significantly because of the calm way I entered my new day and also because I am ahead of the day. As a result my entire family is calmer. The school rush is less chaotic. I begin work on time and I am a much nicer person to be around. Its a Win! Win! I feel like by just waking earlier, I have given my entire day an overhaul.

I know that waking early is easier said than done. Believe me when I say that I struggled to wake earlier. I still have days when I would much prefer to hit the snooze button, turn over and wrap my duvet around me once again. But I learnt a lovely and effective trick from Mel Robbins. It’s called the 5 second rule. It is a metacognition tool recognised by Mel Robbins in her book aptly named ‘The 5 Second Rule’. This tool tricks the brain into doing something it wouldn’t normally do. Mel Robbins encourages her readers to act within 5 seconds of receiving a positive impulse. It has been proven, that whenever you have an impulse to take a positive action, you have 5 seconds before your brain begins to make excuses as to why you shouldn’t do it and your motivation begins to disappear. So the rule is, once you have that impulse you must physically move. For example; when the alarm goes off, you count backwards from 5. You say ‘5! 4! 3! 2! 1!‘ And you spring out of bed immediately, giving your mind no chance to talk you out of waking up.

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Wake in silence

It is important to note that waking earlier and rushing into the hustle doesn’t change much other than giving you a head start. When you wake in the morning give yourself the opportunity to wake gently and in silence. You are already up early so you have already significantly reduced the need to rush through your morning mindlessly, moving on auto pilot, disconnected, and starting your day in a state of agitation, overwhelm or even anger. Give yourself enough time to be in intentional calm and silence. This usually sets the tone for your day. Try prayer, meditation, or just simply sitting purposely in silence. Avoid the use of any mobile devices, social media, entertainment sources, emails etc before your 10 minutes of silence is over. You simply wake, sit, relax, and focus on a relaxing or happy thought. Avoid allowing your mind to wander, take slow, long deep breaths and just be present in the moment.