JANUARY 2017 MIAMI for web

HEALTHY MIND
HEALTHY KIDS
HOW TO MOTIVATE
YOURSELF TO
WAKE UP
EARLIER
When you start waking up earlier,
it really sucks. There, I said it.
I
faced my dreaded early bird future a
couple years ago, knowing it was the
right way to go, but hating it and wishing
desperately that I could hold onto my
beloved night owl lifestyle.
The evenings were my prime time. Or so I
thought. At the end of a long day, curling up
on the couch with my laptop and a glass of
wine made my heart happy. I would always
tell myself I was going to be productive and
knock out a blog post or two, but then get
hazy and distracted and end up watching
three hours of Netflix. I’d start to doze off and
end up wandering to bed around midnight or
later.
SOUND FAMILIAR?
I reached a point where, like the lovely Kat
Lee says so often, I was waking up TO my kids
rather than FOR my kids. I woke up to them
bickering, asking for breakfast, in a hazy fog
from the late night before. Not my best self,
I often started the day cranky, sometimes
yelling - and the mom of the year award goes
to…anyone else.
I decided to suck it up and make some
changes. I had already discovered the beauty
of simplifying my home and how much freer
I felt as a mom during my daily routine, so I
wondered what I could change next.
I woke up at 5:00 the next morning. I forced
myself to just do it - stand up and make the
bed as quickly as possible, then run into
the kitchen - no chance of climbing back
under the cozy covers. I was half dead, but
with some coffee and a few quiet
moments, I got my laptop out and
started writing.
I was pretty productive, but the kids heard
me tapping the keyboard and kept wanting
to come out. Then they’d be loud, then they’d
ask me for breakfast despite the fact that it
was still dark out and they probably shouldn’t
even be awake yet. It was frustrating and
discouraging, but I could see the light. I saw
how the mornings could go and noticed that
I was for sure more alert and ready to be
productive early in the day, unlike nighttime
when I’m really just DONE and want to veg
out with my hubby and Netflix. Plus, I liked it,
to my surprise.
I decided to adjust and push through,
tweaking things to eliminate the problems.
A couple years later, I still wake up around
5AM. It’s not perfect, and some days I get
up slightly later and some days even a little
earlier, depending on lots of things, but I’ve
figured out how to make this work! And when
it does, waking up early is pretty amazing and
highly beneficial to motherhood.
I want to say before I dive into the deets...
there are seasons for this. There are seasons
to not give a crap - like when you’re pregnant
or sick or have a baby who still wakes up
randomly. There are people who truly do
better, more productive work in the evening.
This post isn’t meant to sway you. If you stay
up late and get sh*t done, go for it. It works
for you, great.
I saw how the
mornings could go
and noticed that I was
for sure more alert and
ready to be productive
early in the day
There are also seasons where
nighttime really does work better for
one reason or another. I’ve switched
back to being a night owl twice in
the last two years, very temporarily.
Once because I was creating my
course. It was very stressful and I
found that I didn’t sleep well until
I had poured a heavy amount of
work into it. The other time is right
now, in the past week, for a similar
reason. I’m working on writing my
book proposal and several other
large work projects, and when the
stress level is this high, for some
reason I change into this nighttime
productivity machine and just need
to pour into my work right before I
call it a day. It’s weird, but it works
better for me very rarely, so I roll
with it.
16 / HEALTHY MIAMI