The Two Best Alarm Clocks

I wasn't a morning working person…until I had to be.

I live in Florida, and the only two options for summer workouts for football were 6am or 2pm. I tried the 2pm time slot exactly once to discover that there was no way I was going to keep doing that in the middle of the Florida summer.

After high school, I'd go to the gym whenever I pleased. Sometimes that meant at night, and all the way up until midnight. (I really don't recommend that.)

As we get older, responsibilities pile up, and if you're in that situation, there's a willpower drain that happens.

Willpower is your ability to resist a temptation. In this case, we can call it the temptation to skip a workout. No matter what you do and no matter your level of responsibilities, willpower drains for everyone. This is why decisions or work is harder to do at the end of the day. The more responsibilities you have, the faster it drains. You can't avoid it.

So what did I try?

After we set up our home gym, I'd experiment with working out at different times in the day.

A few times I did mornings, but I also tried lunches or after work.

Lunches weren't always great. Maybe someone at work needed my attention.

After work, and especially after having kids, the time I had to train was so small. I think I tried working out while my wife was picking up our kid. Talk about a rushed training session. Even now that the kids are old enough to know to stay out of the way, they still need attention. That attention would be getting split between them and my workout.

The final answer, and the one you're not going to want to hear, is to use the mornings. That's the only way I've found to be consistent, to have a fresh brain and to not talk myself out of it as the day goes on.

But how do you make sure you're making it happen and not hitting snooze every day?

You have to set up two "alarm clocks."

The 2 Reasons You Sleep In

During my "wake up early" moment in high school, I didn't have a lot going on aside from working out. Even though I had the rest of the day to myself, I was so tired and drained I was going to bed in the 9pm hour. Some nights I'd even go to bed at 8:30 because I had nothing else to do.

I had to go to bed early due to needing to get up early. But the moral of the story is that if you go to bed early, you'll be more fresh to wake up in the morning. It's magic!

(It still won't be comfortable because you'll be so bored, but at least your body will be ready.)

You can't always guarantee your sleep quality or your falling asleep time, but if the alarm is set, you start to train your body to wake up at that time.

On the opposite end, people are often bewildered that they can't seem to wake up when their alarm goes off or keep hitting snooze until oblivion until they have to get up. Is it because you stay up until 11pm every night scrolling? Hmm I wonder…

Another reason people sleep in is just because the reason to get up isn't strong enough. Setting goals for your physical health is hard because you don't see the returns for months. It really just comes down to re-framing what you want and reminding yourself constantly.

If you had a strong enough reason for a goal, and you know that mornings were your best bet to get it done because if you don't do it then and there it probably won't happen, then you'll get up.

Besides, if your job told you that you had to wake at 4am to catch a flight tomorrow, you'd miraculously do it. Hmm…

Setting Your Alarms

The Reasons

Let me help you build a strong reason first.

The reason has to come first, because I can tell you to set your alarm for 5am tomorrow, but you can just as easily hit snooze and go about your sleepy business.

• What do you hate about yourself right now? Be honest.

• That answer will be a strong reason for a positive result.

• Do you have the time during the rest of the day to workout like you think you do? No? Well you know what to do.

• What will happen if you keep letting this goal slide? What will happen in 3 months, 6 months or 1 year from now? Do you want more of what you're getting?

• Write your answers down on your phone or on a paper somewhere on a wall and stare it daily. If it hurts, there's a reason that it does. That's the starting point for change.

• For extra motivation that I just though of, start rewarding yourself. The gym takes months to see returns, but our brains want a reward when building a new habit. Allow yourself to watch a show, or get new workout clothes, or eat a yummy (ideally healthy) meal at night or even a cheat at the end of the week if you've been consistent. If it works for training animals, it will work for you.

The Sleep

You're going to have to start treating yourself like a child and give yourself a bedtime routine. If it makes sense for kids, it will make sense for you. Besides, a great morning is based on a good night (of sleep).

Here's how to set things up.

• Write down when you should wake up to get a workout in. Add in more time for a shower/getting ready for work OR think about cutting the workout time down. (Your workouts should be short if you're just getting started.)

• Get physically ready for the morning: lay out your gym clothes, pre-workout nutrition, workout plan. Don't wake up and then figure all of this stuff out. We want to remove as much mental friction as possible.

• Cut off your phone/social media and start reading a book. Do this right now: set a reminder on your phone for a reasonable time at night and put your phone on a charger (Probably in your bedroom if you're not in bed yet. Just keep it away from you.) Do literally anything else. Get ready for the morning. Make a TODO list about things in your head. Read something. Talk to the other humans in your house. Even watching TV is better than scrolling at night because at least you have to pay attention to something for at least 30 minutes.

• Don't scroll in bed! Your bed should be for sleeping. If you've been tossing and turning at night, your brain and body may have confused your bed for scrolling/mental stimulation time instead of nighty-night time. Don't do that. If you really need to use your phone before sleep time, go to where it is, use it, then put it back down.

• Go to bed…when sleepy. Don't stress too hard about a hard sleeping time. Your morning alarm and lack of phone time will start training you to get tired earlier than you realize. That's good. You'll need the extra sleep.

If you really get bored, or can't sleep, the best thing to do is to just lie in bed in the darkness. That's the way humans lived forever anyway. Otherwise, you need to make sure you're moving around and getting as much sun during the day as possible, then winding down at night. Get up and move around during work. Go on walks. Try to get 10k steps. Stretch, deep breathe, nod your head up and down before bed to calm you down.

Win the Morning. Win the Day.

If you're a busy adult and lamenting that the early morning is your only productive time slot, I get it.

We don't have the light schedule we used to have that allows us to workout whenever we please for 3 hours.

The only silver lining is that maybe things will be better when your kids are bigger, but don't bank on it. If anything, it's better to maintain the habit at 10% now than try to make up for it 3-5 years from now. Your body still needs maintenance, so figure out how to make it happen.

Either way, mornings are a great way to win the day. You've woken up and taken a few steps towards whatever goal you have. Mentally you've won, and physically you'll feel better.

It's a lot better than trying to get enjoyment out of the end of the day.

Thanks for reading! As always if you have questions, feel free to respond to this newsletter or you can fill out this questionnaire to ask questions to fuel more content.