How To Find Your Reason To Wake Up

Author

Cliff Nielson
December 17, 2022

You are a prisoner and you need to escape

Well, at least in this story you are. I need you to use your imagination for a moment.

Ready? Okay.

Imagine you are a captive in a prison camp. Life is miserable for you there. Guards look down on you from their watch towers and tall barbed wire fences line the perimeter of the camp. There are wooden barracks where you and your fellow inmates sleep. There is a mess hall where you are served the same bland meal every day. There is a work area where you slave all day - breaking rocks with a hammer 12 hours at a time. If you have good behavior, maybe they will let you work a little bit less each day, or maybe they will give you an extra portion of food. It isn't the life that you expected to be living.

Got that picture in your mind? Good.

Now, imagine one day, you are laying in your bunk in the barracks. Your back aches against the hard wood of your bunk. As you are about to slip off into another uncomfortable night of sleep, a whisper of thought comes into your mind...

“You need to escape.”

And you couldn't agree more. The next day, you begin to plot your escape. You are committed to leaving this prison in your past.

In hushed tones, you and your fellow bunk-mates devise a plan to leave this miserable place, once and for all.

Can't go over the fence. The barbed wire will snare you. And the guards are always watching. Always.

You will have to go under.

You pull up a few floorboards, revealing a firm patch of dirt.

You will have to dig.

Each day, in the morning hours, you take time to scrape your way through the soil. You dig with your hands and a metal bowl that you stole from the mess hall. The musty, earthy aroma of the dirt becomes something you look forward to.

You go to sleep as soon as you can each day, so you can wake up early enough to make progress on your tunnel to freedom.

Day after day, you dig. Even on the days when you are tired, even when you are exhausted from the toil of yesterday, you crawl out of your bunk.

No matter how tired you feel, you know you will have more energy before the workday begins, than if you start digging after a long day of labor.

With each handful of dirt, you draw a little bit closer to a better future.

Alright, no need to keep imagining.

Because your real life might be close enough to this imagined scenario.

At least it was for me…

My life felt like a prison.

I felt trapped in a life I didn't want to live. Each day my energy was drained by work I didn't want to do, for people who didn't appreciate me.

One night, I decided that I was going to escape and that I was going to build my own future, instead of being trapped in a reality that I didn't want.

And like the prisoner from our story, I committed to waking up early in the morning and began to spend my best energy working on the things that truly mattered to me.

Etch this into your mind...

If you spend your best time and energy building someone else's future, then you will never have the time or energy to build your own…

Which is why the early morning hours are so precious.

When you wake up, your "energy tank" is full. You need to empty as much of it as you can working on building the life that you want to live.

And because most of the world is still asleep, early mornings give you privacy and freedom from distractions.

If you want to make progress, then a full tank of energy and distraction-free focus is a potent combination. 

You've got hopes and dreams, right?

I know I do.

But I fumbled my way through life for years, never making any progress toward anything meaningful.

I felt like my future was in someone else's hands. I felt like a dog on a leash, drug along every day by an impatient owner.

Waking up early isn’t easy. Sometimes it is pretty dang hard.

But you know what is harder? Not being able to give me or my family the life we deserve because I didn't put in the work that was required.

The temporary discomfort of waking up a couple of hours earlier is nothing compared to the pain of letting down those you love.

Building the life my family deserves became the most powerful motivator in my life.

The real secret to waking up early...

If you have tried waking up early in the past but failed, then my bet is that your reason for waking up wasn't strong enough.

Waking up is easy. Staying up and doing something meaningful isn't.

At the bottom of this email, I'll give you my sure-fire, foolproof guide to waking up early.

But I really want to help you.

And I've realized there is no "hack" that can make up for a lack of purpose. Even the best tips or tricks are useless if you lack a good reason to rise in the morning.

A desperate need to build the future you deserve is the most powerful motivator to wake up (and stay up).

Find your "why" and you become unstoppable:

  • Maybe it is moving out of your parents' house.

  • Maybe it is giving your family a better life.

  • Maybe it is getting back in shape so you can feel good again.

Whatever it is, it should light you up whenever you think about it.

And if you are struggling to find your “why”, then think about the area of your life that contains the most pain and work from there. Pain is one of the strongest motivators in existence.

Even if you are living in a metaphorical prison, trapped in a life you don't want, if you have your eyes set over that barbed wire fence, it gives you something to strive towards. A brighter future gives you a reason to start digging a tunnel under the fence.

Three proven ways to get the benefits of waking up early

How to wake up feeling refreshed:

Waking up early starts with going to bed early. The more rested you are when your alarm goes off, the better you will feel and the more likely you are to actually stay awake. I know, I know, this seems obvious. However, almost everyone forgets this: it is actually more difficult to go to bed early than it is to wake up early. Stop staring at screens and unnatural light about 10 hours before you plan to wake up. Trust me, your circadian rhythm will be glad you did.

How to finally escape the snooze button:

  • Step 1. Before you slide into your bed, set your alarm and put it on the other side of your room, as far away as possible. This was a game-changer for me. If I sleep next to my alarm, when it buzzes, I will shut it off and go right back to sleep.

  • Step 2. If you are like me and take any medication or supplements, literally put them on top of your phone or in plain sight. Bonus point if you have to pick up your pills before you turn off your alarm.

  • Step 3. When your alarm goes off, scoop up your pills, shut off the alarm and then wash them down with some cold water. Do not, under any circumstances, lay back down. If you lay in bed listening to your excuses, you don't stand a chance.

How to actually stay awake:

If you struggle with staying up and you just want to slide back into bed, then the best thing you can do is change your state.

These are my favorite ways to wake up my body...

  • Take a shower (and end it cold). Even better would be a cold plunge, or as I like to call it, "nature's coffee".

  • Immediately go for a 10-minute morning walk (one of my favorite habits).

  • Go straight to the gym, having laid out your clothes the night before (you are committed, so you set those out last night, didn't you?).

No matter how tired you are when you wake up, just push through the discomfort of the first hour.

You will be so happy that you did. I promise.

This Sunday night, I want you to commit to waking up earlier the next day.

Whether it is 3 minutes earlier, or 3 hours earlier, get out of bed and start digging.

Happy tunneling and see you on the other side.

- Cliff

P.S. I spent all week working on this letter, and I am thrilled by how it turned out. It was really motivating for me to work on, and I hope that it inspires you to jump out of bed a little bit earlier next week. If you have any friends or family that might be interested in receiving letters like this, just forward them this email and have them click HERE