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Want to Wake Up Early? Don’t Make It a Habit
Habit-formation can be self-defeating if you don’t address why you find it difficult
Do you envy early risers — people who wake up at 5:00am, hit the gym, and finish a day’s work before breakfast?
“If only I could make rising early a habit,” you moan. You’ve likely seen countless books extolling the virtues of building good habits.
But that may be precisely your problem!
Habits are not what you think they are. Part of the reason many people struggle with getting up early is that they misapply the science of habits.
If you don’t understand what habits are and which behaviors are good candidates for habit-formation, you won’t succeed.
In short, since habits are defined as impulses to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought, not every behavior can become a habit. If you have to fight your alarm clock with every fiber of your being just to resist the urge to keep snoozing, that’s not a habit.
Waking up early requires you to build a routine, not a habit.
This behavior is too complex to make into a habit. The time you wake up depends on your overall daily schedule: the time you get to work, the time you go to bed, how much exercise…
