Are you a morning person? That isn’t really the pertinent question. The better one is: what did you do the day before? How you feel at 6am is the result of a dozen decisions you already made. What time did you go to sleep? What quality of sleep did you get? Are you consistently going to bed at the same time? What did you eat yesterday, and when did you eat your last meal? Did you train with intensity? Nobody just wakes up feeling good. It’s the direct result of good habits and routine.
Claiming you aren’t a morning person is a convenient excuse to avoid starting your day early. Don’t get me wrong, waking up early will never, and I mean never, be a joyous thing. But if you have prepared properly, you should start to feel good 20-30 minutes after your feet hit the floor. If you haven’t, you will feel miserable half the day. It’s hard, and getting it wrong costs you, so it’s no wonder most people don’t do it. So why bother?
How You Feel Is Everything
As I have gotten older, I have realized the most important things in life are simple. Plenty of what happens to you is outside your control. You might look at people who seem to have more and assume they are better off. You might be tempted to view material wealth as something sacred that will unlock a level of happiness you have never felt before. You would be wrong! How one FEELS is everything, and that is the one thing you and you alone have direct control over. No matter how beaten down you feel right now, you can start to feel better quickly. Here is how.
The Six-Week Experiment
Make the following changes for the next six weeks and see how you feel. First, set a solid window for when you will get into bed, every day, seven days a week. I recommend between 9:30 and 10:30pm. Second, wake up at the same time every morning, between 5:30 and 6:30am. And I don’t care how you feel when the alarm goes off. Get up!
Third, no alcohol for the length of the experiment. It destroys the quality of your sleep, which makes feeling good in the morning impossible, so cut it. Fourth, learn how to measure out the quantity of food you’re eating, and start eating much, much less. The saying “less is more” exists for a reason, and it’s true. Most people are overweight, and it is bringing down their energy levels and negatively affecting their quality of life.
Fifth, learn a skill that’s physically demanding, socially engaging, useful, and gets you out of the damn house. All of this is hard to change on your own, which is why you will need a coach to shove you along. Come join Archetype and I’ll help you.
Kaizen: Compounding Interest, Applied to Yourself
These are the elements you need in your daily routine if you want to start feeling great every morning. And it doesn’t stop at the mornings. More energy, sharper focus, a better mood, and suddenly you are more pleasant to be around, you perform better at work, and everything downstream of that gets better too. This is the magic of compounding interest, applied to yourself. The Japanese have a word for it: kaizen, or continuous improvement. Small, steady, incremental changes that cut waste, boost productivity, and raise quality.
The Well-Traveled Road
So what’s the opposite path? Well, it’s easy to find yourself on it. It’s very popular, and plenty of people will be happy to drag you down that well-traveled road with them. It’s easy to justify indulging in excess. You will tell yourself you earned it, that somehow you are missing out on life. Don’t stress, you will always have plenty of time for leisure and fatty foods. The point is to set in motion a new routine that you stick with 95% of the time. Then, and only then, will you actually enjoy the small breaks and vacations.
So why are so few people on this path? Because once you have been off it long enough, off it becomes the norm. Our bodies are masters at adapting to even the worst of situations. The wiring works against you too. For most of the last 50,000 years, humans lived with scarce food and long workdays, and we are built for that world, not this one. The brain is perfectly happy to overeat and bank every calorie you can take in, because for almost all of our history there was no cost to doing it. Given the chance, plenty of animals will eat themselves sick.
Ruts Only Get Deeper
If you find yourself off the path, understand that it’s a rut, and ruts only get deeper. Over time you will forget how good you used to feel, and the worse version becomes your new normal. Remember that a lot of this runs opposite to intuition. To gain more energy, eat less. To get better sleep and recovery, exercise with more intensity. To improve your mood and well-being, improve your routine.
Routine is one of the few things nearly every ancient tradition agrees on. I’ll leave you with the version of it I like best:
“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise. It has no commander, no overseer, no ruler — yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”
— Proverbs 6:6-11
