How to Become an Early Riser

As I have said before on this blog, I struggled for years to kick the bad habit of oversleeping. It was a struggle that I often lost since something depressing would happen, making me unable to get out of bed before dawn.

Because oversleeping dulled me, I tried to cheer myself up by going through a list I had written about 50 things to be grateful for as one motivational material advised people to do. The method didn't cure my dullness.

Another method I tried was listening to several positive affirmations I had downloaded in MP3 format. The positive affirmations were the usual yada yada "I am handsome. I am talented..." But they also didn't cheer me up.

The reason why those two methods didn't brighten me up, I have discovered, was because I wasn't living rightly. I had a habit of talking and walking too much when excited, hardly sparing any energy for developing my mind.

Not taking time to develop my mind so that I could think clearly and creatively, was what made me plunge into dullness after a few days of excitement. Of course with the dullness came the temptation to oversleep.

With time, I started limiting the talking and walking I did when excited so that I could use my energy to read, write, reflect and play the piano. Such wise use of my energy eventually made me mentally strong to kick my oversleeping habit.

Let me be quick to say that trying to break free from my oversleeping habit all of a sudden didn't work on me. What worked was making my waking-up time changes seem like a gentle improvement on the past.

These days, I spring out of bed before dawn with an enthusiasm that empowers me to fight for my dreams. I love having more time to do the thinking from which my blogging ideas arise. Isn't it wonderful to possess the virtue of early rising?

Stephen R. Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, had it right when he said that virtuous living is the key to personal effectiveness. For me, I consider the habit of early rising to be the mother of all virtues because it gives us more time to improve ourselves.

My beloved reader, I beseech you to also become an early riser if you aren't one. The trick to achieving that goal is spending a considerable amount of your energy in developing your mind and making your waking-up time changes seem like a gentle improvement on the past.

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on how to become an early riser, you might also enjoy another one on "Rising Early Every Day" which I wrote a couple of years ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.