Even small victories count!

I’ve always proclaimed to NOT be a morning person.  I have always been the type of person to sleep until an hour before I have to be at work then wake up in a rush. I would hurry up and get ready and then I would run out the door without barely stopping. I have always loved my coffee in the morning but rarely drank it at home because I wasn’t awake long enough to drink the whole pot.   Now I have a job where I don’t have to be at work until a bit later so I do drink coffee at home and have a little bit of waking up time but I still don’t get up a minute before 7 and then only because the kids and husband have to get up then.

Then about a year ago I taught myself how to wake up early and work out. I felt great!  I loved weights in the morning. I couldn’t so much do fast cardio because the energy just wasn’t there yet but I loved the feeling of getting up and getting my blood pumping. Then life happened. I got stressed. My hormones started going crazy, or something like that, and everything changed.

If you read my last blog you learned that about six months ago I started taking Paxil.  Somewhere along that time I also quit waking up early. I’m not sure if it was the issues that caused me to decide to take it or the medicine itself.  I felt tired all the time, constantly fatigued and I didn’t want to get out of bed. Let alone work out.

Fast forward six month to now. I want to be the morning person I was and I want to be productive.  I don’t necessarily have to work out in my mornings but I want to make the most of it.

I’m currently reading a book by Hal Elrod called “The Miracle Morning for Network Marketers.” Now I am not quite half way thought this book yet and I wish I had gotten it in audio form because I would love to listen while I work but it basically teaches you how to have a more productive morning and things to do to actually get up earlier. Now this book has you doing several things every morning to make you successful.   I am reserving my opinion on the book and its methods until I have finished it and maybe even attempted to implement it. However the book mentioned a community on Facebook that I did join to learn more. In that group I saw a blog that resonated with me.    It was by a woman named Emmie Martin who writes for the Business Insider.  She tells us how she finally became a morning person.  Basically she did it gradually.  Waking up 15-30 minutes earlier each day. She started with a few days a week. I’m shooting for daily.  It is a good read so here is the link if you would like to read it.  http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-become-a-morning-person-2015-10

So back to my small victory.  Today I set my alarm for 15 minutes earlier than normal. I went to sleep telling myself I would wake up early and I actually woke up before the alarm went off. AND I got up. Now I won’t lie, it didn’t help that the cats were wallowing all over my legs trying to wake me up to feed them and Daisy, my yellow lab, had her head laying on the bed staring at me willing me to get up and feed her.  Also today the hubby, Bob who rarely gets up before he has to, even climbed out of bed early.

I didn’t really do anything extra productive in that extra 15 minutes today but I do feel more awake and I feel accomplished. Now isn’t that feeling a great way to start the day! Lets hope this is the start of a very beautiful friendship between me and early mornings.

Thanks for reading! I will check back often and let you know how it goes.  I’ll catch ya later!

JJ