mornings

Don’t Wake Up Early: Advice for 5 AM Club Wannabees

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Waking up at 5 AM since late 2016 is the keystone habit that has turned my life around. Waking up early, however, is not for everybody. I meet many people who complain about not being able to wake up early, and after a bit of probing, I discover that one or more of the behaviors below applies to them. 

If you still have not conquered the waking up early habit yet, you might realize the reason now.

  1. You go out almost every night and do not come home before 11 PM.
  2. You like to keep your options open for nights out with your partner or friends, and you pride yourself on being the first to say yes if someone makes plans on the same day.
  3. You like to spend an hour or two every night on your phone scrolling social media or binging on Netflix.
  4. You hate your day job and believe that nighttime is the only time to chill, so you sleep late or enjoy what the Japanese call bedtime revenge.
  5. You don’t have a big enough why to get you out of bed while it’s still dark outside. You don’t have something to look forward to doing in the morning. 
  6. You have plenty of time for self-care habits such as meditation, journaling, and reading during the day, so you don’t need the early hours to do that. 
  7. You are organized and don’t feel rushed in the morning; you usually arrive to work ready to kill it. 

If the above applies to you, stop kidding yourself by saying I wish I woke up earlier. You really don’t want to. Life, as it is now, is working out fine for you. You don’t wake up early by choice. Your daily actions reveal your priorities. There is nothing wrong with waking up at the time that suits your lifestyle. Embrace your reality.

However, if you want to get up earlier and think it’s the best time to give attention to yourself first before giving it to your world, to reflect, to move, to enjoy the quiet, and plan the day, then, could you tell me which of the above behaviors is blocking you? 

Defining the problem is the first step to solving it.

Check my 14 tips to wake up earlier here.

Don’t Wake Up Early: Advice for 5 AM Club Wannabees

Morning Flow

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I spent 90 minutes this morning preparing, almost studying, the notes for my new podcast episode about Atomic habits (the part about the 3rd law of habit formation). While doing that, I opened the webcam of my laptop and recorded a video of myself. In the video, I said: “Remember Bardees, how perfect you feel right now.”

I made this video as a documentation of the flow state I was in while researching and studying to share knowledge and my own experience in the podcast, which I spent 60 minutes recording afterwards (including few interruptions here and there).

It’s good to rediscover what we’re good at and enjoy doing for hours at a time. It’s so rewarding to do deep work and get to experience flow.

When was the last time you experienced flow?

Morning Flow

Morning Fog

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Today I felt as if fog was lifted off my mind.

I have been feeling fuzzy and unfocused for a while and realized that I was not journaling as usual. Maybe it’s due to writing here everyday, maybe it was focusing on the other shorter journaling habits like gratitude practice, maybe it was working on launching more episodes of my podcast. The reason doesn’t matter. I thought I was fine.


Nevertheless, only after writing for 40 minutes in my morning pages did I feel like I can see clearly. Only when I told the paper what I couldn’t tell people did I feel light. Only when my repetitive unhelpful thoughts were locked on paper could I think new creative thoughts.

Same lesson again: don’t think it, write it.

Morning Fog

Is Waking Up Early for You?

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I’ve been waking up early since late 2016 and I am teaching others how to do it too through my podcast, Instagram videos and directly with the group of early risers I have been managing for 6 months now.

One of the first things I ask anyone who wants to join the group is why they want to wake up early. They need define what would they win if they start this habit and what is at stake if they don’t.

I believe in waking up early to take care of yourself before taking care of the people in your life and your responsibilities.  I believe when it becomes a habit in your life, it would be the time you work on your personal projects or make progress in current important ones. Take me for example, I record and edit my podcast in the mornings when my house is asleep because I have a 9-5 job and 2 kids to care of. My mornings were only about self-care at first, later on when waking up became a natural routine, I started trying to work on other important stuff. I encourage you to do the same. Define your why, make it a habit, then optimize it later.

Is Waking Up Early for You?

Wake Up For Something

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I got up this morning to create the 20th episode of my podcast. That was my why.

Find something to wake up for every day.

Think about it before falling asleep and imagine yourself getting it done.

Sometimes we forget it’s a blessing that we’re still here to give and choose to sleep in.

Create then take a rewarding midday nap. That’s what I did.

Wake Up For Something

Delayed Bedtime Revenge

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I have touched this phenomenon in the early risers group I lead. People who are stressed out by their jobs sleep late on purpose because their evenings are the only time they have control over. It’s like a revenge against their hectic lives. I was surprised this was so common that there is actually a Chinese word representing it.

 I’m such a supporter of waking up early and taking ownership of your day and giving yourself before giving to others whether it’s work or family. A healthy morning routine is an opportunity to center yourself before heading to work.

A good evening routine and a reasonable bedtime is key to be able to wake up early. If you find yourself among people who stay up late because that’s the only free time you have, check the kind of activities you engage in late at night. How many of them are really good for your mental and spiritual health? Do you have enough energy to read, meditate or journal? For me I’ve always fell into the trap of overestimating the number of activities I want to get done in evenings, only to be disappointed and guilty I didn’t accomplish what I set out to do, simply because of my low energy reserves.

While I believe it’s really fun to stay up late every now and then, however, if you particularly lead a super demanding life this might be a form of self-sabotaging behavior where the only one losing is you.

Listen to this topic in Arabic in my podcast:

Delayed Bedtime Revenge

My Morning ritual is how I center myself daily

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When I wake up I have a morning ritual that helps me receive the day with a clear mind and leave the house ready for the day. When I arrive at my office I have a ritual which helps me start my work day fresh and focused. At the end of the workday I have a ritual which helps me leave work knowing I got my most important tasks done and ready for next workday and in the evening I have a ritual which makes sure I end the day ready for tomorrow.

Michael Hyatt helped me understand that rituals are a stack of steps you do in the same sequence every time to signal the start and end of events. Rituals set up the stage and reduce the time and energy spent figuring out next steps and also save our mental energy for more important decisions throughout the day.

He recommends having 4 rituals:

Today I will share with you my ideal morning ritual currently. Note that I said “currently” because I try to revisit and update my rituals every quarter as they normally change with different seasons, like school starting and finishing and so on.

  1. Wake up at 5am, wash up and apply face moisturizer to get ready for makeup later (10 minutes).
  2. Go to kitchen, turn on coffee machine and do pushups for 2 minutes while waiting for water to warm up enough. (5 minutes)
  3. Have warm water with half a spoon of honey plus my turmeric and black pepper pill. (5 minutes).
  4. Go to my home office and meditate (10 minutes).
  5. Get my coffee and read A Course In Miracles textbook (10 minutes).
  6. Write in my journal (15 minutes).
  7. Write in my kids’ one-line journals (5 minutes).
  8. Write in my five minute gratitude journal (5 minutes).
  9. Read The Daily Stoic book and answer the prompt (5 minutes).
  10. Text my early risers groups and send them inspiring words for the day, sometimes done at the beginning of the ritual. (5 minutes)
  11. Walk outside with an audiobook/podcast (20 minutes)
  12. Make Sandwiches and place pre-prepared lunchboxes in bags (5-10 minutes)
  13. Apply makeup (15 minutes)
  14. Get dressed (10 minutes)
  15. Lock doors to leave the house (5 minutes)

This ideal scenario ritual takes 135 minutes which is logical in non-school days. However, if I still wake up at 5am in school days I will be leaving the house too late for school. So in school days I either need to wake up at 4:30am or I need to do the non-negotiable crash version of my ritual which downsizes key steps to 5 minutes which are meditation and reading ACIM. I never tried walking in the morning with schools open so I need to test this step or get walking habit back to evening ritual like before as the days are getting longer now in quarter 1 of the year.

Next post I will share with you my workday sartup ritual. Keep reading.

My Morning ritual is how I center myself daily