Wake up early with Anthony Robbins

Early rising starts in your mind. Any trick to make you wake up earlier will fail if you don’t commit to it mentally and consciously. And your commitment to wake up early fully depends on what you associate early rising with. Every person on this planet is driven by two things. The need to avoid pain, and the desire to gain pleasure – explains Anthony Robbins in his most popular Personal Power program. If you do something, it’s because you associate a pleasure with it. If you don’t do something, it’s because of pain and fear you link to it. By creating positive, pleasurable associations with waking up early and severe pain associations with not doing it you can help build stronger early rising habit that works, consistently. Here is how you can do it...

Creating positive associations with early rising

Write down the benefits and positive things you will gain by waking up early. What you will do having free time on your hands? What it will help you achieve? Here are few samples for you to start with.

1. I will have extra hour every day to work on my computer skills and will get that new better job in 2 months
2. I will exercise for 40 min every morning and get back in shape
3. I will do more things in the morning and will be able to spend more time with my family in the evening
4. I’ll get more respect from my co-workers and boss by coming to work earlier, it will help my career advancement
5. I’ll get more self-confidence and respect to myself

Write down how it will affect your relationships, your self-esteem, your mood, your health, your financial situation, what you get and what you give to others. Try to be as specific as possible, and list as many good things as you can come up with. One important thing is to focus on results you will get, not on the habit itself. Your goal is not to wake up 1 hour earlier. Your goal is to get all the benefits that early rising can bring you. Think of all pleasurable things that may become available to you, all opportunities that may open.

Getting leverage on you by creating negative associations

As the next step, you need to get leverage on you. Leverage comes when you associate severe pain with not doing something, so you need to write down all the things you’ve been missing from not having that extra morning time. Again, few samples.

1. I will not get a raise this year because I lack the skills
2. I will not earn enough money to go overseas for vacation
3. I don’t have time to exercise and gained 10 extra pounds
4. My spouse keeps telling me I’m lazy
5. I will not get that position in regional office because I don’t know the language well and don’t have time to learn it

Continue working on both lists until you get at least 30-40 items in each. The more, the better. It’s common for people doing this exercise to come up with ideas they never thought of before, so take your time, you don’t have to do it one sitting. After you complete the list for both positive and negative things, read and re-read it few times a day while starting to practice early wake up in the mornings.

This whole exercise helps you create positive associations with your new habit and smoothens the adaptation process. It also exerts leverage on you to avoid things that can cause pain and suffering. These associations will play a good trick with you as they keep working subconsciously even after you stop thinking about them.

P.S. As many other tips on this site, this tip is good not only for building early wake up habit. Try to use it for achieving any other goals you set for yourself, and you'll understand its power.