TIPS TO WAKE UP EARLY

1.      Create a compelling reason to wake up early. What is it? For personal activities? To get more work done? To get a head start in your day? Almost all attempts to wake up early fail because there isn’t a strong enough reason driving this habit change. I can personally attest to this – during the days when I want to wake up early just for the sake of it, I fail miserably. However, when there is a compelling enough reason to do so (such as for an appointment – tip #12), I am able to, no matter how sleepy I am. If you really want to wake up early, you need to first have a strong reason on why you want to do it.

2.      Cut out the stimulants that affect your sleep schedule, namely caffeine and alcohol. These mess around with your sleep and quality of your sleep, which subsequently affects your waking time.

3.      Make a transition. If you always wake up at 10~11am, it isn’t too realistic to expect that you will immediately wake up at 5am the next day. Start off by improving your waking time by 15~30min every day until you reach your goal.

4.      Create a reward for accomplishing this goal. A reward creates additional motivation. (Though if you satisfy #1 and have a compelling enough reason to wake up early, a reward wouldn’t be necessary.)

5.      Place your goal in a prominent spot: Environmental reinforcement of your goal will embed it consciously and subconsciously into your mind. If you have a notice board, you can put up your goal on the board. Other options are to stick it up on a post-it note in front of your computer or set it as your wallpaper.

6.      Create accountability to others. Share your goal with friends/family/acquaintances. This creates accountability on your end to wake up early.

7.      Plan a non-negotiable agenda for the next day. This agenda should start right from the point you are supposed to wake up right till your day ends. If you don’t wake up, you will mess up your schedule for the day and end up with a backlog of work at the end.

8.      Create urgency # 1. Set up extremely important and urgent tasks as the first items of the day so you have to wake up and finish them.

9.      Create urgency # 2. Fix an appointment with someone early in the morning. It should be with someone really important whom you cannot cancel on or there will be dire consequences. This is by far one of the most effective methods for me. However, if you have a chronic disability to wake up early, please try other methods first. You don’t want to risk ruining your reputation and your relationship with the person if you end up oversleeping. There were times when I overslept for appointments and it would be tricky to deal with the situation each time.  Nowadays, I make absolute sure that this doesn’t happen at all.

10. Get a morning call service. Some services are: iPing and Wake Up Land. Or you can ask someone whom you know will be awake at that time to call you.

11. Work on the goal with someone else. If you have a friend who wants to wake up early too, this will help generate more motivation to wake up early.

12. Sleep earlier. Be realistic – if you target to wake up at 5am, don’t turn in at only 1am or 2am the night before expecting to be successful in waking up on time. You are more than likely going to crash in your goal. It is the times when I sleep early and have sufficient sleep when waking early becomes a significantly easier task.

13. Set your alarm clock (with the correct time). Probably goes without saying, but you can’t believe the times when people tell me they woke up late because they forgot to set their alarm clock or they set their alarm time wrongly! If you are trying to get into a new sleeping routine, an alarm clock is going to be essential in the first few weeks. Once you get into the hang of it, you will likely start waking up automatically at around the same time every day without it.

14. Set multiple alarm clocks (3-5) at the same or different times (5 minutes apart from each other). If you are a heavy sleeper, this is a tip for you.

15. Put your alarm clock(s) really far (but still audible) such that you need to get off your bed to reach it. Of course, don’t go back to bed after you turn it off!

16. Switch your alarm to your favorite music (most mobile phones today have this function). What better way to wake up to a new day than to listen to your favorite song? By the time the music finishes playing, you will be more awake and ready to get up.

17. Before you sleep, mentally recite the time you want to wake up. This might sound bogus, but it works for me. Initially I thought it was just me, until someone told me recently that he was able to wake up early using this method (of which he learned from his friend, who was able to wake up early using the same method too). Our subconscious works in its own mysterious ways.

18. Set your alarm clock 5 minutes earlier than your designated time. When it rings, put it on snooze, and spend the next 5 minutes mentally preparing yourself for the day ahead. The next time the alarm rings, get off the bed. This is another method that works for me.

19. Get out of the bed immediately once you hear the alarm. You all know how it feels in the morning when you wake up – the voice in your head is just coaxing you to go to sleep every morning despite your best intents to want to wake up. Instead of giving it the chance to speak, haul yourself out of your bed the second the alarm rings. While you may feel like lead for the first 5~10 minutes, the sleepiness starts wearing off beyond that. Before you know it, you will be awake and ready to start the day.

20. Establish it as a daily habit. Make it a daily habit. It’s much easier to maintain a daily habit than one that’s only 5 days a week. If you keep having to balance around different timing schedules on weekdays and weekends, your body clock has to constantly adjust and it makes your task much harder.

21. Load up a full combination of the tips above. Don’t be modest and only use 1 or 2 of the tips above. As you already know, waking up early can be a monumental task in itself. Combine as many of the tips to drive up your chances of success! Also known as the military tactic of ‘overwhelming force’ where you overinvest your resources to ensure the certainty of success.

DEVELOPING WILl POWER AND SELFDISIPLINE

An effective method for developing and improving these abilities is to perform certain actions or activities, which you would rather avoid doing due to laziness, procrastination, weakness, shyness, etc. Doing things that you usually do not like to do. or feel too lazy to do, you overcome your subconscious resistance, train your mind to obey you, strengthen your inner powers and gain inner strength. Muscles get stronger by resisting the power of the barbells. Inner strength is attained by overcoming inner resistance.
Remember, strengthening one of these abilities, automatically strengthens the other one.

Here are a few exercises:

1) You are sitting in a bus or train and an old man or woman, or a pregnant lady walks in. Stand up and give up your seat, even if you prefer to stay seated. Act so, not just because it is polite, but because you are doing something that you are reluctant to do. This is an exercise in overcoming the resistance of your body, mind and feelings.

2) There are dishes in the sink that need washing, and you postpone washing them for later. Get up and wash them now. Do not let your laziness overcome you. When you know that in this way you are developing your will power, and if you are convinced of the importance of will power in your life, it will be easier for you to do whatever you have to do.
3) You come home tired from work and sit in front of the T.V., because you feel too lazy and too tired to take a shower first. Do not succumb to the desire to sit in front of the T.V, and go and take a shower.
4) You may know your body needs some physical exercise, but instead you keep on sitting doing nothing or watching a movie. Get up and walk, run or do some other physical exercise.
5) Do you like your coffee with sugar? If you do, then for one whole week drink it without sugar. Do you drink three cups of coffee each day? If you do, then drink only two cups a day for one whole week.
6) Sometimes, when you want to say something that is not important, decide not to say it.
7) Don't read some unimportant gossip in the newspaper, even if you want to.
8) You have a desire to eat something not too healthy. For the sake of the exercise refuse the desire.
9) If you find yourself thinking unimportant, unnecessary, negative thoughts, try to develop a lack of interest in them, by thinking about their futility and uselessness.
10) Overcome your laziness. Convince yourself of the importance of what is to be done. Convince your mind that you gain inner strength when you act and do things, in spite of laziness, reluctance or senseless inner resistance.
Never say that you cannot follow the above exercises, because you certainly can. Be persistent no matter what. Motivate yourself by thinking about of the importance of performing the exercises, and the inner power and strength you will gain.
Trying to attempt too many exercises when you are still a beginner, might end in disappointment. It is better to start with a few easy exercises at first, and then gradually increase their number and move to the more difficult exercises.
Most of these exercises can be practiced anywhere and at anytime, and you don't have to devote special times for them. They will train and develop your inner strength, enabling you to use it whenever you need it.
If you practice weight lifting, running or aerobics, you strengthen your muscles, so that when you need to move or carry something heavy, for example, you have the strength for it. By studying French each day, you will be able to speak French when you travel to France. It is the same with will power and self-discipline; by strengthening them, they become available for your use whenever you need them.
If for the sake of an exercise, you stop doing something that you usually do, and overcome the inner resistance concerning it, you may resume doing it, if it is not harmful. For example, if you love drinking orange juice, and for the sake of an exercise you switch to drinking apple juice, after doing so for some time, and after it makes no great difference to you, you may go back to drinking orange juice, if you still like it. The point here is to develop inner strength, not making life difficult for you or continue doing things you don't like to do.

Benefits of Possessing Strong Will Power and Self Discipline

You need these skills to control your thoughts, improve your concentration, and to become the boss of your mind. The stronger these skills are, the more inner strength you possess.
Being the master of your mind you enjoy inner peace and happiness. External events do not sway you, and circumstances have no power over your peace of mind. This might sound too unreal for you, but experience will prove to you that all the above is true.
These skills are vital for achieving success. They give you more control over your life, help you change and improve habits, and are essential for self improvement, spiritual growth and meditation.
Practice the exercises presented here earnestly and persistently, and your life will start changing

CONCENTRATION EXERCISES

Exercise 1
Take a book and count the words in any one paragraph. Count them again to be sure that you have counted them correctly. Start with one paragraph and when it becomes easier, count the words in a whole page. Perform the counting mentally and only with your eyes, without pointing you finger at each word.
Exercise 2
Count backwards in your mind, from one hundred to one.
Exercise 3
Count in your mind from one hundred to one, skipping each three numbers, that is 100, 97, 94, etc.
Exercise 4
Choose an inspiring word, or just a simple sound, and repeat it silently in your mind for five minutes. When your mind can concentrate more easily, try to reach ten minutes of uninterrupted concentration.
Exercise 5
Take a fruit, an apple, orange, banana or any other fruit, and hold it in your hands. Examine the fruit from all its sides, while keeping your whole attention focused on it. Do not let yourself be carried away by irrelevant thoughts or associated thoughts that might arise, such as about the shop were you bought it, about how and where it was grown, its nutritive value, etc. Stay calm, while trying to ignore these thoughts and not be interested in them. Just look at the fruit, focus your attention on it without thinking about anything else, and examine its shape, smell, taste and the sensation it gives when touching and holding it.
Exercise 6
This is the same as exercise number 5, only that this time you visualize the fruit instead of looking at it. Start by looking at the fruit and examining it for about 2 minutes, just as in exercise number 5, and then do this one. Close your eyes, and try to see, smell, taste and touch the fruit in your imagination. Try to see a clear and well defined image. If the image becomes blurred, open your eyes, look at the fruit for a short while, and then close your eyes and continue the exercise. It might help if you imagine the fruit held in your hands, as in the previous exercise, or imagine it standing on a table.
Exercise 7
Take a small simple object such as a spoon, a fork, or a glass. Concentrate on one of these objects. Watch the object from all sides without any verbalization, that is, with no words in your mind. Just watch the object without thinking with words about it.
Exercise 8
After becoming proficient in the above exercises, you can come to this exercise. Draw a small geometrical figure, about three inches in size, such as a triangle, a rectangular or a circle, paint it with any color you wish, and concentrate on it. You should see only the figure, nothing else. Only the figure exists for you now, with no unrelated thoughts or any distractions. Try not to think with words during the exercise. Watch the figure in front of you and that's it. Try not to strain your eyes.
Exercise 9
The same as number 8, only this time visualize the figure with the eyes closed. As before, if you forget how the figure looks like, open your eyes for a few seconds and watch the figure and then close your eyes and continue with the exercise.
Exercise 10
The same as above in number 9 but the eyes open.
Exercise 11
Try for at least five minutes, to stay without thoughts. This exercise is to be attempted only after all the previous ones have been performed successfully. The previous exercises, if practiced correctly, will endow you with the ability to impose silence on your thoughts. In time it will become easier and easier.

The secret of success is constant practice. The more time you devote to the exercises the faster your success arrives. Go on gradually; ten minutes at the start and in time as you gain the ability to concentrate, give it more time. When you see that you are successful, you will begin to love the exercises, and in time they will become a habit. You will be able to concentrate your attention easily and effortlessly upon anything you want to concentrate on.

INNER RESISTANCE TO DEVLOPING CONCENTRATION

In order to develop this ability we have to train our minds. Most people think that concentration is a strenuous and tiring activity, and that it involves exertion and tension, which are difficult and unpleasant.

This belief starts at an early age. Parents and teachers expect children to study, do their homework and get good grades. This brings up in the children a feeling of being coerced and forced to do something they don't like doing. When they are too often told that they are not concentrating good enough, they develop a loathing for concentration, and often for studying too. These become associated with coercion, lack of freedom, doing something they do not like to do, and which is against their will. When they grow up, it is no wonder that their powers of concentration are weak, and they have no desire to strain their minds.
Though most people acknowledge the fact that good concentration is a great asset, yet most of them do nothing to strengthen it, because they don't know how, and because they lack the motivation. It is hoped that this article will provide the necessary information and motivation.
Concentration can be fun, if approached in the right way. It should be practiced with joy, positive attitude, optimism, and understanding of its great possibilities.

The benefits of developing concentration

Sometimes you can find strong powers of concentration in yourself. When you really and earnestly want to excel in your studies, pass an important exam or solve a problem, this power becomes available to you. In such cases, it appears because of some need or desire, but developing it in a systematic way brings it under your control, and grants you the ability to use it intentionally, whenever you need it. To do so, you need to practice special exercises on a daily basis.

Here is what you can gain by developing this power:
-Control of your thoughts.
-The ability to focus your mind.
-Peace of mind.
-Freedom from futile and annoying thoughts.
-The ability to choose your thoughts.
-Better memory.
-Self-confidence.
-Inner strength.
-Will power.
-Decisiveness.
-The ability to study and comprehend more quickly.
-Inner happiness.
-Enhanced capability to develop psychic abilities.
-More powerful and efficient use of creative visualization.
-Enhanced ability to meditate.
-And much more...

Seems too good to be true? Develop the power of concentration and find out for yourself