Being an early bird was MY superpower. Do you have one? How careless of me to lose it.
How did it happen?
Was it the death of my mother? Grief makes you tired.
Was it the fact my dog that needed an early morning walk also died two months after my mum?
Or was it the fact the children had left to go to university, and no longer needed early morning shooing out the door?
Or was it it, then, the global pandemic which meant the 0613 train from Bath sea to London no longer needed me on it?
Realistically, a mix of all of the above… but for the last two years, I couldn’t find that superpower.
Then, after lockdown three was announced, I decided enough is enough, I wanted to use that lockdown productively. I wanted to make it count.
So I decided to write a book, but to give this context, this is some 20 years after writing my first book. Hmmm! Why did it take so long to write another book ? More of that another time…
But… once the decision was made about writing the book – a big question arose how would I get this book written alongside a busy day job?
To me, there was only one solution.
I had to get my superpower back.
I had to get that early morning power hour or two under my belt before the full day got underway.
I invested in a dawn simulator clock which I swear by, especially in winter. Waking to a fully, brightly lit room gradually alerting the hormones that its time to wake up has such an impact.
What a difference it made. My full manuscript – A Beautiful Way to Coach: Positive Psychology Coaching in Nature – is being submitted to Routledge this week….and it feels amazing to be sharing that with you.
So I am writing this to salute the return of my superpower and to encourage you to try it too if you fancy getting a bit project underway. This is a great time of year to try and get up a little earlier with the birds singing, the bright mornings and lockdown easing. So much easier than the winter months of lockdown.
The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.
Some good resources in this area are the 5AM Club by Robin Sharma who advocates a 20:20:20 rule – 20 minutes of exercise, 20 of learning and 20 of planning.
Also Power Hour by Adrienne Herbert and her podcast of the same name.
Adrienne shares the six questions to ask before 6 AM :
What energy do you want to have today?
Who can you learn from today?
Who can help you today?
What one thing can you do today to take you closer to where you want to be a year from now?
What are you most looking forward to today?
What are you most grateful for today?
Another book I’ve really enjoyed reading recently is Effortless by Greg McKeown. For all of you high achievers and high-performers, this is a great book about releasing the striving and finding the ease with a “less is more” approach.
I even saw today in an article that being an early riser can really support weight management and health. The study showed that waking up early can help with diabetes and heart disease for overweight people. The study from the University of Naples by Dr. Muscogiuiri, highlighted that the “evening chrono types” which we tend to call night owls were more than six times as likely to have Type 2 diabetes and four times more at risk than those with a morning chronotype aka early risers or larks.
Night Owl Chronotypes in a Morning Lark WorldNot that I needed any more encouragement to get back to my lark-like ways but that’s quite some startling data there.
So if you need a gentle nudge or a bit of accountability buddy action- why don’t you join Jackee and me as we host a free space of an early morning writing power hour (and a half)?
We don’t share what we write. To be clear. It’s not a creative writing group it’s a co- working, co-journaling group, where we crack on in own our own space and yet benefit from the collective energy. Everybody is welcome if they want to start a new habit.
Please email me at fiona@leadershipcoaching.co.uk to let me know about your chronotype preferences or if you have lost (or refound) a superpower!
