About one month ago I decided to undertake yet another 30-day trial. The first one, getting up crazy early (4:45 am), went splendid. August went fantastic and I think I only slip once by about 15 minutes. During September I slipped back into old routines a couple of times but overall I’m very pleased with the results. It has gotten a lot tougher now since the sun is no longer there to greet me in the morning. The cure? A sun-rise simulator alarm clock. Just bought, not collected yet, but on Sunday I will have my first experience with it. Will report back what it’s like to use.

Anyway, I didn’t really want to talk about the getting up early trial, but rather my push-up trial. I completed the first 30 days yesterday and I’m very excited about the results. While I can’t really say that I’ve visually changed all that much the results speak for themselves.

The schedule

The schedule was pretty simple. Get up, early in the morning, go for a semi-long walk (around 30 minutes), come back (obviously), do a salute to the sun yoga session then push-ups. I wanted to always do maximum amount of push-ups and I had planned to do three sets and in each set do the maximum amount I could muster. Oh, I just remembered, I did this every other day, so one day rest in between.

The first round of push-ups were rather disappointing. I managed to complete two sets, and in the first set I did 16 push-ups, and 4 in the second, none in the third. However , I’m happy to report that after one month of consistently doing push-ups I can now do about 1:26, 2:10, 3:5 which totals at 41 push-ups. I’m very pleased with those results considering what I began with.

Here’s a chart of my results. I had a very interesting dip on the 14th of September, can’t really remember why that is. I should probably try and correlate this with nutritional intake in order to see if I can boost my performance by eating certain types of food.

Early riser

Tuesday 1st marked the end of my first ever attempted 30-day trial. It was beyond successful, the results were absolutely amazing and nothing but fantastic. I’m really pleased with the outcome and will share with you what I did, results and consequences.

On the 1st of August I decided to become an early riser. Mostly i twas driven by curiousity and whether it would change anything, and if it did, what would change? For as long as I can remember I have claimed to always be creative at night. This trial proved to me that I don’t know myself quite as well as I thought. Rising early has changed everything.

The experiment

For a long time I had wanted to try early rising, but each time I tried I failed miserably. Clearly I thought to myself, I’m not meant to rise early and should keep getting up mere seconds before I have to run to the car and drive to work. In retrospect I cannot believe how wrong this assumption was. This trial would have to be different and it began when I stumbled upon Steve Pavlina and his fantastic web-site with tons of inspiring articles. One of these were about early rising.

There was no magic to his trickery, but his general success in life inspired me to take charge of my own future and life. I decided to rise at 5:00 am every morning, no matter what day in the week it was. Each day, 5:00 am, no exceptions. I thought this would be super tough considering my previously failed attempts. However, it turned out to be easier than I thought. But, how come that it worked this time?

The explanation

I think the biggest difference between this attempt and previous attempts were my mental attitude. Before I had just decided to rise early because it was, well, what others did and surely then it must be a good thing. I didn’t do it because I wanted to, I did it because others wanted me to (in some sort of twisted inverted logic.). This time my attitude was very different.

I had become more and more annoyed with having to rise only to immediately commute to work. Now I decided to rise in order to spend time doing things I wanted to, and hence get out of bed because I wanted to, not because I had to. This made all the difference. I believe that rising early has to be given a purpose, otherwise it’s meaningless. I used my new routine to establish a couple of new habits.

The habits

Rising early surely can be considered a habit in itself, but I wanted to not just become an early riser, but rather an early doer. The first thing I decided to incorporate into my early doer routine is to go for a long walk in the morning in an attempt to kind of jump-start my body and energy. Before going out I generally grab a piece of fruit (grapefruit, or orange) just to get the body working. After the walk I do a very simple “Salutation to the Sun” yoga set of movements. All in all it takes me no more than 60 minutes, but makes all the difference to my mental and physical state.

These simple habits have now become part of my daily life, and I do it without hesitation and it feels completely natural.

The experience

Misty morning

I must admit that there have been days when the bed have been especially inviting, and I have succumbed to the temptation twice. Once a whole 15 extra minutes was spent in bed *GASP*. Another time 2 hours, but those really were justified. Having spent a Friday night at a conference place, shared room with one HEAVY snorer… I got NO sleep at all. I felt that spending two extra hours sleeping between Saturday and Sunday was justified.

While I certainly dont spring out of bed as if I had just won the lottery, I find it no more difficult to get up at 5:00 (actually I get up at 4:45, but whatever) than to get up at for example 7:00 am. The good thing is that it takes me only a few minutes to become fully awake and after finshing the walk I’m definitely awake.

The experience has been nothing but a catalyst for all sorts of things that I never intended for to happen. I’m much more active with keeping the house tidy, I’m planning my days better, spending less time on reading email through out the day, but rather keeping it to one or two times a day, usually once in the morning and once in the evening. Now I’m actually trying to shift it to only the evening.

I’ve got a much better focus and seem less scatter brained. While I can’t attribute everything to the rising early trial, it certainly has managed to change my life competely.

The result

Since my first 30-day trial was such a huge success I have decided to incorporate new habits into my life through 30-day trials. The 1st of September I began doing push-ups as part of my morning routine, just after the yoga. I do as many push-ups as I can muster, wait a minute or two, then do the same thing again. The results are put into a spreadsheet in order fo rme to keep track of my progress, helps me stay motivated (or so I imagine!).

I can now proudly say that I’ve become an early riser, but more importantly an early doer and that has changed my world.