How to stop hitting snooze and wake up early every single day

August 14, 2022

You snooze, you lose. Wake up a winner in 6 steps.

If the first thing you do every morning when your alarm goes off is hit the snooze button and go back to sleep, then you have to give yourself a wake-up call.


Hitting the snooze button rather than the off button and getting out of bed is starting every day with your first loss of the day rather than your first victory.


Retired U.S. Navy Admiral William H. McRaven served with great distinction in the Navy for 37 years as a Navy SEAL and commanded at every level. At the end of his stellar career, he served as Commander of all U.S. Special Operations Forces.


He is probably more well-known for his popular social media video doing the rounds of him giving a commencement speech at the University of Texas, where he promotes the idea that making your bed first thing in the morning will see you have accomplished your first task of the morning. He also wrote the book “Make your Bed”


Early on in his speech, the Admiral says.


“If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.”



My father had a similar philosophy and would often say If you do the simple things well, the rest will take care of itself”.


I have every respect for Admiral McRaven and would never be in the realm that his experiences have landed him, yet I disagree with him on his assertion that by making your bed you will have accomplished your first task of the day. Your first task of the day is to get out of that unmade bed after having not hit the snooze button. Then, for no other reason than it is your bed and who else is going to make it? Make your damn bed.


When you hit the snooze button you are telling yourself that you are reneging on the last goal that you set for yourself yesterday, which was the first goal you chose to accomplish for today. Your wake-up time.


My father had a lot of inspiring sayings and another, in relation to effectiveness was; “You want to get into the habit of…” and for bad habits he would say “You want to get out of the habit of…”


One of my clients was telling me recently, that he starts every day with a cranky wife, because with every good intention, he sets his alarm for 4am and then repeatedly hits the snooze button until 6am.


I ask my clients, what doing the opposite of any of their bad habits would look like. What is the opposite of hitting the snooze button?


You want to get into the habit, of hitting the stop button on your morning alarm and getting out of bed thereafter.


You want to get out of the habit of hitting the snooze button.


I also ask my clients the question, when they set their goals or plan to adopt a good habit.

Why do you want to do this?


Once they have told me their why, I then ask,

What will this give you?”


So, the conversation might go like this for example:


ME: “What is one daily habit you could adopt that would make you much more effective?”

Client: “Getting out of bed when my alarm goes off of a morning and not hitting the snooze button”

ME: “Why would you want to do that?”

Client: “Because then I would have more time to exercise”

ME: “What would that give you?”

Client: “Well in the short term, because exercise releases feel good chemicals and hormones, it will benefit my mental health, by improving my mood, reducing my symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety, and increase my energy levels. Long term it will reduce my feelings of loneliness and isolation, as I’ll be in contact with other people at the gym, or with my Personal Trainer, it will reduce my risk of illness because exercise boosts my immune system, lower my blood pressure and bad cholesterol, and it will better my odds of not suffering from heart and lung disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. It will increase the size of my hippocampus, the part of my brain responsible for memory, reducing the risk of me getting dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease. I will also lose weight which will improve my self-esteem and confidence and by exercising for at least 150 minutes a week, just 20 minutes a day, I will be achieving government health department physical activity level recommendations and curiously enough, I will improve the quality of my sleep”



Why You Shouldn't Snooze


One of my clients likes the idea of a pre-ordained snooze and sets 2 alarms. She plans to have a snooze every day, which she feels works perfectly for her, as she has planned to have a snooze.


I don’t have the heart to tell her right away, but I feel compelled to tell you now and when she reads this, she may rethink her habit, but hitting the snooze button and false starts on your waking of a morning is bad for your health for a few reasons.


We sleep in 4 different stages and most of the latter part of our sleep cycle is comprised of REM or dream sleep, which is a restorative sleep state. When you hit the snooze button, you are interrupting your REM sleep. The problem is that you are getting fragmented sleep. Our sleep isn’t just; close your eyes and you’re offline, it is in deep rapid eye movement sleep which we are usually in just before waking, that our sleep is at its most restorative.


Hitting snooze has you running the risk of you re-entering a different sleep phase and waking up groggy and feeling unrested, which can stay with you for most of the morning but is definitely with you for the first 30 minutes of your new day, clouding your judgement and leading to poor food and lifestyle choices, whilst also affecting your metabolism and energy levels reducing your bodies effectiveness at dealing with your poor food choices. You know? How your weekend mornings usually start if you disrupt your weekday sleep schedule.


If you are hitting the snooze button every now and again then it’s no big deal, but if you’re setting your clock around the snooze ruse, then you might consider the following tips to share in the joys, the early birds among us, seem to experience in abundance.



Here're 6 ways to wake up to yourself and avoid the snooze ruse.



1. Work on prioritising sleep from the get-go. Create an evening ritual which is the opposite of your morning routine. Winding down, rather than winding up, less engagement rather than increased engagement. Disconnect from all electronic gadgets. Read for pleasure not necessarily knowledge or work / industry related literature. Write out your to do list for tomorrow, so it’s not on your mind.


2. Set your alarm for your realistic wake up time; the time that tops the list of your to do list as just written and remove the snooze function so that snoozing is not an option.


3. Download an anthem to use as your alarm – Rather than the first thing you hear of a morning being the annoying trill of a suggested alarm from your phone, buy a ringtone or choose from your song list an empowering “I feel love” by Donna Summers, or “Lose Yourself” by Eminem. Both start off quietly and slowly and then you’re out of bed seizing the day and loving yourself.


4. Get up as soon as the alarm goes off, raising the blinds or turning on a light will kick start the awareness that you are indeed awake, and that a new day is calling you to greatness.


5. Prime your mind and body for the day with a first thing you say to yourself mantra. You wouldn’t let anyone speak to you the way you speak to yourself unless it was encouraging. “Today is going to be a phenomenal day” or “I believe something fantastic is going to happen for me today” or “I feel good, I feel great and I’m number one!” or your own personal power up statement.


6. Set your alarm down out of a defeatist’s arms reach – if all else seems to fail, place the alarm clock where you must get up to get at it.

 "All my life I have battled the alarm clock, pummeling the snooze button over and over with mounting self-loathing until the shame is finally strong enough to lever me upright"

 Isaac Marion - Author Warm Bodies

And if you're interested in going even further, get help mapping out your goals and removing the blocks that are preventing you from achieving them. Let’s make time to discuss your needs and priorities. Book a consultation today.

Don’t keep this to yourself. Spread the word.

By David Lee September 25, 2024
"How you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days— which inevitably create a successful life." Hal Elrod (Author of The Miracle Morning )
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"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." CONFUCIOUS In their book Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, Hector García and Francesc Miralles write that there is no word in Japanese that means to retire in the sense of leaving the workforce for good. The Oxford Dictionary defines ikigai as “a motivating force; something or someone that gives a person a sense of purpose or a reason for living”. In researching their book, García and Miralles spent time in the village of Ogimi on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Ogimi is known as the village of longevity. Its 3000 inhabitants enjoy the highest life expectancy in the world. In Japanese culture, retiring and not keeping mind and body busy is considered bad for your health since it disconnects your soul from your ikigai. Being of service to the village by continuing to be involved in community life or continuing to work is felt to be a key ingredient to longevity. In the book, 92-year-old resident Akira says: “Every day I wake up and go to the fields to grow tomatoes. Later I walk to the grocery store next to the beach and sell them. In the afternoon I go to the community center and prepare green tea for all my family and friends.” These Japanese people keep doing what they love and what they are good at even after they have left the office for the last time. The French, of course, have a similar expression—“raison d’être”—which the Oxford Dictionary defines as “the most important reason for somebody’s/something’s existence”. The more time I spend with spritely elderly people, the more I find they are still involved in their community as volunteers or working the job they loved before they “retired”. 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And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” I’ve coached many people who spent the first half of their lives chasing wealth and are now spending the second half of their lives chasing back their health. I’ve been coaching many more people lately who aren’t concerned about the health they have lost. They fear being cast aside and replaced by much younger yet inexperienced people, threatening the wealth they created while they adopted a “health is your wealth” mentality. Those deciding my client’s fates are themselves, in most cases, much younger than these seasoned campaigners. The dirtiest secret I keep for one of my good friends is his age. He invited me to his 40th, which was really his 50th and the younger folks were none the wiser. The best kept secret of my healthiest clients is also their age. 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Unprompted, I was then offered, “In a broader sense, diversity encompasses the unique characteristics and perspectives that individuals bring to a group, organization, or society, enriching the collective experience and fostering a more inclusive environment.” I was invited to pitch for a consulting role with a global organisation 10 years ago and the friend who had organised the meeting warned me of the CEO’s bias toward younger people. Within 10 minutes of our meeting, the CEO was challenging the energy levels and enthusiasm of more experienced people as he called them, versus that of 20–30-year-olds. At this point, with the benefit of the heads up, I pulled out my phone and showed him a video to illustrate my point in age versus experience I went on to suggest that the challenge for the 3 standout players in this video was to teach the energetically enthused players how to do what they could do, while they were on the job, not in handover notes that will never be read.. I got the gig. I do think that ageism is the last blatant discrimination in the workplace and needs to be addressed by those with much more clout than my keyboard and contacts can achieve. The brave new world aside, Dame Carol Black from the Centre for Ageing Better brilliantly pointed out “Ageism compounds all other “isms”. Ageism and sexism; ageism and racism etc” A final word to the “whys” of those considering losing experience from their workforce is best left to Carole Eastern CEO of Ageing Better; “Ageism is prejudice against our future selves” The challenge for any generation is to assimilate with people of all ages. Most of the best advice I received in the workforce was bestowed upon me by older colleagues in a social setting for the cost of a steak and a wine, and most of the advice I have dispensed to younger colleagues has been dispensed the same way. Curiously, when I joined the workforce, the biggest shortcoming that was ever levelled at me was my lack of experience.. Age well. DL “The young have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for their elders and a love for chatter instead of exercise. Children began to become the tyrants of their households ……. They no longer rise for their elders ….” Socrates
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