How to Stop Getting Annoyed at Yourself and Actually Get Motivated this Winter
By: Eve Arnold
Tags: Motivation, Self Improvement, Self, Psychology, Productivity

1. Stay close to your ‘why’

It’s easy to crawl back into bed when it’s cold and dark. It’s even easier when you tell yourself there is no need to get up. But there is a reason that you told yourself you needed to get up early in the first place. There is something you want to do, something you want to achieve by getting up this early.

When it’s cold and dark it’s easy to lose sight of that reason or make that reason feel less important. But it’s not less important now than it was in the summer. Arguably, working on your dream is one of the most important things in the world.

When you’ve just woken up make sure you stay clear on that reason, remember why you are doing this and what you want to achieve. The one thing you don’t want to be doing is having this same conversation with yourself in a year’s time because you didn’t commit.

To create a habit of getting up early, in the hard times, you need to remember why you are doing it. What’s your dream? Why do you need to get up at this time? Why does it matter?

Actionable tips:

Ask yourself why you wanted to get up early in the first place? What are you trying to achieve?

Ensure the first thing you look at in the morning is related to your goal and you're why.

2. Drink a big glass of water

Hydration gets the body started in the morning. It’s easy to fall onto the sofa, foggy eyed and drift off back to sleep. Instead, create a habit of drinking a big glass of water as the way to start your day. When you think about it, you haven’t drunk a sip of anything for the last 8 hours. Your body needs refreshment.

You’ll find that you feel instantly more awake and more alert for the day. There is really no better way to start the day than with a glass of water.

Part of getting up successfully in the winter is ensuring the first 5 minutes aren’t wasted. It’s about making sure that you don’t get back to bed and you don’t go back on what you promised yourself.

So it makes sense to feel as awake as possible as quickly as possible. That includes drinking a big glass of water as the first step. But it’s not limited to this. Everyone is different. Naturally, there will be things that make me feel more awake in the morning that might make you feel sleepy and vice versa. Experiment with different approaches, here are some ideas:

Meditation

Showering first thing

An early breakfast

Writing

Going outside and getting some fresh air

Having a coffee

Actionable tip:

Work on understanding the habits in the morning that make you feel most awake, experiment with different things.

3. Get dressed and do it early

There is something about being in your pyjamas that tells your body ‘this is rest time’. Of course, when you first wake up it’s easy to feel like staying in bed, you’ve got your pyjamas on, it’s cold, it’s dark. Everything is stacked against you getting back into bed and getting some more rest.

If you want to combat that, then get dressed. If you want to level up even further, get your clothes out the night before and put them in the bathroom. That way when you go to brush your teeth they’ll be there ready and waiting and it will be easy to get changed.

Getting changed changes your mindset and your outlook. ‘Dress for the occasion’ is said for a reason. If you dress for work you’re more likely to do the work. If you are sat in your pyjamas and cosy clothes your more likely to curl up on the sofa and go back to sleep.

Actionable tips:

Dress for the occasion, wake up and get changed.

Put your clothes in the bathroom the night before, brush your teeth and then get changed.

4. Create a morning routine that works

Part of the reason we get stuck for motivation is lack of structure. We wake up, sit down and then think ‘now what?’ That’s an issue because then you are forced to spend the next 30–40 minutes thinking about how to spend your morning and what to do. And if you don’t know what to do, the easiest thing is to fall back to sleep.

Which is quite frankly, a waste of time. In the morning, fresh out of bed, you are sleepy and barely functioning. It’s not the best time to decide on what to do for the day. The result is you overthinking how to spend your morning and ending up not being very productive. Instead, what works better is to decide the night before what you need to do with your morning or, if you prefer, stick to a morning routine that works.

Now I’m not saying you need to a drink of a cocktail of questionably sounding ingredients followed by a 50-mile run and a cold shower all whilst telling yourself you are invincible and will achieve your dreams. But what is quite a good idea is using the time in the morning to do the things that are important to you but that often get lost in the day.

Things like stretching, meditation, writing down any thoughts that have been bugging you. If you find a routine that works for you, try to stick to it the best you can, you’ll find that you’re spending less time than ever trying to decide on what to do and more spend more time doing.

Actionable tips:

Do not use the time in the morning to work out what to do with the day, you’ll be too foggy to think very clearly.

Plan the night before, work out exactly what you are going to do with the morning once you wake up.

Take it a step further and get specific. For example, if you are thinking of ‘writing’ in the morning, get clear on exactly what article you are writing.

5. Do something, anything

Action creates motivation. People are often mistaken in thinking that motivation creates action but it doesn’t. The result is that you wait and wait for motivation to fall into your lap so you can start with your day. What always happens is that the waiting continues and motivation never turns up.

Motivation is a lousy friend.

Instead, start by doing. It doesn’t have to be your hardest task, it just needs to be a task. It needs to be something that you have on your to-do list that can be ticked off. There are loads of things that fit into that category, things like:

Putting the wash away

Putting the washing in the washing machine

Hoovering the downstairs

Washing the pots

Cleaning the kitchen sides

Making a phone call

There are lots of things that take less than five minutes you can tick off your to-do list to make you feel more productive. Once you’ve ticked a few of these off you will find that you are ready to tackle the bigger things.

Actionable tips:

Create momentum by doing. Tick off some small, mundane tasks and you’ll notice you are ready for the bigger tasks.

Write a to-do list that you can get through quickly to get you motivated.

6. Schedule breaks that excite you

Taking a break will male you more productive and more motivated. Often you can fall into the trap of sitting, staring at the desk knowing that you are not doing anything. Yet you trick yourself into thinking you are being productive. By simply sitting at the desk, somehow it makes you feel like you are chipping away at your goals.

You’re not.

You’re wasting time. If you are not doing you have three options, sit there and do nothing, sit there and do something, or get up and take a break. It might sound counterintuitive to pick the third option but it’s not. After hours spent staring at the screen, taking a break and getting outside can only be a good thing. Your brain gets tired of the same old scenery. It gets stuck in that track of thinking.

Instead, get up and get outside. The different sights and smells change your train of thought and give you some rest bite for a little while. Changing the space will mean that when you come back to your work you feel refreshed and ready to go.

Not only that though, but you should also schedule breaks that excite you. Is there a Christmas film you’re dying to watch or Christmas decorations you want to put up? Use that as a motivation to get your work done.

Actionable tips:

Use the season to motivate you, schedule Christmas related breaks that excite you.

Understand that breaks actually make you more productive in the long run.

7. Schedule your time

Scheduled time is time that you don’t need to think about too much. It’s time that is already in the bag and assigned to a certain task. Now whilst you can dip into overscheduling and making life a little too regimented, scheduling time to work on the things that are important to you is key.

I find that if I schedule my important tasks on a Sunday it makes it clear what I need to achieve in the week. It makes it simple to follow because it’s broken down by day and by the task.

It means I can feel confident that if I stick to the plan I will be able to achieve all the things I want to in the time I’ve got. Having this plan takes the weight off and it gives you less of a reason to procrastinate. When you have unstructured time you can sometimes feel lost with how to spend it.

Actionable tips: