- Good morning, good life.
Welcome back to AmyTV, where we come to help you
go after the life that you want.
And if you would like to be a morning person
but it hasn't really been going according to plan,
you're probably doing it wrong.
(energetic, playful music)
A very popular topic on YouTube
is waking up early and seizing the day.
This, of course, attracts a crowd of naysayers
who will tell you why it's not a good idea.
I personally believe that you should just do you.
Whatever works for you, that's what you should do.
If that is your most efficient,
if you feel good about it, if you are productive,
go to town, whatever it is that works for you.
But if you're trying to be a morning person
or get up a little bit earlier
and it's not working for you,
then I just wanna talk to you today about why that might be.
Before we get into, you know what I gotta do.
I have to give some Twitter gratitude.
And today, I wanna shout out khansencreative,
Katrina, thank you so much for watching these videos.
Your time and attention means a lot to me,
and that retweet was pretty cool too, so thanks.
If you would potentially like a shout-out
here on Twitter gratitude, all you gotta do
is follow me on Twitter and retweet my latest video
when it comes out.
All right, here are a few reasons why you might just suck
at waking up early.
Not trying to call you out or anything, but.
Number one, waking up before you've gotten enough sleep.
If there is anyone on the internet instructing you
that you should wake up at five a.m.,
no matter what happened the night before,
please stop listening to them
and read any, any book, any,
written by anyone that is somewhat reputable
because they will tell you that's a terrible idea.
Just because you have goal of waking up early
should not mean that you sacrifice on sleep.
That completely defeats the purpose of waking up early.
You're trying to use that time to be more productive.
You can't be more productive
if you haven't done the one thing,
the one unexplainable thing we need as humans
or as living creatures in order to survive.
You could literally die if you don't get enough sleep.
I know people that deal with insomnia
are probably thinking, thanks a lot Amy,
thanks for the news flash.
But it's true!
After a certain amount of time of no sleep,
you don't have a lot of hope.
So you don't wake up at five a.m.
just so you can check that box.
Falling asleep at your desk
or doing absolutely nothing with that time
because you should be sleeping is ridiculous.
I am not going to wake up at five a.m.
so I can sleep at my desk.
Huh-uh, no.
You've got to get sleep.
So waking up early means you have to adjust accordingly
to get the seven to eight hours you really need
the night before.
Are there many of us
who still don't get seven to eight hours?
Sure, I have been getting six to seven
because I have a really crazy month.
But that's because I know I'm gonna sleep like a champion
when I'm on vacation.
Is that okay?
No.
Are there stints of time where that's okay?
Sure, you're gonna be fine if you're still getting
a good amount of sleep.
But if you're partying, or forget the partying,
but if you're binging Netflix until one a.m.,
and then you're like, okay, set my alarm for five a.m.,
I mean, come on.
It's just not realistic.
I believe in resetting the next day
so that you can start a day fresh,
but that doesn't mean that whatever you did the night before
is gonna go forgotten.
Your body's gonna tell you it ain't workin'.
The second mistake that you could be making
is that you're not actually getting out of bed.
Now, if you didn't get enough sleep, stay in bed,
but sleep in bed.
That's the only thing you should be doing in bed.
And the other thing.
You should not be staying in bed during your wake-up time,
at least not for too long a period of time.
I do know that some people like to meditate in bed.
Whatever, that's cool.
Or if you like to read in bed, that's cool.
Personally, if I read in bed and it's five a.m.,
I'm gonna fall right back asleep, okay? (laughs)
So now, if you're staying in bed,
it's probably not going to be beneficial for you
because you're actually not doing much with the time
that you're trying to gain as a part of your day.
Number three, often a symptom of people who stayed in bed
is that they start scrolling social media right away.
If I wake up, come into my office,
pick up my phone to turn off my alarm
and start scrolling social media right away,
that five a.m. timeframe was completely worthless.
Paying too much attention to what the rest of the world
did last night (laughs)
is not how you start the day, okay?
Like, no.
Okay, I do not wanna see your glass of rose
when I'm drinking lemon water and doing my morning pages.
Okay?
It's just not the vibe.
But the bigger reason we don't do that is because we know,
social media is the highlight reel, okay?
I don't post crappy photos of myself on Instagram,
and I know most of you do not either.
So why are we gonna start with somebody else's A-game
other than ours?
Forget that, don't do that.
That's a really great way to easily let one to two
to maybe three hours fly by in the morning
that you could've had for yourself,
or anything that you care about,
anything you wanna mobilize whatsoever.
Could be for your family, could be for some project,
could just be to read a book,
but you gave it to somebody else,
and that, I'm sorry, that time is better spent
later on in the day.
As a matter of fact, like, I still forget social,
like text messages, I still,
I don't know what else I have to do.
I have an entire YouTube channel
dedicated to how I do things
but I still get texts from people all day long
when I do not want to text!
And sometimes, if you don't text them back,
they're like, what's going on, are you okay?
I'm like, I'm literally fine, like I just don't have time
to talk on text message.
When you get consumed with other people's world,
you let them decide how your day is gonna go.
Stop that.
The fourth thing that'll make you suck at waking up early
is that you don't have clear goals.
If you're just waking up for some arbitrary reason
like Amy told you to do it, like, it's a really good idea
just for no reason whatsoever, it's not good enough.
Even me, even me telling you to wake up early
is not good enough.
And I recognize that,
because I could say that I wake up early
just so I'm not a hypocrite on this YouTube channel,
but that's not a good enough reason.
I like to sleep.
I mean, I probably would stop talking
about waking up early on this channel,
'cause it's just not how I'm wired,
but that's not why I wake up early.
I wake up early because I know how much time I have.
I'm sitting here filming this,
so grateful that it is before one p.m.,
because I took less time to get makeup done,
I took less time to set my lights up,
and I thought I was gonna be behind schedule today,
but I'm ahead.
And I feel like my day's almost over, and it's one p.m.,
and I've gotten a lot done up to this point.
You do not become hyper-aware of the hours of the day
until you really own your morning to be yours.
I just, I know this.
And on that note, number five.
You haven't planned your morning in advance.
I knew everything I was doing today last night.
I have been calendar-blocking my entire life
for a long time, you guys know this.
But also just going through what are the list of priorities.
If things have to shift around tomorrow,
if emergencies happen, if whatever happens,
what are the top priorities that have to get done,
they cannot be moved off the calendar tomorrow.
I always have that list the night before.
And then everything is scheduled,
including the things on that list
and anything else that I had going on.
But things change, and knowing what you have to do
is a great way to start the day,
and also knowing that things can happen
is a great way to navigate the day.
Number six, you're not hydrating.
Drink some water, bro.
At least start the day with it.
You just went, hopefully, six to seven to eight hours
without food or water,
and your body, even if you think it's hungry,
is actually probably really thirsty.
Like, you've been, like,
mouth-open breathing for eight hours.
Give 'er a drink.
I personally feel like lemon water
is the most amazing way to start the day.
In addition to just skincare, like,
this is where I moisturize here,
but the rest of my body, I drink that lemon water,
and I swear, I actually feel my body waking up
in a different way that you feel like it's waking up
from caffeine.
You know the difference.
If you've done this, you know the difference.
Gotta hydrate,
that is another really, really important thing.
I think it may be arguable how much water somebody needs
in the day.
You can do your own research on that.
But just start the day with a glass of water.
Like, you absolutely cannot go wrong with that.
And finally, number seven,
you don't take care of yourself first.
I hear this a lot from those of you who are parents
in my community.
And I am not one, so this is really, really difficult
for me to speak to.
And I think it's gonna be different for everyone,
just like everything else is.
All of our problems are special, right? (laughs)
But it can be really hard to wake up early,
and maybe the kids wake up with you,
and they totally screw up your plan
to have some alone time, or whatever the case may be.
There are always gonna be things that happen.
It's continuing to not give up on yourself,
finding that time for yourself
so that you can make things happen
and feel like you own the day.
There's probably somebody out there that's like,
you know what, doesn't matter what time I wake up
in the morning, I have a family to cater to at that moment.
I actually don't get my time.
But when do you?
When have you integrated that into your day?
When have you figured it out?
Do you need to actually wake up earlier?
Is it possible?
I know that's crazy if we're talkin' about
three or four a.m. now, I get it.
So if it's not, then when is it going to happen?
Because the reality is,
if you get no more than 30 minutes to yourself,
let's just say 10.
If you don't actually have 10 minutes to yourself,
you do not have a life,
and you need to take control of that immediately.
Stop letting even your little ones decide
how you're gonna live.
'Cause you gotta show them how to do it.
I know, I know, parenting advice, I'm not a parent.
But that's how I feel at this stage.
I'll let you know if it changes.
Listen, it's not changing anytime soon, oh my god.
Get focused on having a better,
more rounded morning routine,
at least one that feels like you decided, happened,
and surround yourself with people who are doing it too.
Check out my new project, the Shine Squad.
It's at patreon.com/amytv,
where we talk all about this stuff all the time.
It's such a great group of people
who really will motivate you
to want to do a little bit better in your next morning.
Alright, let's share what we learned today in a tweetable.
"The future depends entirely
"on what each of us does every day,
"a movement is only people moving", Gloria Steinem.
All right, I wanna hear from you.
Be honest, what hasn't been working in your morning routine.
Leave that in a comment below.
That's all for today.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I appreciate it as always.
Make sure you subscribe for good vibes.
Kiss the ones you love (smooch)
and go after the life you want.
Cheers.
Hey, if you want a shout-out here on Twitter gratitoud,
grat, gratitat, gra, gra, gratitad.
Stop squeaking, chair!
A movement is only people moving, Floria Steinem.
Floria or Gloria? (laughs)
Oh my god, a typo for the ages. (laughs)