Does Waking Up Early Actually Promote Success?

Are you a night owl? Do you wonder how someone else can possibly look so awake and full of energy in the early morning, when you are doing your best to drag yourself out of bed? Getting up early has long been extolled as a huge contributor to career and fitness success, so I'm taking 30 days of waking up at 5 AM to change my hibernating ways.

Turns out lots of people have been pushing the 5 AM wakeup time as a catalyst for success for quite awhile. Common-sense financial advisor Dave Ramsey has been saying for years that if a person can make themselves get up by 5 AM every day for a decade or more, they will very likely be highly successful. Lifehack provides tips to help you get into an early-rising routine, as well as some of the benefits of doing so.

On the uncommon occasions that I have to get up before 8 AM to head into work, I notice these people. Over-achievers. The extremely motivated. The "Highly Effective," as Stephen Covey would refer to them. Their clothes send a message of both influence and affluence. They are in fantastic shape. They are bursting with energy and ambition at 7 o'clock. Everything about them screams "I'm in control of my whole world." And I have often wondered, what are they doing that I am not?

Turns out it's pretty simple. Basically, it seems to be an exercise in discipline. In the rare instances that I get the idiot I stare at in the mirror to go to bed at a decent hour, and wake up by 5 AM, I find that I am super-ultra-mega productive all day long. And then that night, I am actually sleepy around 10 PM, which is great, because if I stick to it, it creates this never-ending engine of daily productivity. Based on my experiences with this, I am starting to believe there is less of a distinction between morning people and night owls, and the real difference lies between people with self control, and those without it.

And then I think, "I want to be a person with self control all the time, not just once every couple of weeks." So yesterday morning was day 1 of my 5 AM 30-Day Challenge. Every morning, I am going to get up at the same, dark-and-early hour, and make sure that use that early time productively, either with a workout, writing, budgeting, or something else useful. I hypothesize that this consistency will be very good for me.

Have you made a change to an earlier schedule? How has it affected your career success/fitness/life? Do you think this theory is full of it?