Get up Early!

Get up Early

For us to be successful in doing the Incline at least one day a week for an entire year, we had to make our goals a priority. If we waited for a convenient time to pop up every week, something more important would have always come up. If we waited until the end of the day, we likely would feel too tired and offer some lame excuses to each other. We would have failed before we started.

In the lesson “Be Intentional” you will recall that as part of my intentionality, I set my alarm every night. I set my alarm because I needed to wake up early. If I wanted to make this goal a priority and if I wanted to make sure I actually did it every week, I would need to do it early before everything else in my busy days crowded out the Incline. It was for this reason that we chose as our time to meet as 6 o’clock in the morning every Thursday.

Six am sounds early. That’s because it is. You may think that getting up that early sounds hard. You’re right; it is.

I’ve been waking up early since even before I started at West Point. You may think, “Well, you’re just a morning person.” That may be true, but I believe that even “morning people” find it difficult to get out of bed early in the morning. The difference is that they do it. They wake up. They get up. They show up.

Marcus Aurelius, who struggled with, but advocated starting the day early, wrote in what later became his book, “Meditations,” “Is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

I have come to value and protect my morning time. There is something special about the predawn hours before anyone else in the house is stirring, before your family needs you to be present, while most people in your time zone are still sleeping, before stress and the daily tasks of work take hold. The day is fresh, full of energy and pregnant with possibility.

I am most productive and do my best thinking early in the morning. But getting up early is not just about clear thinking, and having an undisturbed cup of morning coffee. If there is something that you want to make sure gets done, do it early.

For a year, we met at the parking lot and caught the six am bus up to near the start of the Incline. And guess what? I don’t remember a single time where another responsibility interfered at that hour. Our bosses didn’t schedule an unexpected meeting at 6 am. Our kids didn’t need to be taken to a practice or rehearsal they had forgotten to tell us about. The morning time was always ours.

While we were both sometimes grumpy and really did not feel like being awake or out in the cold and dark, it was always a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when we were done. We had knocked out a priority task for the day or week, and we still had the entire day ahead of us. There is something that just makes sense about doing the hardest parts of your day first. By getting hard things out of the way early, they are not hanging over your head all day. You are free to pursue other tasks without worrying about the hardest one still being out there.

Mark 1:35 says “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he [Jesus]departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”

Jesus Christ exemplified making something a priority and getting up early to do it. Spending time in prayer with God the Father was something he cherished. How did he make sure it happened? He got up early.

How can you accomplish your priorities, the hardest tasks in the day? Get up early.

Psalm 119:147 I rise early, before the sun is up; I cry out for help and put my hope in your words.

Genesis 22:3a So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac.

?

Personal Reflection

What is a daily priority task that you could complete by getting up earlier?

When in the day are you most productive?

How do you protect your productive time?

For more Life Lessons like this, check out my book, “Lessons from the Incline” available here:?https://lnkd.in/gwma-ptF