On Becoming a Morning Person

(PSA to all subscribers: We’ll be discussing this post and our hobbies in the Chat here! Join us<3)

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Good morning friends, 

It’s 7:43 a.m. and my coffee is brewing. 

Current blend of Counter Culture I’m enjoying! I usually get the purple bag, but I thought it’d be more economical to get this giant one, and they only had this flavor in this size. I like it!

Today started on a high note because Brian didn’t wake up when my original alarm went off at 6:47, so he didn’t (supportively) kick me to get out of bed. Most days I need a gentle nudge: Get your ass up, Hayes! You have a morning to conquer! 

If he hears the alarm, I get up. If he doesn’t, I sometimes snooze once…and if I’m real bold, I’ll completely change the alarm to something WILD, like 7:12. 

I’ve only done this next one ONCE, but last Monday, I got out of bed at 6:45, went downstairs, and CURLED UP ON THE COUCH WITH A BLANKET AND WENT BACK TO SLEEP. Bad Hayes. Bad bad bad Hayes. 

Ah! Coffee is ready. BRB. 

…

Ok, back. 

thk gd you’re here

I used to think a morning person was someone who is super hype about the morning, who pops out of bed shining and ready to seize the day. Now I think a morning person is just someone who requires the morning to become themselves so that they don’t accidentally morph into something terrible and alien by afternoon. The morning hours are time to thaw. I’m that type of morning person. It took all of my twenties to find her, but now she’s here, and she’s (sort of) thriving. 

My gateway to morning person land was in 2022 when I decided I MUST finish a draft of my novel by my 30th birthday (March 2023). I knew the only way I’d do it is if I made tiny dents on my manuscript before logging on to work each day. I wasn’t thrilled about waking up early, but since I’m definitely not a night person, and since I couldn’t be a “middle of the day” person, (because, you know, my job,) morning was all I had left. So I started experimenting. 

And it worked! Thanks to those mornings, I finished my draft — though the only two people who will ever see those disastrous pages are my friends Stephanie and Cate, who are also the other two members of my writing group. They each sit in multiple bestie categories in the six bestie universe, though come to think of it, I’d like to create a niche one for them: “First Draft Besties,” i.e, the friends you can share your newborn ideas and very, very early work with, sans fear of judgment.  

Waking up those mornings, working towards a secret goal…it made me believe in myself as a writer and a person. This year, when I lost some of those beliefs, I remembered how much an intentional morning helps me. So I’ve been doing it again since January-ish, and this is SO ANNOYING TO SAY, but it still helps. (Annoying because, why does it have to be the hard things that help us the most?) 

The days where I wake up early and write are better than the days I don’t, and accepting this and honoring it has been one of the clearest ways I’ve gotten my motivation for life back this year. 

I talk about this concept on the podcast this week, where I share the ten specific tips that have helped me get my spark back.

I didn’t explicitly say how much writing in the morning helps, so I want to tell you now: Writing helps. This has nothing to do with “being a good writer” or “sharing your writing” or “having an audience”....it’s about sitting down with yourself, mining your brain for thoughts, pulling them out as material, moving and cutting them until they make sense, until there’s a story with meaning for you. That’s what writing is for me. That process is what motivates me to keep going every day, and on the days where I struggle to get started, I’ll gently nudge myself: Get your ass up, Hayes! You have something to say!