Why You Don’t Have to Wake Up Early to Be Successful

We’ve all seen those articles about what time insanely wealthy and successful people like Tim Cook or Steve Jobs wake up in the morning and why you should follow their lead. According to Influencer Digest, Jobs used to start his day around 6 am and “is operating at the highest efficiency levels by 6:15 am.” This might be considered sleeping in for Tim Cook, who, according to Business Insider, wakes up at 3:45.

These articles have popped up more and more recently; readers eating them up. Why are we so obsessed with the time that CEOs and successful people wake up? Perhaps it is because we believe that if we do what they do, we can become like them.

But this thought process is flawed. We need to know better.

The problem with this culture of hyper fixation on successful people is that it creates unrealistic and skewed versions of success and how it is achieved and it assumes that success is a one size fits all shoe; something that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Sure, maybe Tim Cook gets up at 3:45 and gets tons of work done in the morning. Maybe he even gets more done than you do. But he is a multimillionaire with different responsibilities. Maybe he needs to get up at 3:45 to get everything done. Maybe you can wake up at 9 and still complete everything you need to in a timely fashion. Everyone’s priorities are different and that is why we all need to run on our own schedules.

Success shouldn’t be a rising time competition. It should be about what you accomplish.

Success should be earned and defined on your own means. Forcing yourself to wake up at an unreasonable hour just because you want to emulate rich and famous people will do more harm than good.

First off, by sleeping in a couple of extra hours, you are accomplishing something great: detoxing your body and powering it for the day ahead. While we sleep, our muscles and body function all rest in order to be stronger and faster for the day ahead. By losing those vital hours, we may risk slowing down our metabolism, reducing our immune system’s ability to defend itself, and major fatigue. If you can afford to wake up at a reasonable hour: do so.

Secondly, success can’t be measured by the time your clock reads when you stare at it first thing in the morning. You can wake up at 4 in the morning and get less done than if you woke up at 10. Success is all about pushing ourselves to accomplish our dreams by following our own recipe; not someone else’s blueprint. By marching to the beat of someone else’s drum we set ourselves up for failure. It is important to find a routine that works for you and your vision. Who knows, maybe that means waking up later than you do now to avoid lunchtime fatigue. A news story slapping you in the face telling you you’re unproductive just because you didn’t wake up at 4 doesn’t mean anything if you wake up every day and practice habits that bring you closer to success.

It’s time to reclaim the morning

For so long, we have dubbed the morning time synonymous with productivity. Sure, waking up earlier can give you more time to do things you need to do. But why is it that those who choose to stay up later to complete their work are labeled as procrastinators and lazy? Staying up later and waking up earlier both result in a few extra hours of awareness and lost sleep in order to get stuff done. So why do we value one more than the other?

The answer: we’ve created a culture where successful people all seem to fit a certain mold: rich early risers who hate sleeping in.

What’s unfortunate is that this culture and mold has caused society to overlook successful people who stay up later to do their work and sleep in. They get as much, perhaps, even more, done and work on their own schedule. But because of their night owl lifestyle, they are viewed as unproductive slobs who stay up late to catch up on late or missed work.

It’s time we put a stop to pressuring people to fit that mold and to stop hyper fixating on those who do. The first step to this is to figure out what works for you without letting outside influences seep in. It’s great to be influenced and inspired by successful people we admire, but not to be dependent on knowing their every move.

If you decide to stay up later and sleep in: just know I support you and that it might be the best thing you have ever done for your productivity. Or maybe not. But you’ll never know until you try.