It’s been a few months since I’ve transitioned out from my nursing career to working as a full time influencer and it’s been quiet the journey thus far.

I spent the last decade working night shift as a bedside nurse and the hardest part about my new schedule is switching gears and to live as a normal day shifter.

Never one to claim to be a morning person, I thrived on nights.  On my nights off from the hospital I kept the same sleep schedule during the week so it didn’t throw me off.  I stayed up late and slept during the day.  It worked for years as I balanced nurse and influencer life.

But because I tend to be night owl, with my bursts of creative energy peaking at around midnight it’s been a struggle trying to keep my old routine with my new responsibilities.  I knew I had to give it up.

I decided about two months that I needed to let go of that part of my life and begin rewiring my brain and body to become a morning person.

Mistakenly, I thought I could transition pretty quickly but here I am about 2 months later and I’m just starting to feel like I sort of have a handle on the “waking up early” part. 

So, although I’m not officially a morning person, I have definitely improved leaps and bounds.

Progress, no matter how big or small is still progress and over here at Musings of a Curvy Lady, we celebrate all the wins. 

So, how did I do it?  

Here are some of the ways that are helping me become the morning person I desperately want to be.  If you are struggling with getting yourself on a routine I do hope this helps you.

GIVE YOURSELF GRACE

For some reason I thought I would be able to just become a morning person just by saying it.  I wrote out my schedule and thought, easy enough.  But there I was hitting snooze for an hour before just turning off the alarm and sleeping in the entire morning.

My day started late everyday for weeks, and I felt like a failure every time the day ended with me not getting through my to-do list.

But I had to talk myself down from guilt because I did just spend the last 13 years living as a vampire.  Give yourself a break, kid.  It would take time to adjust to my new normal and I need to allow myself to fall of the wagon sorta speak.  

ALARM TRAINING

For about 4 weeks I would set my morning alarm an hour earlier than the week before to begin getting used to hearing the alarm go off so dang early. I started at 8am with the goal of waking up at 6am every weekday.   I’d set 4 alarms (at 5:30am, 6am, 7am and 8am) and once I started getting used to getting up at one time I removed it and stuck with my goal alarm.

So now I have two alarms, one at 5:30am and then 6am.  The 5:30am alarm helps my mind and body get ready to the idea of getting up soon.

Now that I’ve done this for a few weeks, I now know that my second alarm is the “get your butt up!” alarm.  There’s no playing around or extra wiggle room.  Thamarr, if you don’t get up now, your entire day is going to be off.

I would also keep my phone charged on the opposite nightstand from the side on which I sleep.  This forced me to physically get up out of bed to turn off the alarm and also get me to open my eyes a little.

BRAIN DUMP & WRITE OUT MY ROUTINE

Creating a new routine for myself was probably the hardest thing for me to do.  I was so dependent on my super tight schedule while working a full time job, it forced me to be really disciplined with my free time and use it wisely.  But at first I struggled so much with what I was supposed to do with any day because I didn’t have some place I needed to be or do.  I was in charge of my schedule and I didn’t know what to do with that freedom.

To get started on figuring out what I wanted my routine to look like I wrote out personal things I needed to do everyday outside of creating or planning content.  These were things that were unavoidable and a static part of my life; things that if I waited to do later in the day, would never get done.  These were also tasks that would bring structure to my day.

Once I had that down, I had figure out when I would regularly shoot/capture content with Taylor, by myself  and once I had the content how I wanted to share it everyday via Instagram and here on the blog.

This helped immensely because it gave me a general idea of what each day would look like and what I was required to do.  Not knowing and just playing it by ear was a huge part of my problem before and wasted a lot of precious time.  Creating a content calendar is still something I’ve recently started to do.  It’s takes discipline but it’s so helpful and keeps me organized.

CHANGE IN (work) SCENERY

Having a home office is great and I’m so appreciative of the space that I have.  But one thing that I found myself doing when I should be working I would find an excuse or reason to be doing everything else I was supposed to (laundry, scrolling on instagram, cleaning, watching TV).

So in effort to make the most of my time I started to use a coworking space a couple of days a week for a change in environment that will keep things fresh and help me to hyper focus.

It’s amazing what I can accomplish with less time at the cowork space versus at home.  It’s nice to wake up and have a place to go as if I were going to work at a traditional 9-5.

I’m pretty fortunate that the coworking space I share is so on brand with my style and such a vibe.  It makes a difference when the place you are working is beautiful, it just fosters so much inspiration and productivity.

ESTABLISH A NIGHT TIME ROUTINE

Having a nighttime routine was essential to allowing me get enough sleep so I could wake up on time the next morning.

Before I would just do things when I felt like it but now I wrap up my work day, meaning I’m off the computer by 5:30pm, eat dinner or do some light housekeeping stuff by 8pm and showers skincare and in bed by 10pm.  I might not be asleep till 11pm but I’m training myself to be in bed This meant getting off of Netflix and Instagram, where I would spend so much time unnecessarily to unwind, when it was just prolonging me from starting to truly get ready to rest and relax.

So far by implementing these things I have been able to have more effective days which makes me more confident in my new role.  I hope sharing these tips can help anyone that the impossible, possible.  Seriously, if I can do it, so can you. 

Stay Lovely!