Waking Up At Five Does Not Do Anything

Open any motivational page. Same line every time. Wake at five, cold shower, success will follow.

I do not wake up at five.

And I know several people who do wake at five, who are extremely disciplined, and who have been standing in the same spot for years.

The problem is not discipline

Discipline is a limited thing. There is only so much of it in a day. You force yourself up in the morning and by afternoon it is gone.

Any work you have to drag yourself into every day is work you will not be doing for long. However strong your intentions are.

What happened with me

There was a stretch when nothing was coming in. Money was tight.

But I did not stop working. I kept at it, kept building, kept learning.

That was not discipline. I like this work, that is the whole thing. Even if I got nothing, I would still be sitting in front of the computer.

If I had been forcing myself into this work, I would have quit during that same stretch.

Any work you have to force yourself into every day is work you will not be doing for long.

So should you wait for the interest to arrive

No. That is wrong too.

Interest does not come first. Usually it comes while you are working. The first time something you built with your own hands actually runs, that is when it starts being enjoyable.

So the first two or three months will be hard, be ready for that. But if you are still forcing it six months in, maybe this work is not for you. There is no shame in admitting that.

What actually works

Make the thing easy to start. If it takes ten minutes to get going, most days you will not get going. Leave the laptop open, leave the file open.

A little every day. Forty minutes daily beats four hours once a week. The hand learns from repetition.

Missing a day is fine. Come back the next day. People miss one day and drop the whole thing, which is a strange way to behave.

Keep building something. Watching videos does nothing. Build what you watched, that is when you find out whether you understood it.

Two questions

I have a job, I cannot find the time.
Take one hour a day. Night or morning, whenever your head works. One hour a day is thirty hours a month. That is not small.

I start and quit, again and again.
You probably set too big a target every time. This time pick one small thing you can finish in two weeks, and finish it. The confidence you get from finishing one thing does not come from any motivational video.

One last thing

Waking up at five does nothing. Doing something you will still be doing six months from now does.

That's it.