How to Build a Life You’re Excited to Wake Up To

When your alarm goes off, how do you feel? Excitement for another day… or absolute dread? Don’t you wish you built yourself a life you’re excited to wake up to?

We know we’re hitting you with the hard questions off the bat, but it’s important that we do, as we want to help you build a life you’re excited to wake up to. So if that feeling is absolute dread when your alarm goes off, this one’s for you.

Do You Feel Dread or Determination…

First off – are you feeling dread or hitting snooze because you’re tired and it’s way too early…. or because you just don’t want to do today? If it’s the latter, it’s time to fix it.

Take a step back for a question. If nothing in your life changed in five years, would you be okay with that? If the answer is no, again, it’s time to fix it.

We’re not telling you that you have to have it “all figured out” right now. That’s not what your twenties are for. They’re a time of career uncertainty, financial stress and learnings, and unfortunately even some social comparison (but we’ll need to stop this one!).

Speaking of social media, we want to set the tone right now – not everything you see on the Internet is true. That “glamorous” life of success you see others living on Instagram? Remind yourself that you’re not really seeing what’s going on behind the scenes.

Building a Life You Are Excited to Wake Up To

Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s get into it. Here’s how you can build a life that you’re excited to wake up to.

1) Figure Out What You Actually Want

The life you’re living right now – is it one that you chose or one that someone else chose for you? By “someone” else, we mean expectations from your family, friends, culture, peer group, college system, and yes, of course, social media.

Think about it for a second – if no one could judge you, or if social media didn’t exist, what would you try? If status didn’t matter, what would you actually want to pursue? Think about what energizes you and what drains you. You’re going to want to dedicate your actions more to the things that give you energy.

2) Stop Focusing On Just Achievement

Sure, we all love being able to brag about our achievements. We also all love getting that nice paycheck into our accounts. But when it comes down to it, if you really want to live a life that excites you, you have to do what you less of what feels heavy and expansive, and do more of what makes you happy.

We’re not telling you to go out there and quit your job – we get it, you need that steady paycheck. What we are telling you is to introduce some “tiny experiments” into your life. You may be surprised how adding these can quickly take you to being excited to wake up every day.

These can help you test out different lifestyle choices before you fully commit to them. This can look like freelancing before quitting your job, taking a class before switching careers, or even moving to a new city for 30 days.

3) Don’t Make Work Your Entire Personality

Thanks to hustle culture, we can easily be tempted to make our career our entire personality. Chances are, that won’t excite you as much as you’ve been made to think it will. This actually poses a higher burnout risk.

It also can result in an identity collapse if your job changes, as we know how volatile the job market has been lately. Because of this, it’s important you build a life for yourself outside of work.

Some examples of this are:

• Having a weekly dinner with friends
• Starting a fitness ritual
• Doing any sort of creative outlet
• Dedicating some solo thinking time to your day/week

4) Romanticize The Ordinary so Life is Exciting to Wake Up To

I’m going to bluntly say it – we all need to romanticize our lives more. There are some things we do every day that have just become the norm. But these things can be entirely romanticized to make you enjoy them more.

Why do you have to wait to do something special and romantic for someone else? You deserve that kind of love and appreciation from yourself, too. Start romanticizing things like your morning coffee ritual, evening walks, journaling and cooking. By doing this, you may just find out that excitement hides in small consistency, not in all the big grand gestures.

5) Stop Comparing Yourself With Others

Yes, we’re going to talk about it again – social media. You have to remind yourself that platforms like TikTok and Instagram have algorithms that aren’t natural. Instead, they amplify extremes like luxurious lifestyles, overnight fame and fast success. Seeing that against what you have may not leave you excited to wake up for the day ahead.

This is not reality, no matter how much our phones are trying to make us believe that they are. Remind yourself that five year compounding is way more successful that a 5 day or 5 week viral stint online. Focus on the things you can control, rather than what is out of your control.

Some practical tactics you can take to help you stop with the online comparison is to curate your feed. Track your own metrics like skills you’ve learned and habits you’ve built, and by taking social media fasts.

6) Remind Yourself That Exciting Doesn’t Mean Easy

That exciting life you want? It’s not easy. It takes some important reality checks with yourself before you can get there. You are going to need to have some hard conversations with yourself to figure out what you really want.

From this, you can then make a plan of how to get there. That plan may reveal to you that you’ve outgrown some of the people around you, and that’s (unfortunately) normal. The plan may also reveal that it’ll take some financial discipline on your end.

All of this can lead to some loneliness during your “reinvention” period. Don’t let that stop you. Growth tends to feel like loss before you finally get to feel that expansion.

Final Thoughts on Having a Life You’re Excited to Wake Up To

Let’s go back to your alarm clock now. Imagine waking up energized, and it’s not because your life is exactly what you want it to be. Instead, it’s because your life feels intentional and you know that you are working towards your dream life.

Think of your 20s as a design phase, and remember that you’re allowed to change your mind. To get you started – what’s something that would make tomorrow 5% more exciting? Whatever it is, go ahead and make sure you do it today to get you that more exciting tomorrow.

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