All my conscious life I was a terminal night owl.

My usual schedule was going to bed at two or three in the morning because 'well, I'm a night owl, it's just my nature.' Plus, after working all day, you want to live for yourself in the evening (and a bit of the night too).

As a result, mornings were always a time of painful survival accompanied by curses aimed at the alarm clock.

And I sincerely believed that this was just my genetic wiring. An unchangeable constant.

But in early March, I decided to run an experiment. Initially, I was just looking for topics for a YouTube channel and wanted to try a challenge format: 30 days of going to bed at 10 PM and waking up at 6 AM.

And what was conceived as an experiment led to amazing results.

Well, at first it was hard, of course. On paper, it's simple: just go to bed at the appointed time, what's so hard about that? But in practice, it turns out you always have some unfinished business or an interesting video you want to finish watching before going to sleep.

Nevertheless, I persistently kept trying to go to bed and wake up at the set times. And after a couple of weeks, the first surprise happened: I started waking up on my own. Five to ten minutes before the alarm. And without the feeling that I had been hit on the head with a dusty bag. It was as if my body itself decided it was time to get up.

But the main hidden gem was discovered later. It turned out that early morning is my most productive period. In a couple of hours in the morning, I sometimes manage to do more than during the entire 'night owl' workday.

And that's not all the benefits. Whoop consistently shows a green recovery zone, breathing is easier during boxing, and gym performance has gone up.

In short, I realized that I am not a night owl.

I was an early bird who just never gave myself a chance to try otherwise. What I took for 'genetics' and 'nature' turned out to be just an old, worn-out habit.

And I'm not urging you to jump up at six in the morning tomorrow. I'm suggesting something else: doubt your self-identification. Perhaps you too are not a 'genetic night owl' or a 'person who doesn't like sports,' but just a person who has become too accustomed to a certain scenario.

For almost thirty years, I was wrong about myself.
Now I wonder what else I am mistaken about.