On the importance of discipline and habits
A few months ago, I shifted my sleeping schedule around. I went from being a night owl to becoming a morning person. Many people were shocked that I decided to turn around so drastically. Little they knew that I *had* to do it. The more my clients organized meetings in the morning, the more I would be expected to have a functioning brain at 9 am. Which, if I went to bed at 4am, wouldn’t happen.
So I decided to use the 21 day to a new habit method. I made the best of my love for routines to re-train myself into believing that it was ok for my brain to wake up at 5:30am or 6:00am and then work until about 9pm. No later than that, hopefully (although sometimes I put in as many as 16 hours of work in).
The past few weekend mornings have been brutal, however. I have still woken up early and wanted to go back to bed. I did, on a couple of occasions. I woke up at 6:00am and then decided to sleep in for a couple more hours. Unfortunately, that hasn’t sat very well with my brain. My productivity was hindered and I retreated to just focusing on the items that had the ranking of highest-in-my-list-of-priorities. This is not a good sign.
So I decided this morning to reflect on the importance of discipline and habits. It’s an annoyance, of course, to have to wake up at 7:00am every single day even on weekends. But it provides stability and a framework for my brain to operate and be productive. I decided to just be disciplined and stay within my habits. It probably won’t go very well with my neighbours to hear the shower, but I *do* know that my upstairs’ neighbour’s kid *is* awake (and so is he). So, I am pretty sure that they won’t mind. Because, for me, it is all a matter of discipline and habits.
Related posts:
- Sleep, perchance to dream…
- Create a new habit in 21 days through routines
- Countering rudeness with music
- Old habits die hard
- I am a creature of the night… or am I?
