And thanks to a friend’s email wondering how to put this into practice, I thought I’d go ahead and share what I’ve started with.
The problem I started with was waking up at 06:30 for the hour of power. This truly is the toughest battle of them all. This is the kind of habit that gives my rider tremendous happiness. It means fitness, completing my book reading quota for the day and generally improving my overall well being. And of course, this is exactly the kind of goal that my elephant HATES.
Ever since I read this little framework, I did the following –
1. Renamed the hour to ‘Hour of Power’ simply because it sounds cooler. My elephant is more receptive to that, especially when the alternative is 45 mins of exercise instead of snuggling under the blanket in the sleep inducing cold weather.
2. Took out all excuses – the chief one being sleep. I realize my elephant likes to believe it’s all logical. On nights I don’t get enough sleep, it will generally do a great job convincing me that sleep is more important. So, now, the focus is to get 8 hours of sleep so I can take out that bargaining chip early in the morning. (And I always have to! Always.)
3. Caused some pain. The first thing I do when I become conscious is to switch off the fan. That helps. I’ll have to find an alternative when the weather becomes colder though.
4. Found an excuse to start thinking. I used to call up a friend in the morning to wake him up and thus have a 5 min conversation to wake myself up. Then, I switched to checking email (a practice I hate). Over time, I’ve grown out of that. I’ve realized that all I need to do is get my hands on water to drink.
5. Drink a glass of water. I keep a jug next to my bed. I realize the moment my dehydrated body gets some water, I wake up.
This whole process coupled with 2 min snooze alarms typically takes about 10 minutes but has hardly ever failed to work. The big barrier is 8 hour sleep which I try and ensure.I find it pointless to fight my elephant if I don’t get my sleep quota. Self control is an exhaustible resource after all. (More on that coming soon..)
That’s my process. I’m sure you have yours and I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
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On a completely different note, if you had told me a few years ago that I’d spend so much thought into just waking up at a certain time and doing some exercise, I might have laughed (cue: my teenage self). I’m learning to appreciate more and more that consistency on these little things takes so much more grit, discipline, strength of will and character than I can ever imagine.
My respect for those who attended every class in university has only gone up. :)
A Learning a Day 