How to wake up earlier?

“Tomorrow it is going to be the day. I will wake up at 5.00 am, meditate for 30 min and then write 10 killing pages of my book”. That’s what my inner voice told me just before I went to bed. I was feeling guilty because I had procrastinated and hadn’t written any pages 3 days in a raw. Here is what happened:

At 4h45, I opened my eyes, I saw the sun lights through the windows. “It is time to wake up”, I thought, but I couldn’t. An internal negotiation started: slow motion, picture the scene.

Mr Procrastinator mind engaged: “Should I wake up? Is it important? What if we don’t do it? Who is going to reprimand us if we don’t?

Mr conscious Mind replied: “man we said yesterday that we should do this, it very important because if …”

Mr procrastinator mind interrupted and then continued with ridiculous excuses:” We didn’t have enough sleep this week, scientists say we need 9 hours of sleep. It still looks a bit dark outside. It is not morning yet. Why are you putting so many constraints? “

Mr Conscious Mind would react “We slept yesterday at 22hoo and 7 hours of sleep are enough. We are not tired…”

Mr procrastinator mind would counter-attacked“It is our book after all. We decide when we finish. We can delay it. You don’t even know what we are going to do now. ”

Then Mr Conscious Mind would try to imagine different scenarios of waking up.

All this negotiation took place in my mind, but I took zero action. Afterwards I felt asleep again and wake up 45 min later, jumped out of bed with an angered face: “It is the last time I spent so much time in bed, tomorrow I will wake up at 3 am 😊 “.

What is the problem? I was trapped before the negotiation had even got started.

Lesson 1: Chronic procrastinators mistake themselves that they can consciously beat their procrastinator mind in real time negotiations.

To win, we need to have pre-decisions and triggers already set up upfront.

A pre-decision is a decision we make before we enter the context. Triggers represent mini- actions we start now to make that decision sticks until we get in this context.

Lesson 2: Chronic  procrastinators fear complexity.

Going from bed to outside the bedroom is a complex task that we usually underestimate. It is made a lot of small mental intermediate actions we assume are straightforward.

However, we only need to figure out two steps:
Where should I start? Where should I finish?
Thus, when you are planning the night before, instead of  “what should I do tomorrow?”, Ask ” what should I start with tomorrow as soon as I opened my eyes” and then
“What Should I do tomorrow as soon as I wake up?”.

Lesson 3: Chronic procrastinators are too optimistic (again). 

Jumping out of bed is the exceptional scenario. Moreover, if your move is brutal, you can easily fall into the trap of coming back to sleep.

That is why it OK to spend 2-5 minutes in bed provided that you converge to waking up.
What is required is a process that changes your state of consciousness smoothly.
How do all these conditions instantiate in a day-to-day basis? What specific system can you apply to prevent you from wasting 1 hour a day just to quit your bed?

Solution: Combine visualization and belly breathing.

This sequence must be performed just before we go to sleep.

Pre-decision:

Step 1: Answer these questions:

Q1: what should I start with tomorrow as soon as I opened my eyes?
      Q2: What should I start with outside my bed as soon as I wake up?
  • In my case, Q1: Listen to music and Belly breathing Q2: Writing Listening to a piece of music is one of the easiest way to change your state of consciousness smoothly with minimum effort when you are still in bed. It is a passive action. The music can be a motivational or radio news or whatever else that resonate with you. Before the music ends, you can start Belly breathing that will change your state quickly when you are still in bed. How to perform belly breathing(also call Diaphragmatic Breathing)

Step 2: Choose the music you are going to listen to and make sure the music player is near your head

  • In my case, I have an mp3 player full of meditation music not far from me.  I can reach it with my arm
Trigger: visualize all the process from opening your eyes to waking up.
  • In my case, Before I sleep, I picture myself opening my eyes, then I put the earplug, I upgrade the volume. Afterwards, I imagine myself starting  10-15 belly breaths and then I wake up  easily.
  • The visualization can last 3 min and  it is the most important piece of the system.
Once  pre-decisions and trigger are done the night before, you will be surprised how easy it is to execute this plan in the morning. You will observe results after 2 -3 consecutive days.

Heudou Tchihikou Aubin

A master chronic procrastinator who chose to execute on his dreams because of frustration and self-criticism

1 Comment

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.