The other day I set my alarm very early in the morning in order to meditate and go to the gym before work. When it rang, I felt exhausted. The previous two days at the gym had tired me out and working till late didn't do me any favours either. I pressed snooze. The extra sleep was needed, or so I thought. Two minutes into the snooze and I just couldn't settle again. My mind was pre-occupied with thoughts, primarily on asking myself how much I really wanted this. Why did I want to get up early in the first place? – the body, the mind, the business, time for my friends.
The situation on that very morning prompted me to write this post. I call myself pretty disciplined yet sometimes have these moment where I basically can't be bothered. How does one control it? How do you stay disciplined and how do you make sure you are always on top of your game? These are some of the questions I will answer in this post.
When I wake up, the first thing I see is a post-it note with 'Go chase your dreams' written on it. It reminds me that I am working towards something, that I have goals to reach. If you set yourself a big enough goal, you will get up no matter how tired you think you are. If it drives you, motivates you, and one day will complete you, that morning routine will be so much easier to master. However, no matter how big your goal is, we need to remember a few important factors:
1. Repetition is a mother of skill.
All of our habits are learnt over a certain period of time. From how many sugars you put in your tea or coffee to the colours you choose to wear or the reactions you have to certain situations. It is important to remember that not everything happens overnight. We need to do things many times before they become a habit, i.e. something we will keep repeating without having to even think. Check out my post on ‘How to control your monkey mind’ to read about the different stages of learning.
2. Cause and Effect
A lot of people find themselves in the cause rather than the effect side of the equation. They blame external factors for the effect, for their failures, mistakes or inability to achieve their goals. We need to remember that everything begins with us. We can start the events and we can end them. We are in charge of how we feel and we are in charge of our reactions, which bring me to the next point:
3. Our decisions form our future
Decisions are important. Decision making is a habit as much as any other behaviour is. The more decisions we make the better we are at them. We will never know whether we are making the right one at the time, however not making one is also a decision. It's our decision to wake up early, to binge eat or to drink, to work out and be a super healthy eater- it all starts with a decision. I would strongly encourage you to start making more of them and make it a habit. Decide what you're going to have for dinner or which shoes you're going to wear. Stop the ‘I don't know’ and replace it with ‘I will have…’ or ‘I will do…’. Everything starts with the decision to try.
We are always faced with choices hence the title of the post. You can choose to be motivated or lazy, happy or sad, bored or busy..
'There are two wolves in you, they are constantly fighting. Which one wins?
The one you feed.'
Love & Light,
Mags x