A reason to stop snoozing

30 Dec 2014

Do you struggle to get out of bed in the morning? Do you hit the snooze button 3 times (or more) before you even begin to gather the will to stand up? In my opinion, that's a lousy way to start your day. But it doesn't need to be like that.

There have been times in my life when I've had a tough time waking up. Every day was a battle with myself, trying to come up with the sufficient willpower to just put one foot on the floor, and begin the day. Those are some really bad moments, when you can't think of a good enough reason to lift your body up from the bed, and leave the comfort of your pillow, just to go out and have the same day you've been having for a while.

I used to think that was normal. I just took it for granted, everybody struggles getting out of bed in the morning. But that's not true. There are people that wake up at 4am, ready to start their day, and eager to start working on what they love. Maybe it's too idealistic to pursue this idea of doing what you love for a living, but it should be possible to at least do something you look forward to every day.

If nothing else, I think the only motivation you need to avoid the snooze button once and for all, is to have something you look forward doing that day. It may be work, which would be great, to wake up every day excited about what you're going to accomplish today. Or it may not be, maybe you're in a work that doesn't call for that type of enthusiasm. And that's OK, you can have other things in your life. Maybe you look forward to interacting with your coworkers, or doing something after work, going to the gym, playing the guitar, shooting some hoops. You can have activities outside of work that make you eager to wake up and get out of bed.

This should also affect the time you go to sleep, and logically, if you want to wake up early and rested, you need to go to sleep at a reasonable time. But you can take the same point of view as for waking up. You should look forward to going to sleep, because you know you have great things you want to do the next day, and you know you need your rest, so that should motivate you to get into bed and get yourself some REM cycles.

So when you find yourself having a hard time getting out of bed, try thinking about your life, and what things you can look forward to every day.

If you really don't have any, then you must start doing some changes, which is a good thing in and of itself, I think. It's really great to have the opportunity to change your life for the better.

You just need to take some time to reflect on what life really means to you. What do you want to do with your life? What does success look like to you? What do you enjoy doing?

You need to have an idea about the things that mean something to you, and then give the appropriate importance to them, have priorities, choose to do the things you want to do. That will lead you to having something that you want to do every day, and you won't ever have to use the snooze button, because you're going to be jumping out of bed on the first alarm ring, ready to do what you want to do.

If you can say you have something resembling that, you can count yourself lucky.