As soon as you think of something you have about 5 seconds to either start or you will find a way not to do it.
That’s all it takes. Counting down from 5…4…3…2…1…GO!
At that point either you have started the action or you will have thought of a reason strong enough not to act.
For most of us these 5 seconds comprise the first 5 seconds of our day.
Our alarm rings and as soon as it rings we have 5 seconds to either decide to get up or to find a reason to stay in bed.
If you wait longer than those 5 seconds it turns into a huge back-and-forth in your head between why you should and why you shouldn’t get out of bed, causing you to waste a lot of your energy before the day even started.
The problem we make is that if we do find a reason not to do it we bargain with ourselves. We tell ourselves that we will do it tomorrow or that, because we didn’t do one thing we will commit to this other thing.
However, when tomorrow comes, or when it is time to do that other thing we wanted to do, we run into the same decision problem. The Countdown starts again.
And if we do not do it then again, we bargain once more.
Every time we bargain with ourselves we put another expectation on ourselves to avoid feeling bad. We tell ourselves that it is okay not to get up in the morning if we do something else later on.
By doing so we never get angry at ourselves for not doing what we set out to do and end up feeling worse and worse as we do not follow through with one commitment after the next.
On top of all of this comes the learning that we do.
Through all this bargaining we have gotten a lot better at bargaining. We feel less bad about bargaining and can do it in a much more subtle way.
But, at the end, the truth still remains that we cheated ourselves from what we really wanted because it is easier.
Now, this won’t bite us in the butt right away, but after a year you look back and realize that you regret bargaining that often and you wish that you only followed through when you had the chance, as you would be much further along if you had.
You’ve felt this regret before, usually around the end of December when you look back at your New Year’s Resolutions.
The only way to stop this from happening is to commit to your decision.
If you are going to do it, then do it. And if you are not going to do it, then don’t do it.
But do not half-ass both just to make yourself feel better in the moment, because in the long-run it will make you feel so much worse.
If you decide you do not want to do it, that’s fine. But then commit to it and honor that, and do not worry about it!
If you want to sleep in, go ahead and sleep in. You fully well know the consequences. But if you do not want to sleep in, or you committed not to sleep in earlier, then do not get beaten by your comfort.
Don’t just do it because it’s easy.
Think of something you still need to do today. Something that you pushed off and didn’t want to do and then Count down.
Got it?
Good!
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
GO!!!!!
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