We all want to change something in our lives.
But from knowing to acting can be far, aren’t you agree? We get stuck in the middle–remember your New Year resolutions?
Is it our motivation or will-power we need to strengthen?
Or is there something else to help us to take that crucial step?
Avoiding morning stress
To get up earlier in the morning has been my goal for a while.
But I hate alarm clocks. They have an effect on me that, I imagine, an earthquake would have if it hit us in the middle of the night. Alarm clocks, no matter how gentle they were, always succeeded to jumpstart me directly into stress.
Imagine, how I enjoyed the silence in my bedroom when I started working from home! No alarm clocks, no rush, and no panic attacks.
It all worked beautifully until my daily routine has changed. I went later and later in bed, and I couldn’t get up at a sensible hour in the morning.
I needed something to wake me up, and this time it had to be smart.
So I purchased a Sleeping Cycle App (not an affiliate link) that could track my sleeping pattern and activate the alarm when my sleep was light.
So far so good, right?
But waking up and getting up are “two big differences” as they say in Odessa (many funny and wise sayings originate from this city on the Black Sea).
So every evening I would make a promise to myself to get up earlier and write but instead, I would turn off the alarm, fall asleep, and get up hours later. Annoyed and discouraged.
What on Earth happened in those few seconds between “It’s time to get up, love,” and going back to sleep-decision?
Antitoxin for hesitation
So I made some Google-digging and came up with this talk:
Mel Robbins not only has a simple but powerful tip on how to close this “idea-action gap”. But she also presents a scientific explanation to the phenomena.
She explains that there are only five seconds or less between an idea and action, and if we don’t act during these seconds, hesitation kicks in, and we get stuck.
Countdown from five to one should interrupt our habit (staying in bed too long) and activate the prefrontal, learning, cortex helping us to focus and take control over our behavior.
I love simple techniques, so I tried. Then I tried this tip to interrupt other unhealthy decisions like eating another piece of chocolate or skipping my yoga class.
And it did the trick!
It works every time I remember to use it.
Want to try? Listen to the interview–it’s amusing, fun, and highly motivating.
Enjoy!
PS And let me know what happens–write it in comments below. See you there.
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Images by Pixabay and Unsplash
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