I've conditioned myself.
I've conditioned myself to hold my phone in my hand after my
alarm first goes off, and every time it leaves snooze, it vibrates before the
preset song begins to play. As soon as I feel it vibrate, I depress the top
button that engages snooze once again. This simple self-conditioning has
deprived me of more morning runs than I will admit.
This is one of the many aspects of my life, however small,
that I want to change --that I need to change. Need and want aside, I just need
to do it. I need to self-correct the behavior. It’s as simple as that. We all
go through this every day. It can be something as simple remembering to take a
multi-vitamin or taking out the trash. Although these oft overlooked tasks may
seem inconsequential, failing to do either might prove ill down the road. Not
the least of which being a house that smells like last week’s garbage.
So how do I do this? I could argue that my snooze escape is
a hard habit to break, because let’s be real, what person doesn't enjoy just a
couple more minutes of sleep? Seriously though, I feel that it’s just a matter
of a conscious call to action, with of course in this case the keyword being “conscious.”
No pun intended; I admit that there does come a point at which I’m consciously
aware that my alarm is going off, and I choose to shut it off. It’s my choice.
It’s as though that we haven’t really broken away from our
inner child. Our children seem to go through stages in which they listen and
act upon our instructions, or they don’t. At some point they begin to do menial
tasks around them without being reminded –in a perfect world. But for sake of
this analogy, let’s say they, because of course we became somewhat responsible
adults…
Or did we?
Yes, you may make your mortgage payment on time every month
or dutifully make it to the supermarket on the same day and time every week,
but how many excuses have you made to not engage in some sort of routinely
scheduled physical activity? Are you behaving any different than a child who
has ignored a request for the thousandth time?
Sure. Start throwing those excuses out there. You've been
building up a repertoire of excuses ever since you were a child. You learned
exactly how to play the game when asked why your bed wasn't made or why you
left the milk out. The bad part of this is that we make these excuses to
ourselves. When I hit my snooze button this morning it was because at first I
instinctively thought that I wanted more sleep. Then my mind started working. I
rationalized that I hadn't gotten enough sleep to function properly throughout
the day, because I had stayed up too late rehearsing new songs. I also
rationalized that I needed more recovery sleep for my workout last night, and
that I didn't need to run today, because if I run tomorrow morning, then I’ll
have a nice rest day on Friday before a long run on Saturday. I am a master of
excuses, because my inner child is still writing the book; yet all I had to do
was just throw the covers off and swing my feet over the side of the bed.
All we need to do is listen to the other voice in our heads.
The whisper that is always lost in the clamor of excuses that our inner child
is expertly firing off in veteran fashion. It’s the call to action that we
willfully ignore. Changing is just a matter of simply doing. By not doing
anything, we are doing something, so we might as well do the right thing. It’s
being proactive. It’s taking control.
Can change really be that easy? I’ll talk about that in my next post.
Much love, peace, and blessings,
Singled Out Dad
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