Practicing Self-Discipline at Home: A Consistent Wake Up Time

Jennifer at The Daily Connoisseur spoke about self-discipline at home in this recent video. She says that when you make yourself do things that eventually “you will have developed habits that are now a part of your daily routine and your life will run so much better and your time spent will be so much more quality.”

I commented on her facebook post that there were four areas where I’d like to implement greater self-discipline at home. Two of them, portion control at meals and working on my blog daily, are New Year’s Resolutions which I am focused on already. One I mentioned that I have yet to work was getting up early and at the same time daily. Even though it’s been years since I made it a habit to sleep in late, I still totally press ‘snooze’ for the half hour that this is an option on my alarm clock pretty much every day. Anyway, this regular routine should help with my chronic insomnia. Plus, it gives me more time to do what I want to do during the day, to have my life run smoothly and to lead a chic life.

I worked on this particular area over the last week. From Tuesday, January 27th through Saturday, January 31st, I got out of bed every day of my workweek sometime between 5:55 and 6:05, hoping for 6 AM of course. On my weekend days, I managed to climb out of bed a little bit later at 6:35 and 6:42 on Sunday the 1st and Monday the 2nd respectively. Not perfect, but I’ll take it.

I have tricks up my sleeve to help. One is to put my alarm clock out of arm’s reach, so I must get out of bed to turn the noise off. I have also set a second alarm, the one on my phone, charging out of arm’s reach as well. Really what worked this past week was simply remembering my goal and drafting a blog post in my mind, wanting to note my success!

Once out and about, I also didn’t crawl back into bed either. I usually do that at least once while my espresso is brewing or cooling or perhaps after I have had breakfast but before I jump in the shower by 7 on workdays. This bad habit probably makes me more tired.

I suppose I did both enjoy my morning routine and accomplish a bit more each day last week, but not much more. I’m sure it will be easier to do more of what I want and need in the morning when they become my habit as well, my natural thing to do. A chore like washing, drying, and putting away my breakfast dishes, for example, will become my norm. Like Jennifer says, I won’t have to put much thought into it. More so, I am proud of myself for pretty much sticking to my commitment.

As an INFJ, I always want to improve. I think I might get other things back on track this week. I’m normally hard on myself, but still know I shouldn’t attempt so many new things all at once. Since I am currently feeling motivation for those other goals and resolutions, I will work on those for now. Maybe next week, I’ll go back to trying to be consistent with my wake up time, but this time rather permanently. I have no problem with sleeping in every once in awhile. That can be a simple pleasure.

Plus, I figure with Friday’s paycheck, I could buy breakfasts that I look forward to, motivating me to jump out of bed, savor a delicious pastry and seize my day.