The preceding disciplines

There was a time I struggled with getting off the bed in the morning. I would pep-talk myself before going to bed, that by morning, we needed to get up in time to do great work. No excuses! Then I would snooze the alarm over and over. By the time I finally get up, I would be disappointed in myself for lack of discipline. Then I changed something.

I started to sleep early, and only set my alarm to eight hours from whenever I sleep. Rather than be attached to a wake-up time, even though I had one I worked towards, what became constant for a start was an early sleep time and a good duration. I had read and watched about the importance of a minimum of 8 hours sleep to aid proper mental and physical function through out the day. If I was looking to do great work consistently, this sounded like it mattered.

Today, I experience the direct opposite. My body wakes me up sometimes 1 or 2 hours earlier than the alarm, then I have to consciously stay in bed to fulfill my sleep time. I had gone from snoozing the alarm to waiting for it. And now it’s almost effortless to get up at the first sound of the alarm, especially every time I went to bed 8 hours prior.

I was looking for discipline in how I got up in the morning but I only achieved it by fixing how I went to bed. I am wondering how many other areas of life this applies to, where one needs to stop struggling with a particular thing, and just go change something simpler that precedes it.