Ok, so lately I’ve been really structuring and planning out my time very deliberately and meticulously and I’m really proud of this. I usually set a wake up time for around 7am. And on days when I wake up and feel totally restful I’m like, BAM! I’m ready to go and DO THIS LIFE! However, there are some days when I schedule 8 hours of sleep for myself, but by the time I wake up my body is still SO incredibly sleepy. Like every bone in my body aches to fall back asleep instantly. Like my whole body completely takes over and is like GO BACK TO SLEEP IMMEDIATELY ANYTHING ELSE WILL BE EXTREMELY PHYSICALLY PAINFUL AND TOTALLY TERRIBLE AND YOUR DAY WILL BE SO EXHAUSTING, WE NEED MORE SLEEP TO FUNCTION STAT!

It’s like I can’t fight the urge to sleep and it makes so much more sense in that moment to not wake up and do my action items that I deliberately planned for myself beforehand. This is a problem because it is costing me integrity to my word/plan, and my result is that my whole day gets thrown off and I surely don’t feel a sense of overall accomplishment. I’m definitely not beating myself up for this behavior, but I would like to overcome this, I find it annoying. Furthermore, I’d actually really love to wake up much, much earlier, like around 5am and go exercise in the mornings before I do any other work. This has always been dream of mine. But I don’t trust myself to set that goal because I don’t feel stronger than my sleepiness spells.

That said, I can recognize when there have been times when my body has this overwhelming sensation to go back to sleep, but I HAVE gotten up. This is usually when the reason/incentive is SO compelling that it is non-negotiable in my head. For example, if I have to wake up at 4am to catch a flight across seas, you best believe my ass is up and catching that flight, ever single time. The other times that I’ve forced myself out of bed when I’m consumed by total utter sleepiness is usually when someone or some job is dependent upon me showing up at a certain early time. Clearly, when I’m sleepy I can still keep my wake-up promises, but only around the immediacy of making or losing money. How do I make my day seem like a similar emergency when I wake up sooooo sleepy?

Basically, right now, when I wake up on time feeling restful, my plan is non-negotiable and I do everything on it, and I end the day feeling proud and accomplished. But when I wake up super sleepy, my plan BECOMES negotiable, and I don’t usually carry out all my planned action items (maybe up to 60%), and I definitely don’t end the day feeling as accomplished. Even if I were to tell my sleepy self, hey, if you don’t get up you won’t feel accomplished at the end of the day and you won’t be keeping your word, my sleepy self will just reply, THAT IS THE STUPIDEST THING YOU’VE EVER SAID IN ALL POSSIBLE UNIVERSES, GO BACK TO BED.

I’m certainly not beating myself up about this, but there is a sense of disappointment. Plus, I’m gonna pissed in 3 months from now if I’m still letting sleepiness get the better of my day (and my life!).

Here’s the other thing: I can usually can feel the night before that the following morning is going to be either a restful feeling one or a super sleepy one. For example, last night I was like, oh shit, I can really feel how tired my body is and I’m actually going to plan my day for tomorrow so I can wake up later (at 8am instead of 7am). But today at 8am, I woke up the world’s most sleepiest person, and there in bed as I was half awake I made excuses for my plan that day (aka I don’t really have to do the first items on my plan, I can just roll them into the second part of my day), and I slept all the way in until 10am (which by then I did feel super rested, but I didn’t have that fired up feeling like I do when I feel rested AND wake up as scheduled). And, the result was that today was a little bit sucky and I certainly didn’t finish it will a sense of completeness and accomplishment.

So, what ya got for me, Brooke/Master Coaches?! I’m certainly determined to stop this habit, but right now I don’t trust myself to be stronger than my sleepy self.

Thank you for all your help. xo – Sheilanova