Sleeeeeeeeeeeeep

I have a creative mind. Which I’m passionate about and proud of.

My creative mind is really good at coming up with creative ways to get around problems.  This serves me 90% of the time. My mind has come up with an alternative or solution before I even realize there was an issue.

Unfortunately, my creative mind seems to think waking up at a reasonable hour is a problem that needs a solution.

No matter what I do to try and “trick” myself into getting out of bed early so I can have a productive and efficient morning, my creative mind is two steps ahead of me. The new “trick” will work for a day- maybe two. Then my mind will fix the “problem” before I know it, and I will somehow out-smart whatever trick I tried employing and will sleep in.

People say “Have a routine! Have a bedtime! Stick to a schedule!” and while I know in my heart and mind that they’re right- that would help me more than anything else, I would like them to live in my world for a week and try and wrangle this mind, ideas, and goals into a routine schedule. It’s nearly impossible. When you get really excited about a new project you thought up at 11:24 pm and need to spend the next three hours working on it, you need to spend the next three hours working on it. You can’t convince your mind to shut off at midnight so you can go to bed. You can only create. You don’t really have a choice in the matter. It’s a compulsion that you want to serve. Creativity sometimes comes in brilliant flashes that you have to just ride out until the light fades.

And sometimes, you’ve finished a show and should come home and go to bed, but instead you want to get a drink with the people you’ve just spent time performing with. Sure, you could technically skip out on this, but a huge part of performing is performing with people you like and you can’t know if you like people or not if you don’t spend any time talking to them with words that were not prewritten.

I know I need to recognize that my body needs to rest. I know I need to respect the fact that I push hard, and my body need sleep as a result. And I know I should give myself a break and not expect to be able to go to bed at 2 am and wake up at 6 am totally awake and refreshed every day. That won’t fly with my body. Fine.

BUT THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS TO DO IN THIS WORLD. I NEED MORE TIME TO DO THEM ALL. AND SLEEP IS UNPRODUCTIVE!

So if anyone has any new ideas, tips, or tricks for helping motivate to get up refreshed, I’m totally open to them.

Wake me up! So I can go go…

I’m in a conundrum.

I love working out. I love to exercise. I love to get up early and attack the day. I love when I start the day with a serious sweat session, then some quiet me time, then a couple hours of creativity all before 10 am. That’s an ideal way to attack this silly thing called life. At least for me.

But… I have a real tough time getting out of bed in the morning. I go go go so fast during the day that sometimes I find that when I finally do slow down, it takes a little momentum to convince myself to get at it again.

And, despite the fact that I love to get up and at ’em in the morning, anyone who knows me well knows that I am an unpleasant morning person. The first fifteen minutes of the day for me are very rough- no matter what time it is or how much I’ve slept.

And unfortunately, I’m involved in a lot of late night activities. I do comedy and the day doesn’t even start for most comedy people until 5 or 6 pm. And if you really make the most of your night, you can get home at 3 am without realizing how late it is.

So that late night stuff is highly conflicting with my early morning desires to get up and about.

And causing me great frustration.

Mostly because, one my favorite things- exercising- is the first activity to go by the wayside. At the end of the day, the landlord is not impressed at how fast I ran my last race. He wants his rent check. And my car will not care how strong my biceps have gotten. It wants gas. Even my gym is not impressed at how dedicated I am to going if I can’t afford the small monthly fee. So I gotta get my ass to work no matter how much I accomplished beforehand.

I was talking to my friend about this conundrum. We have some ideas on how I can be accountable in the morning and how I can re-train my body to get up when I tell it to. I’m going to try to get up every single day at the same time no matter what time I got to bed. I’m going to have an accountability buddy who will be expecting a message from me at the same time every day.  And if  when I do this for 30 days in a row, I’m going to treat myself to something awesome. Then again after 60 days. Then again after 120. Though, admittedly, the most awesome thing I can accomplish in such discipline and dedication is how much work will get done and how happy my body and spirit will be for making the time for the things that are so important to me.

The challenge starts Monday, April 22. Mostly because I have an intense weekend planned AND because the 22 is a good day for me to start for my own personal reasons. It’s a good day for a “Screw you, world. I own this” attitude.

I’ll keep you updated on my progress.

If anyone has any tips or tricks for getting up effectively in the morning, I would be very grateful to hear them.