No Snoozing Allowed

When we first got the blog assignment list I was unsure about what to focus on for this particular one. I thought maybe I’d make a pact to wash my face everyday, I fell off the wagon on that one when I went home for reading week. So, I thought maybe I would do a shorter gratitude challenge since my therapist had recently suggested I try to do that to redirect my thinking toward positive things. I started this, then forgot about it as life got hectic. My last idea was to try to get out of bed at a scheduled time without hitting the snooze button on my alarm. 

Since March 5th I have been successful at accomplishing this task. I have been able to get up and start my day at the scheduled time I planned to. In the rest of this post I am going to tell you why I choose to do this, why I was successful in this challenge and unsuccessful in the other ones.

I chose to tackle the challenge of getting up at my scheduled time because I have a habit of sleeping in or hitting the snooze button over and over until I am late. Due to this I often do not have enough time in the morning to take care of myself. I skip breakfast, and feel rushed to get to wherever I need to be. For example, on Tuesday’s I had class at 11:30 am, I would set my alarm for 9:00am so I could eat breakfast and have time to get ready before having to leave for class. I found that I would hit the snooze button until 10am or 10:30am leaving me only half an hour to get up and ready to go by 11:00am to make it to class on time. The goal for this challenge was to get up with enough time to have breakfast, and get ready without feeling rushed.

I learned from this challenge that I am more likely to commit to something if someone else is counting on me or I think someone is counting on me. In this situation that person was my boyfriend. My boyfriend, Curtis, and I have been living together since the beginning of the new year. He was commuting back to our home town an HOUR AND A HALF away every morning Monday to Friday. So, he would have to be out the door by 6:30am to make it to work on time. Before taking on this challenge, I would get up with him at 5:00am or 5:30am then go back to bed until I needed to go to class or anywhere else. When I started this challenge he was still making the hour and a half long commute everyday so I was committing to getting up with him at 5:00am and staying up until around 11:00pm the following night. I struggled with this at first, but it was easier when I had to be somewhere early in the morning so I started to book appointments and things for early in the morning so I would not be tempted to go back to bed. In the last week and a half of my challenge Curtis started a new job in London. He no longer needed to get up as early and we started getting up around 6:00 am. So during the week I was getting up earlier than I would have liked but it was easier when I knew he needed to be up as well. On the weekends during my challenge my wake up time varied. On weekends I worked I got up at 5:00am and was at work by 6:00am and on my weekends off depending on what was going on I would get up between 8:00am and 10:00am depending on how late I was up the night before and what I had to do the following day. For example, I had a midterm on a Saturday morning at 9:00am so I got up at 8:00am that weekend, but on the Sunday, I was up late watching movies with Curtis and we did not have plans for that day so I set my alarm for 10:00am.

My first few attempts at this assignment failed because I was not holding myself accountable. I rely on my commitments to others to force myself to do things on time. This can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. I care about what others think of me and I want them to think of me as the young woman that they can always rely on. I tend to say yes to everything and bite off more than I can chew. I am learning now that I can not do everything and I need to focus on my well being and what is best for me more than others sometimes. I also learned that I make excuses when it is something for me. Like the face washing idea, I have acne that acts up when I get stressed and slack on taking care of my skin. So, I had thought this assignment was a great way to make sure I stuck with the routine of washing my face so I could control my acne. The pressure that it was for an assignment was not enough. I needed someone to call me out when I did not do it or was disappointed when I did not do it. My own disappointment was not enough to convince me to get up and go to the bathroom and wash my face when I was at my parents during reading week. When I got back to London, I figured it was useless to try to keep up with it now since I had already failed at it.

Overall, this challenge allowed me to learn to tell others what I am planning on doing to keep myself accountable because I can not let others down.

Photo References:
Alarm Clock: Image by digital designer from Pixabay
To Do List: Image by DraCat from Pixabay
Pinky Promise: Image by Kenya Aguirre from Pixabay