Hurry Up And Go To Sleep
One of the best parts about not having a boss is also not having an alarm clock.
But Friday morning I had a 7 a.m. meeting online, so I set my alarm just in case.
At around 4 a.m. I woke up to go to the bathroom.
A few minutes later I returned to my warm bed and soon started to fall sleep.
Then I remembered, my alarm was set for 6:30.
“Better hurry up and go to sleep,” I thought.
Bad idea.
Have you ever tried really hard to go to sleep?
Try it sometime; especially if what you really want to do is stay awake.
What happens first is, after a few minutes, you realize you’re still not asleep: it’s not working.
So you try harder.
When that doesn’t work you get frustrated and blame yourself.
“I should have gone to sleep earlier… I shouldn’t have had so much coffee…”
You may even create a new identity for yourself; for example, I’m someone who has a sleeping problem.
Not good.
Sometimes when I go for a walk I listen to stories in French.
If I relax, enjoy the walk and think about the story, that’s when I forget I’m listening to a foreign language.
But if I think about every word and every verb tense and give myself the goal to understand 100%, that’s when I understand the least.
In The Inner Game of Tennis, the author, Timothy Gallwey talks about the difference between making yourself hit the ball and letting it happen.
Remember that you are not your tennis game. Trust the body to learn and to play, as you would trust another person to do a job, and in a short time it will perform beyond your expectations. Let the flower grow.
Hope that helps.