The Alarm is Easier to Set!

As my better and slackier angels waged their morning contest of wills this morning (Get up & Exercise! No, rest, you need your sleep!) I took a few moments to consider how almost every act of discipline involves choices. Sometimes, several of them.

These days I am trying to make my best choices early in the game. If I want to walk in the morning I start planning to the night before. I know me. And I am fairly confident that bed is going to feel even better seven hours later then it will be I first get in it. Discipline’s not easy when the alarm goes off.

Besides, I am a consummate excuse finder. I’ve been working with me and around my lazy predilections for years. I know good intentions need action so I set my alarm and my mind the night before. I lay out my walking clothes, shoes, and iPod where I have to practically trip over them to get anywhere.

Sure, laying out my gear doesn’t ensure success, but it does eliminate that whole host of excuses why I can’t – where are my shoes, I can’t walk without music, I’ll need my phone, etc. So I prepare.

I know what’s coming. Morning, fraught with all its delicious alternatives to getting up and walking: like sleeping in – or better yet, going back to sleep. I love that. Bliss is shutting the alarm off and going back to sleep for another hour. It is my truly guilty pleasure for it is enormously pleasurable and I always feel wretched when I do.

So knowing how I’ll feel if I don’t walk, I lay out my clothes and set my alarm, and most importantly, I set my mind. I make the choice. Every morning. But it starts the night before. Granted, the alarm is much easier to set.

Arggggh. Laces up!