Waking up at 4.30 a.m. - Day 15

Wow. 15 days of getting to bed by 10pm, sometimes 9.30pm and being awake at 4.30am, cutting my sleep by about an hour, but it almost seems normal now. Two weeks ago, it felt pretty ridiculous to even say I want to do that. This is why the idea of experiments work! If we position our mind to take whatever ludicrous idea and say "Hey, I'm just going to give it a go, if it feels right, I'll do more of it, if it doesn't, I'll learn from it" it empowers us to reach far beyond who we think we can be. Something that may feel ridiculous can eventually become normal. The environment and people we interact with sets the anchor for our future. Even if we try to reach beyond our "social class", we'll probably fall short of our potential. Think about how hard it is to transcend even when we are aware of this barrier. Fears and doubt crowds out our drive, our hopes and our dreams. The further we try to reach beyond our bubble, the more scary and unthinkable it becomes. There is more comfort in residing in a terrible state than pursuing an unknown one.

So we focus on executing each day, each routine, not the destination. At this point, I'm trying to tackle every silent alarm, every workout, every journal entry, every meditation session and every post. I'm pretty sure this is a routine I will adopt during the weekdays, allowing some level of catchup over the weekends. What am I catching up on? By having the same sleep schedule with my wife, it allows more time to connect and of course more sleep. I have read that we get a higher quality of sleep if we go to sleep and wake up the same time every day to maintain a consistent body clock. This is something I will monitor, but relationships matter more! We can apply lifestyle changes in our day to day, but often times these "programs" or new habits don't take into account that we live our lives with other people! We can't just adopt an alternative sleep cycle where we sleep 30 min every few hours, or become an extreme fruitarian without having some impact on our personal relationships. Be practical and be gentle with yourselves, I believe we can still get to where we want to go without being extreme.

Although some of you are probably thinking 4.30am is pretty extreme. I sure did. Why don't you try it out for yourself?