As September begins, I find myself looking back over the past six months and thinking, what have I done? Or not done?
Honestly, on some level, it seems nothing less than a miracle that any of us are getting up each morning to face a new day. But maybe you’ve shared some of my COVID attitude of “well, I might as well enjoy x today (ice cream, binge-watching, internet surfing, etc) because who knows what will happen tomorrow”. If this sounds like what you’ve been experiencing, and you're ready for a bit more, perhaps you'll join me in asking more of yourself as autumn begins.
While we're still in this great unpleasantness, I do think it is important to be gentle with ourselves as we try to understand the new world in which we’re living. But there's gentle and then there's ice cream every night. To avoid this, I decided it was time to ask more of myself, rather than just letting it all go. I've made a few changes and thought I would share one with you here.
I love mornings, but from spring until early summer, I found that my days were getting started later than I’d hoped and as a result I often ended up rushing through my routine, rather than enjoying it and letting it ground me for my day.
I was losing control of my day because I greeted each morning by picking up my phone once the alarm rang. Rather than getting straight to meditation and a workout, I would wake up and start scrolling on my phone. A quick look at the news, a bit of social media, check new emails and texts.
Before I knew it, I could lose 30 minutes and depending on what I read, it could also impact my mood. Often, I would be frustrated with my workout app because I felt like I didn’t have enough time to do it. When the reality was if I had just started my day when my alarm went off without my phone, everything would have been more smooth and I'd have all the time I needed.
So I set myself a challenge to consciously start each morning without looking at my phone.
Part of me said, what’s the big deal? You’re going to look at email and social media at some point this morning, why not just do it when you wake up?
But the part that was willing to ask more of myself said, why slow down getting your day started in a productive way? I’ve kept this at the forefront of my mind and I’ve started my day stronger than before for nearly two months.
When I wake up, I begin now with meditation and a workout before I look at anything on my phone. Guess what? The news and the social media posts are still there to read after I’ve finished these two important activities. And the reality is now I often don't look at my phone until I've had a shower and made breakfast.
And while I’m feeling really good about these changes, please know I still have room to improve and so have another challenge for myself this autumn. I love my sleep, but find myself using my snooze button way too often. Over the summer, I’ve been giving myself a pass on cleaning this up.
However, with the start of September, it’s time to ask more. To eliminate the 9-minute “mini nap” each morning, I know I need to go to bed earlier and get up when the alarm goes off without hitting snooze. I'll be focusing on achieving this combo over the next few weeks.
So that's some insight into what I’m asking of myself. What are you asking of yourself in this new season?