I am loyal to my early morning routine which includes yoga, meditation, prayer and exercise. As my new elliptical machine still sits in the box while I wait for a service tech to come put it together for me, I reach for my many layers of clothes so I can walk outside and not freeze.
Getting out of bed can be a challenge, especially when it is still dark out and the neighborhood is like one big ice glacier. It has been gray, freezing and snowing all week.
Even when it is a warm sunny day, it can still be tough. A friend of mine who runs a Karate Studio recommends to his clients to do one thing when they don’t want to get out of bed: “Stand up.” That’s it. And this can be an effective strategy since our physiology drives our psychology. Once on our feet we tend to stay in motion (Isaac Newton concurs.)
But on my hardest days, I rely on the mantra of a dear and close friend who puts it a different way.
She just says: “It’s a doing thing, not a thinking thing.”
For some reason that is the magic sauce that I can always rely on. If I merely “stand up” I can easily take a look at that fluffy warm cloud like bed I just got out of, and fall right back into it.
But by programming my mind to just do it, and not think about it, I never miss a day. Even the most disciplined among us don’t always “feel” like running our protocol. Dedication is about pre-committing to a task and letting it rip when the time comes to act. If we wait until we “feel” like it we won’t accomplish much, or at least not consistently.
Next time you need to act but don’t “feel” like it, try plugging that mantra into your brain and see if you can “do” without “thinking” and without “feeling like it.”
Special thanks to my sweet friend and her words that help me out of bed on my hardest mornings. It’s a comfort knowing that she too, is on her feet before daylight.