#selfdisciplinechallenge

So I started my new waking up at 6am challenge but I failed for the first two days. The most obvious reason is that I slept at 1 or 2 the first time! Then I heard my alarm clock and started imagining myself waking up ahaha. But I was still in bed until 7. The only good thing is that I started researching about good morning rituals and found some.

This morning, I simply slept until 9. Again I slept late, but worse I just stopped the alarm clock.

I don’t want to panic but I know that if I had to go out for work, I would have been up. Therefore, i’m scared that it’s just a way myself is telling me that it doesn’t give a shit about my goals =(

I will not give up and try something more reasonable by first going to bed early. Because I’m used to sleeping late, that might be a challenge but other than that, I don’t see what else I can do. 

Here’s my first attempt at morning rituals:

1. Drink something hot (tea or water with lemon)

2. Pray: talk to God

3. Journal: write about my feelings/experiences/difficulties but also joys

4. Re-read my goal : to become self discipline (I need to find SMART goals to attach to this ultimate goal)

5. Daily affirmations (still haven’t found good ones, and because I realize that I’m not in the right mindset right now, I’m too disappointed in myself and don’t believe in myself either)

6. meditate/focus on one thing for a couple of minutes (since my concentration is so poor, I think this one is a must)

To be quite honest, there are a lot of things that are pretty urgent and that I have to take care of now. Like school. I haven’t been in class for two weeks now. I haven’t read much about the material and my dissertation promoter is leaving uni (and I haven’t started the search for a new one). 

Unhealthy food is making me sick (literally). I discovered that milk was the prime culprit and I feel so much better, but there’s something else too. I’m sill not feeling my best and I’m overweight.

Other areas of my life are kind of bad too. I’m ruining my social life by avoiding people because I feel bad about myself, I need to find a new apartment to move into, and other stuff.

However, they say that I shouldn’t start and change everything. So I shall choose one challenge for 21 days and stick to it. Something I know I can do and that will boost my self confidence.

I’ll post a link to this amazing podcast where Courtney Sanders explains that discipline is just keeping your word to yourself. And when you struggle, it’s because you are so used to not keeping your word that you don’t believe in yourself anymore. That only leads to you not doing everything to achieve a goal, because well, you know you’ll give up at some point anyway. Just like a friend who never keeps her promise to be on time, you start going to meet her late too. 

Myleik Teile worded it differently by saying that we lack confidence in ourselves because we never finish anything.

This is so me. The solution is to start small and start honoring little promises to ourselves. Little by little, we start trusting ourselves again and we start setting bigger goals. If you think about really, achieving one’s dreams is just about reaching our goals which is about showing up everyday and working towards it. In other words, discipline.

Well, what can be my first goal then? I wanted to say going to all my classes but I haven’t done it for 6 years! Yup, that’s actually not an easy one for me. I despise it. I’m never focused in class for the two hours, I don’t friends in my current uni and I’m not found of my major. All of this to say, i will have to go to class eventually, but as a first challenge to build back my confidence, I could (and should) try something easier.

I’m thinking waking up at 6am everyday for 21 days. Not only I like being up early (even if it’s hard to retake the habit), it will also give me more time during the day to do different tasks like studying, gym, etc. I will not be going to the gym as a challenge for now, if I fail, oh well. 

I will take one challenge at a time, and focus on it. Then add another one, etc. My self discipline and hard work muscle are so weak that I really need to take BABY STEPS.