Mindset

In my head, retirement meant no alarms. After decades of waking to an alarm, I believed I had earned the right to never set one again. Even when I started my second career as a writer, I resisted. It’s not like I am getting paid to write. I should be able to write whenever I want, right?

But looking back, that mindset kept me from one little shift that could change my world.

I’ve always called myself a night owl. My best writing comes after midnight, I insisted. Yet every book I read about writing delivers the same message. Write in the morning. I fought it. I even wrote a blog declaring, “I can’t.” Recently, everything I have read or heard about waking early ganged up on me.

Still, I told myself that setting an alarm meant waking up before I’d gotten enough sleep, and I can’t write when I am tired. Then I checked the weekly sleep totals on my Garmin. Except for the week I came home from Alaska sick, I slept 7 to 7.5 hours a night, without an alarm. Now after three weeks of setting one? I averaged 7 to 7.5. It turns out my “sleep until I wake up” philosophy never gave me more rest. It just gave me more angst.

In sixty-one years, I have never had a bedtime. For three weeks now, I’ve set an alarm and focused on getting to bed earlier. For twelve days, I have written in the morning. Yesterday I woke before my alarm. Epiphany! All this struggle is not about an alarm? It’s about a bedtime? Is it really that simple? One little shift has changed my world.

How about you? Can one little shift change your world? Send me your thoughts.

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

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Joy M. Walker