Habits Habits Habits

One of the biggest shifts for me personally as someone who has struggled with sleep, and the emotional and physical discomfort that has accompanied it has been the idea of habit vs goal.

(Alot of what I may write here may be seen to be taken from James Clear's book Atomic Habits, so if you haven't read it I would advise you to do so.)  

In previous attempts to improve my health and sleep better, often I was putting the emphasis on sleeping as a goal. If I slept well, then it was a success, and if I didn't it was a failure. What this did was to make my emotional pendulum swing wildly from one extreme to another. On the one hand when I felt good, I felt really good and the world was a happy place. However when I didn't sleep and I felt bad, things felt as if they were as bad as they could get. I was simply miserable.

Shifting my focus to a more practical, habit orientated approach allowed me to ride the waves much better. When I didn't sleep, it was no longer the end of the world. Rather than taking it as a bad sign, I would know that all the hard work I was doing, would pay off. None of it was a waste. Despite any bad days, in the long run things would get better, and not only for my sleep, but my total health as a whole. It was like money invested in the bank. If you sustain the good habits, they will pay off.

Not only the bad days were better, but even the good ones. Mostly on the days of recovery I would be so tired from the lack of sleep, all I did was rest and hope that the next bout would not hit me soon. Now that I have shifted to a process based system, on those good days, rather than sitting back I am energized and look forward to the creative and helpful processes to improve my life. Not only that, if I am tired and simply need to do nothing, then my mind is much happier knowing that in the long run I am doing the right thing. 

Both the good and bad days therefore start to swing with less amplitude, and the overall stress on the system is much less. Furthermore, I started to find that I was alot happier, regardless of whether I was sleeping or not, as the process of making a change was the idea that was bringing me joy in my life.