I knew that giving up my unhealthy sleeping patterns for Lent was going to be a challenge; I just hadn’t anticipated how much…
photo courtesy of graphicstock.com
One week in, I think I’m only at about a 75% success rate in terms of getting a good night’s sleep, and I’m nowhere near where I want to be by the end of Lent, in terms of actually having a sleep schedule. But I needed to start somewhere, and deciding to be healthier as my goal for Lent was really only the beginning. I actually didn’t expect overnight success (pun intended) – I knew it would take some work to get there.
What’s been surprising to me so far is discovering how much selfishness is actually a root cause of why I tend to stay up too late. I’ve started to notice that when my plans have been unexpectedly interrupted, instead of rolling with it and adjusting my plans to account for the change, I tend to adjust my time instead, no matter how unimportant my plans actually were. And I’ll try to justify it to myself as something I need to do – when in truth, no one needs to stay up an extra hour to watch tv or read a novel. Yes, I do require time to unwind at the end of the day before I can fall asleep – it’s part of how I’m wired – but if I’m honest, as I look back over the past week, there were evenings when I probably didn’t need as much time as I chose to take.
So this week, my goal is to pay a little more attention to my actual motivation when I’m making a decision about how to spend my time in the evenings, and we’ll see how that impacts my adventures in Lent.
This post is part of a weekly series called Adventures In Lent, and is co-hosted by my friend Arman Sheffey. Catch this week’s link-up at armansheffey.com!
