Day #66 in A Year of Positivity

“The days you don’t want to are the days you have to.”
– Ryan Baloy

Ciao, Darlings, and it’s so wonderful to see you still here with me on Day #66 in A Year of Positivity! I was browsing around for a quote for today’s message, and this one by Ryan Baloy just jumped out at me, “The days you don’t want to are the days you have to.”

Here’s why this quote applies to me. As you know, for the past two months I’ve been out of work with a broken wrist. A lot of time opened up on my hands to think about certain things, and to improve in some areas. One of them was waking up early again when I go back to work. Well, this past Monday was my first day back to work, and while I’m glad to be working again, it was brutal trying to wake up so early, even after I went to bed earlier the night before. My ultimate goal is to wake up at 4:30 every day before the sun rises, but it’s been a challenge.

I have an overhead smart bulb light that changes in a ray of colors, though I prefer blue because it makes me more alert than any other color of the spectrum. In my lamp next to me on the nightstand is another smart bulb, though that one is usually set on a deep shade of soft brown or red to help me relax and get in a mindset of slowing down and sleeping earlier. I specifically used the overhead blue light as my alarm clock, which I’ve got on a schedule to turn on at the time intervals of 4:30 AM, 5 AM, 5:30 AM, and 6 AM, because sometimes I snooze my alarm (but then again, who doesn’t? Lol).

So, Monday comes, and I snooze at 4:30 AM, and 5 AM, and 5:30 AM. By this point, I leave the light alone and slowly wake up around 6 AM.

Tuesday comes, and I snooze until a few minutes before 5:30 AM.

Today, same thing, except it became easier to lie awake in bed. And, I got a delightful treat this morning. I actually got to write in one of my manuscripts for a little bit!

It’s a difficult goal to master, waking up so early, especially when your days are full and you simply can’t get to bed as early as you’d like. The internal clock is no joke. The body will get the sleep it needs once you’re out like a light. Unless you’re an insomniac, or a vampire, or someone who can legitimately run on just a few hours of sleep every night while still having tons of what seems like never-ending energy. I’m just kidding on the vampire part, by the way. I’m a morning person, but I’m also someone who needs at least 6-8 hours of sleep, though I’ve also seen myself to run on about 4 or 5 hours of sleep.

Based on my sleep patterns recording on my smart watch, it seems it doesn’t matter how many hours of sleep overall I get each night. As long as I get at least 3 hours of REM sleep, I seem to be able to function like I normally do on a regular basis. However, I’ve also taken notice to the fact that if I’ve had less than 3 hours of REM sleep, I’m a not-so-fun person to be around because this is when I’m irritable, impatient, and absolutely everything from noises to people asking me questions or simply talking to me all gets on my last nerve.

So again, even though I love mornings, it can be a challenge for me to wake up when I want to. However, once I’m awake and fully alert, I’m usually very cheerful and welcoming the day with a smile and a hug. I feel today’s quote deeply because I know that it means I have to continue working at waking up earlier if I want to get more stuff done in my day. Once my job starts, that’s basically it for me, in terms of any time to myself, because other people and stuff come first.

This is why my goal is to be able to wake up at 4:30 AM, so that I get more time for myself, and get more time for self-care, so that I don’t burn myself out and end up feeling mentally and emotionally drained all the time, like I did before I broke my wrist. Now, enough talk about my goal, lol. I’m hitting the hay now and, while I’ll likely tell myself I don’t want to when 4:30 AM sneaks up on me, I’ll let the blue light remind me that I have to. And get up, lol.

It’s time to hustle!