I believe I heard this on Stephen Covey's "First Things First" audio cd that I got for free through an offer off a cereal box... pretty sweet offer!
The Alarm Clock Promise
Do you ever feel a bit depressed and that life is happening to you instead of you making life happen? Do you have a hard time getting yourself motivated? Try this right now:
1. Decide what time you would, scratch that, should get up tomorrow morning. Let's say you decide 6:30am (that's when I'm getting up)
2. Set your alarm for 6:30am
3. (Here's the key) Get out of bed at 6:30am tomorrow! Repeat for 5 days straight.
Seriously, your feet should hit the floor within 5 seconds of that alarm going off. Prepare for that tonight. Give yourself a personal pep talk like this, "Ok, no matter how my body screams 'NOOO!' in the morning, I'm going to keep this promise. I'm getting up and starting my day on time. God, please help me to not be a slave to my body but a keeper of my commitment."
You may notice that when you start your day by keeping a promise to yourself you'll likely have a better day. There is peace and contentment when you have integrity with yourself. This may seem small but I think there is a lot of power in this little exercise because it can improve the rest of your day. I'll be trying this tomorrow (Haven't done this in a while) and hopefully I'll be out the door for my run by 6:40am, so let me know how it goes with you and if it made a difference in your day/week.
Ok, let me share about the last three days of my life:
Thursday a.m.: Ran 2.44 miles in 12:28. Fastest time by far! Pretty stoked on that.
Thursday p.m.: I have the best wife in the world who has worked hard with caring for me and our two kids over the last three months so I encouraged her to take a personal retreat/break. She went to her folks house 2 hours away.
Thursday p.m.: Begin my first weekend alone with both kids by taking them on a date to dippin dots and the pet store, aka a free 'zoo' ;). They loved it!
Thursday p.m.: Kids in bed, and breathing (yes!). 1:30am - Massively huge thunder and lightening storm, wakes up my daughter. She's crying and crawls in my bed. She talks to me for the next hour, I think trying to calm herself down by hearing my voice... very sweet.
Friday: I'm stinkin tired from being up night before. My daughter over flows the toilet, "Dad, the water's coming, it's coming!" Filled the whole floor. Fun! Then we go to a dinner party to find out when we arrive it was cancelled. Our friends graciously invited us in and fed us some good grub.
Friday p.m.: At 3am my daughter is screaming very loud (probably because I didn't hear her for the first 15 minutes of her screaming.). She wet the bed. A lot. Put her in the bath, changed her bedding, she said "Thanks dad, I love you.", made it all worth it to hear that, back into bed by 3:45am.
Saturday: My daughter scrapes her leg pretty bad while balancing on a curb. That afternoon I put my 9 month old son down for a nap. Couple hours later I hear him, he's not crying, I open the door and he has the biggest smile on his face along with a lot of poopy. Brilliant as I am, I put him down for a nap with just a diaper and shirt. He pooped and took the liberty of removing his poopy diaper, smart kid (stupid dad). By the time I walked in there was poop all over his two blankets, stuffed elephant, all the slats on his crib and caked on his hair, face, arms, hands, legs & feet. B-E-A-UTIFUL! Momma came home after we went to the dinner party that was rescheduled to Sat night... I feel much closer to my kids. Thanks thunder/lightening, scrapes and poopy! God is good and has a great sense of humor!
No comments:
Post a Comment