The Alarm Clock

We all know the dreaded feeling of hearing an alarm on a Monday morning. Most people have a unique relationship with the default iPhone alarm that would make Pavlov smile. No matter where you are and what time of day it is, if you hear it, it will bring you back to one of the worst feelings, being forced out of bed before you want.

People handle their alarms in different ways. Some people set one alarm and snooze it to their liking. Personally, I set one alarm at the time I need to wake up and then a back up one 5 minutes after just in case. The one alarm is usually enough for me, but I would be lying if I said the second alarm hasn’t saved me before. In my opinion, the worst type of way to handle an alarm is setting 5 alarms in a row. In my mind, you are just multiplying the feeling of waking up, but that’s just me. Regardless of the method to your alarm madness, the result is the same, we are all getting up before we want.

The thing that fascinates me is everyone still gets up no matter how tired they are. Whether it’s for work, school, or any other reason, people are still getting up. There is an obligation you need to fulfill the next day when you set an alarm. How do I know that? Because you set an alarm. Who sets an alarm if they don’t have to get up for anything?

For me and almost everyone else, my alarms are tied to work. No matter how late I stayed up the night before, when I hear my alarm go off in the morning, I’m getting up. Why? Because my alarm went off and I need to go to work. No questions asked. That’s how my life works.

The question I posed to myself is how do I carry over my dedication to waking up for work to other areas of my life? Objectively speaking, I don’t think I’ve ever missed work because I just didn’t feel like going. It’s work and I’m a programmed like a robot to go every day.

Now imagine if I had this dedication to any other aspect of my life. Literally doing something every single time I said I would do it. I say now that I want to work out, read, and meditate every day. If I was as committed these things as I was to waking up for work, I would have the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the mind of Albert Einstein, and the spirituality of the Buddha. I say that in jest, but I would be a whole lot closer to a mix of those three than what I am currently.

I contribute to my 401k every two weeks without fail. Why? Because I want to financially stable for my retirement which is something that matters to me. I can say this is the reason why I contribute every two weeks, but it’s a lie. I contribute every two weeks because it is automatically deducted from my paycheck and it is out of my control. There has been some great research done by Richard Thaler which shows that people’s contribution to their 401k’s go up when they are automatically enrolled and must opt out. This automatic enrollment has carried over to other programs such as organ donation.

I wish I was automatically enrolled into being the best version of me every, but that’s not how life works. If anyone has a link where I can enroll in that program, please share! You first need to decide what the best version of you looks like. Actually write it out and put some thought behind it. I think some basic things everyone wants is to be physically and mentally fit all while being a net positive on society. Those are at least some things I’ve written down. I am a firm believer in the more dedication and effort you put into those things, the greater the results will be. It will take time to achieve the results, but they will happen with patience. The great thing is that everyone has their own choice of how much dedication they want to put in to be the best version of themselves.

Going back to the alarm clock analogy, my dedications to things outside of work are much closer to this scene from Officespace. My question is, how do I avoid my commitment to my workout routine or reading look like this scene? That’s an open question that very few people are able to answer. If I’m able to figure out, I’ll be sure to share the secret of what worked for me.

Nobody is perfect and it is draining to give 100% of your effort every single day. Even the top athletes in the world have physical limits and can’t be active forever. The same applies to the mind. It needs rest and rejuvenation just like the body.

Now it’s up to us to decide how hard we push ourselves when we aren’t resting, and how long those rests are when we need to take them. I know I need to push myself harder and become more committed. Step 1 is to recognize my lack of dedication, which was the easy part. Now it’s time for the more difficult Step 2. Execute.