Okay, so I made it one of my goals for the month of February to wake up early every morning—at 5am specifically. I wanted to carve out time for myself to focus on personal development and also simply have some quiet time before the busyness of the day takes over.
But full disclosure, I failed at this goal already. Yesterday morning I woke up at 5:45am and this morning I woke up at 7:30am!
My initial reaction yesterday was some frustration that I had hit the snooze button twice and had wasted 45 minutes of precious time, but I still managed to read a few blogs, have a cup of coffee, edit one of my blog posts, and spend a few minutes listening to a lesson for a blog course I’m currently taking.
Honestly, I felt tempted to scrap the whole goal.
Sometimes when we fail—on a small or large scale—our first thought is to give up, to retreat, to simply abandon the project.
As I sit back and examine why this is my first thought, I realize that it is about my ego and my fear probably more than anything else. My ego feels hurt because I failed at a simple task. I feel weak and even a bit silly. And my fear is activated because if I failed at such a simple task as waking up an hour and a half earlier than usual, what chance do I have at accomplishing bigger tasks and goals?
Rather than allow my thinking to stop there though, as I would have done in the past, I realize it is important to step into a growth mindset in moments like these. It is true that I failed to accomplish my set goal for two days in a row now. But the truth does not have to stop right there. That does not have to be the end of the story in this saga that is my monthly goal. It does not mean I am doomed to fail at accomplishing the goal tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.
Each day is a new day. I have the ability to make a different choice tomorrow morning than I did this morning.
Each day we have the chance to re-examine and renew our goals and our commitments to ourselves.
On that note, I think it is important to remember that these are commitments to ourselves. Generally speaking, I find it very easy to follow through on commitments I have given to other people, but it is much harder to do this for myself. Perhaps it is because I place a different level of value on myself than I do on other people. If that is the case for you to, I can only say this: we need to stop.
You are incredibly valuable and important. What you want and need is important. Your goals are worth the effort.
This is where we can always re-examine our goals and make sure they align with what we really want. Make sure you are setting goals that you actually believe are important, not goals that you feel pressured to make for the sake of someone or something.
Why do I really want to get up at 5am every morning? Once I clarify the reason for my goal, and once I reiterate to myself that it is a goal I actually want, I can set about creating additional strategies for accomplishing that goal.
I want to wake up at 5am this month because I want to have some quiet time to focus on my own personal development and my blog. For me, this will include some the following activities: reading a few of my favorite personal development blogs; reading a personal development or education book; journaling about my future goals; reviewing my daily planner and mapping out my day; editing blog posts; writing new blog posts; listening to my blog course and implementing the strategies I learn about into my own blog; listening to educational podcasts.
Reminding myself of all the reasons I want to get up early actually makes me feel excited about my goal again. Rather than focusing on my two days of failure, I feel renewed in my commitment to continue with this goal.
We will all fail. We will all fail many times in our journey toward our goals, but that is part of the process. Try not to focus on the act of failing but rather the act of getting back up again, and remember why you are working toward your goals in the first place. If you have a strong enough why, you will set aside your ego and your fear and your frustration to press toward your goals. You will stand up a little stronger and a little taller next time, and eventually the failures in that specific area will become less. You will learn how to fight better against the things that hold you back and you will employ better strategies to push you forward.
So today, set a small goal and don’t be afraid to fail at it. Be afraid of getting stuck in a fixed mindset. Be afraid of not trying. Be afraid of becoming stagnate. Don’t be so afraid to fail. If you fail, you can always try again. If you don’t even try, you will wake up one day and realize you didn’t go anywhere.
