The process of change doesn’t always have to be complicated. It doesn’t always need a big build-up. The most profound life shifts often begin with the most simple questions, landing at just the right time.
August 25, 2013 was a Sunday. I ended the day as I do almost every Sunday, with flying trapeze practice. As I walked back to my Union Square apartment from the pier on Manhattan’s West Side Highway, I dialed into a call offered by my mentor Loren Lahav.
I was a fly on the wall, mostly observing and listening in, with my video off because I was walking.
That is, until she asked a question that stopped me in my tracks, on Bleeker Street in the West Village of Manhattan.
How long will you continue to snooze on your life?
She wasn’t necessarily talking directly to me, but she was.
My reaction was one word, which I wrote in my journal: Ouch.
Loren wasn’t even talking about the actual snooze button on the alarm clock; her question was more metaphorical. But she might as well have been talking about the literal, because that’s where it all starts.
Life is patterns. How we do one thing is how we do everything.
I was a Snooz-er
At the time, my morning routine, such as it was, was inconsistent and haphazard. For all of my life until that point, I had been a chronic “snoozer.”
I was the kind of person who sets the alarm extra early to give myself time to snooze in the morning.
If you know, you know.
Every night, I would do that backwards math, where I figured out when I had to be somewhere and worked backwards to figure out what time I would need to wake up in order to have time to get to the gym and get ready.
If you know, you know.
Often, that calculation would be a waste because I’d inevitably hit snooze a few times too many and oversleep, then be running behind schedule.
From the moment I’d wake up for real, I was “running behind.”
If you know, you know.
Your Morning Sets the Tone
How you start your day sets the tone for your day.
I started the day frantic and behind schedule, constantly rushing to catch up, always running out of time to do the things I wanted to do for me.
It was anxiety and rushing from the start.
Even when I got to the gym or through a semblance of a morning routine, it never felt good. Because I overslept, I felt pulled to respond to — or at least check — emails or social media from the moment I opened my eyes.
I was constantly responding to others’ needs while barely caring for my own.
I wasn’t just snoozing on my mornings. I was snoozing on my life — while helping others create their best lives.
The Decision that Changed My Life
The moment I heard the question from Loren, I stopped in my tracks.
Right there, I decided: no more snooze.
I disabled the snooze button on my alarm clock.
The next morning I woke up, got out the door, and went to the gym. No snooze. No emails. No social media.
One small shift can ripple to a lot of places.
That day became the first day of my Fitness First ritual. Since then, I haven’t missed a daily workout.
Within a week, I had started my blog. Within a few months, I started meditating.
That one decision also started regulating my circadian rhythms, reversing what my doctor had told me was the onset of early menopause.
Stopping the snooze changed my relationship with time. With boundaries. With my body. With exercise. With my work. With my self.
It changed everything.
Where Are You Snoozing?
In various forms, the question of “snoozing on life” is one I come back to often, often metaphorically:
- Where am I snoozing on life?
- What’s the catalyst I need to “get out of bed” or jump-start an action?
- Where am I staying still when I need to be moving forward?
- Where am I not taking enough action?
- Where am I delaying action or holding back?
- Where am I waiting for something else — the metaphorical alarm — before I initiate action?
- Where am I waiting to feel ready?
Where are you snoozing on your life? What are you waiting for?
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