First Thing is First

As I mentioned, I reread the Happiness books by Gretchen Rubin.  I'm going to blog about some of the things I'm doing to change my thoughts to be more positive and find a little more enjoyment in my daily life.  I pretty consistently hold off on starting something because I think that I need a plan, more research, more practice before getting to action.  This tendency toward having a "perfect" plan has prevented me from starting my own project for about two years.  But, I've started it!  I've decided to follow most of the subjects discussed in the book, because then I do not need to research it and there is already a proven successful plan. 

The first subject in the book is Energy.  Yup, I need more energy, I'm a mom.  Sleep is the first thing that I will tackle. It has been a hard transition for me to leave the structure of a work day.  I have always hated getting up in the morning, now that I do not actually need to be anywhere, it's a little more brutal to get up in the morning.  This might be a side effect of my second problem, I go to bed much later than I should.  By nature, I am a night owl.   My entire life has consisted of going to bed later than I should (except for the years when I went to boot camp at 5:30 am or got up for work at 5:45 am).  When I was working though, I had no choice but to begrudgingly get out of bed after hitting snooze three (or more) times.  Now, I can just cuddle with my kids for awhile and convince them to watch a little TV (trust me, it's not hard) and I get another half an hour of half-asleep time.  

So, this is not working.  I'm short on patience when I am tired.  That is the biggest issue that I want to tackle with my home life, so I need to resolve the issues with the source of my impatience.  I am going to go to bed earlier and a will get out of bed earlier (preferably at the buzz alarm on my Fitbit).  I have already improved, but I haven't made it to my goal times yet. I hope by next week, I will have pushed back bed gradually by 15 minutes until I hit my goal bedtime.  This sounds like infant sleep training, right?!  Well, in the morning, I almost have the attitude of a toddler, so I guess it fits:)  Wish me luck.