Practical goals lead to a radical life.
For quite some time, for as long as I can remember really, I have been working as a night owl. I had justified that working at night made me much more productive. However, I realize it also affected my mood and overall energy, especially as I've gotten a little older. So the first habit I wanted to tackle in 2023 was my sleeping habit. Towards the end of 2022, I was determined to regain control of my sleeping habits.
In hopes of reestablishing my sleeping habits, I talked with my wife. My wife and I typically would wake up at different times. In years past, in attempting to address this habit, our alarms would Clash and only create a not-so-favorable environment. So this time around, I decided I would have a conversation with my wife and explain my goals and what time I'd like to go to bed and wake up.
Several years ago, my wife and I went to a United marriage encounter weekend. But what I enjoyed about it was that it provided tools on how to be able to dialogue and navigate these difficult conversations. We enjoyed our first time going so much that we went again to the event and even volunteered with the organization. They've even been sponsors of my podcast Strategy Rewind. When it came time for this conversation, I already had the tools to have it, so it was productive.
My wife and I began conversing about what she may want to accomplish this year and what I'd like to achieve. When it was my time to speak, I mentioned that I wanted to address some of the things that I could not or had not previously. One of those things was my sleeping habit. In our conversation, I said I'd like to wake up at 6:30 a.m. and to do so, I'll be going to bed at 11:30 p.m., but I know that you wake up at a different time; what would be a happy medium, so that our alarms don't clash? My wife responded and said I can wake up at 6:30 as well; I have an alarm that goes off around that time anyways!
Having had the conversation with my wife and set up an alarm, I next had to make sure that my phone was taking part in this action. So I made sure to have my phone within the settings to identify that 11:30 p.m. is my sleep time and 6:30 a.m. is my wake-up time. This made it so that by 10:00, my phone went entirely gray, and even in the morning, it wasn't super bright.
But there were other things I wanted to address early on. Together with this, I wanted to address my habit of drinking water or not drinking enough as it would be. To address this habit, I bought a water jug that, on the sides, has different specific measurements, but it also shows the times of the day. I also set alarms on my phone that matched those hours, so when the alarm went off, I knew it was time to drink water.
Let me go back a little bit here. We don't buy soda in my home, so the issue here was increasing the water in the tank. Before buying the water jug, I already drank water bottles at home. So I implemented the alarms and allowed myself the first two to three weeks in January to get a custom to drink bottles of water. In the last week of January, I transitioned to the water jug. Which, by the way, takes only three water bottles to fill.
At the start of January 2023, I weighed 220 lbs. I only implemented a better sleeping habit and increased my water intake; by the end of January, I had lost 5 lbs, starting the month of February at 215 lbs.
At the start of January, I implemented my sleeping habit. In the fourth week of January, I received a CPAP and have been using it ever since. I'm really happy that I addressed my sleeping habit in January, and it has had some positive outcomes. Before 2022 ended, I did have a sleep study test done. And in a one-night sleep, 7 hours, I had 26 events! That means that I had difficulty breathing in one night 26 times.
These days, I wake up much more refreshed having addressed my sleeping habit and implementing the CPAP. Furthermore, I started making breakfast for my wife because I was waking up early. Therefore, ever since the start of the New Year, I've been making breakfast for my wife! Something I'm sure she enjoys very much.
When February started, I knew I had to build on my work in January. And the next step for me was implementing a workout regimen.