“Bad habits are like a comfortable bed: easy to get into, but hard to get out of.”
~ Proverb
Have you ever told yourself you were getting up early, and then the alarm went off and you hit snooze? Of course you have. Every man reading this has. And in that half-awake minute, the mind gets creative. It will tell you a story so reasonable you’d swear it was true:
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You’re tired.
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You earned it.
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Tomorrow’s a better day to start.
That’s the comfortable bed. And it isn’t just the one you sleep in. It’s anywhere a man settles in because it’s easy and it asks nothing of him:
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The routine he let slide.
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The story about why now isn’t the time.
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Whatever’s easy to get into, but hard to get out of.
Our minds are wired to keep us in comfort. That’s their job, and they’ll defend that bed with everything they’ve got.
I’m up at four AM most mornings a week for CrossFit. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been lying there, half awake, half asleep, while my mind builds its case for the snooze. The reasons get pretty crazy. You don’t even need to do this today. Just cancel. Nobody’s going to notice if you don’t show up.
Then a second voice comes in.
What are you doing? Get out of bed. You made a commitment. Go do it.
Both of those voices are mine. Only one of them speaks to the man I’m becoming.
It’s that same fight almost every time. And I take it seriously, because I don’t want my lower consciousness making my decisions. I know myself. If I keep living in comfort and handing the steering wheel to the part of me that wants the warm bed, I’ll stay there. No doubt about it. The disciplines go first, and then everything else starts sliding off track.
I know that because I’ve lived it. If I had a dollar for every time I stopped doing something I’d committed to because life got busy, I’d be a wealthy man. I’d have a great routine going. Then a heavy week would hit, and I’d skip two or three days. Just two or three. Before I knew it, two or three months had gone by, and I wasn’t doing any of the things I’d said I was going to do. No crisis. No big decision. Just a few comfortable mornings in a row.
How does that happen to a man who means it? Nobody wakes up and decides to quit. He just stays in bed one more morning, and then another.
Is that the man you want to be? The one who gets talked out of his own word by a pillow?
So let me ask you what I’d ask any man sitting across from me. Is there anything you’ve done every single day, without fail? And I’m not talking about wearing deodorant. Something you do for yourself, every day, no matter what the day looks like.
For most of us, the honest answer is no. That’s not a character flaw. It’s what happens when a promise stays open for negotiation. The minute a commitment to yourself is negotiable, the bed gets a vote, and at four thirty in the morning the bed makes the best argument in the room.
So, take away the vote! You don’t decide whether you do it. Like Nike, you just get up and do it. And the morning after you miss, because you will miss again, you don’t turn it into a verdict on who you are. You get up and do it again.
This week’s lesson: Every promise you leave open to negotiation, becomes the comfortable bed you can’t get out of.
