My sleep habits have become a recent hot topic of discussion among the internet lifting sphere, so allow me to talk about myself here. Put straight: I average about 5.5 hours of broken sleep a night. I get up around 0330 to train, and I go to sleep around 2200. Whenever I announce what time I get up to sleep, people will immediately conclude I get to bed at 2000 and go on to bloviate about how they can’t POSSIBLY go to sleep that early so earl morning training is out the window…and then when they find out when I go to sleep they conclude that “It must be nice to not need 8 hours of sleep in order to function well and feel good.” Folks: I’m tired. I’m not the worst X-man ever, with the power to function on 5.5 hours of sleep like someone with 8 hours of sleep (or, for you DnD nerds: an elf). I am “Human: all too human”. It’s not a matter of me activating some latent super power: the “trick” is to have no other choice.
Alright, I've mentioned humans and elves: I needed to post this. But you should pick the half-orc
In my list of
priorities, being with my family, keeping my job, and continued physical
transformation rank high. All of these
priorities require investments of time.
So I’ve shaved off time where I can: I meal prep, and use fast cooking
devices (instant pots, air fryers, microwaves, etc) to make that a faster
process. Those who have watched my
lifting videos know that I have a limited wardrobe, which shaves off decision
making time. I have a haircut that has
meant not needing to own a comb since 2004.
But somewhere else I could find to shave off time was the end of my
sleep cycle. It was a great spot of time
to discover, because my family was still asleep and my work day had not yet
begun, so I wasn’t compromising there AND I could use that time to get in my
training, so I could meet one of my priorities as well. Win-win.
“But how do
you motivate yourself to get up so early to train?” Folks: there’s no ROOM for motivation on this
timeline. If I spent 5 minutes rolling
around in bed wondering if I should get up or go back to sleep, I just lost 5
minutes of training time. The “trick” is
to have no other choice. I am either getting
up and training or I am FAILING, and my priorities are so high that failure is
NOT an option. I’m not going to let
anyone or anything take away that time with my family and I’m not going to let
anyone or anything stop me from keeping the job that provides for said family,
so when it comes time to get up to train, I am the only one that is stopping me
if I choose to not wake up…and I’m not going to let me stop myself from
reaching my goals. That’s “the trick”.
But don't forget the importance of good nutrition!
“But how do
you function with so little sleep?” The “trick”
is to have no other choice. Again, what
am I going to do: STOP being a husband, father and employee simply because I’m
sleepy? Quite literally just lay down
and die? These are my priorities: they
are what matter to ME. If they weren’t
my priorities, I wouldn’t care for them.
That’s why I have a Playstation 4 that is covered in dust with a bunch
of “new” games still in the plastic wrap sitting on top of it: I keep buying
these things THINKING “I’ll get around to them”, but they simply don’t matter
enough for me to dedicate time. I am too
sleepy for video games: I have no other choice but to succeed in being a
husband, father and employee.
And this is
SO dramatic too: all we’re talking about here is a sleepy dude that can still
put in a full day’s work, come home, make dinner and eat with the family and
hang out and play games/watch movies until it’s time to start it all over again. Real deal “no other choice” situations are
out there happening every day. Mothers
are lifting vehicles off their children, soldiers are engaged in 28 hour long
fire-fights with opposing units, men run into burning buildings to rescue
others, people cut off their own limbs to escape being trapped: all because they
had no other choice. The human body and
mind are both incredible and we limit them significantly primarily because, if
left unchecked, we’ll self-destruct in our pursuit of finding our own
limits. That’s Nietzsche’s “Will to
Power” taken to it’s inevitable conclusion.
But before that happens, we’ll realize the amazing completely untapped
potential that resides within us. Which,
tying back to Nietzsche again, is the whole “overman” concept. We’re all operating at such a small fraction
of what we could be at. You “optimal”
nerds out there, take note. You really
wanna maximize your output, start pushing yourself WELL beyond your
preconceived limits.
Have you ever seen anything more optimal than this?
You have SO
many opportunities to have “no other choice”.
I think about how many trainees refuse to try a new movement or new
piece of equipment or new program until they have a “failure plan” in place,
and it drives me absolutely bonkers. “How
do I safely fail a squat”, “what do I do when I stall on the program”: folks,
have no other choice BUT to succeed. “Failure
is not an option” is a cliché BECAUSE it’s such an important piece of advice
that it SHOULD be tattooed on your eyelids so that you never forget it. When you approach a situation where the ONLY
possible choice you have is to succeed, you’ll find yourself doing everything
in your power TO succeed. A mom who HAS
to lift a car off their kid in order to keep them alive WILL do it. If you walk the tight-rope without a net, you
WILL make it to the other side.
Have no
other choice in your path to physical transformation. It makes things so much simpler. How do you possibly manage to stick to your
diet? By having no other choice. Either we eat the foods we’re supposed to eat
or we will fail. How do you hit the
weights, reps and sets that the training program prescribes? By having no other choice. And hey: if we ate that food we were supposed
to eat, we’ll most likely hit those weights too: crazy. You don’t need magic, voodoo, super powers,
deals with devils or any other “trick” besides simply having no other choice.
Do you never need an alarm to get up at 3:30 or do you have an alarm that somehow doesn't wake your wife up
ReplyDeleteI have a failsafe alarm set at 0335 by 99% of the time I wake up before it goes off
DeleteThis is a problem for me. Between the travelling, studying and exercising I still lie in bed for 15 minutes in the morning working up to get me motivated to hit the gym.
ReplyDeleteYou have too many choices, haha
DeleteI think the disconnect in mentality between you and many others (including myself) is the ability to set or believe in your priorities strongly enough that they don't slip. You say its not a question of willpower or motivation because there's no room for error with your schedule, failure will result if you wake up more than five minutes late.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is though, you do seem to have an ability to make the gulf between Priority 3: Physical Transformation and Priority 4: Sleep so wide that they cannot be interchanged. In the wee hours of the morning it is just so easy for most people's priorities to shuffle a little bit from what they'd be in a more lucid state.
I don't know what you call that if its not motivation or discipline or willpower, but it's definitely something special!
Kevin,
DeleteI appreciate that sentiment. I don't feel I have any role in setting my priorities: they're simply my wants. I want these things so badly they drive my actions. When people are able to shuffle their priorities so easily, I feel they simply need to engage in that honest retrospection. They need to realize that what they SAY they want is in direct conflict with what it is they ACTUALLY want.
I am a firm believer in that we will do whatever it is we want to do and, in turn, when we analyze our actions, we discover our priorities. For me, having "no other choice" isn't so much about being able to wake up on time because I have no other choice, but it's about being able to still be a dad and a husband and a worker DESPITE being tired from the very choice I made at the beginning of the day. I have no choice BUT to still be those things. Laying down and dying because I'm tired isn't an option.
Your actions reveal your priorities, that makes sense. For things like having a to-do list at work you can intentionally prioritize and your actions will follow from that. With bigger picture "life stuff" however, it is hard to make a deliberate re-prioritization stick unless you truly feel that in your core. You need to want that priority badly enough that it maintains its place in both the near and far time periods.
DeleteLong term wide-awake me definitely has a priority set similar to yours. Early morning groggy me who can't think past the next snooze button definitely moves sleep up into that third position. Somehow I'd like to find a way to make those third and fourth priorities less interchangeable. I think that's probably where discipline and willpower come in until the habit forms and that gulf of prioritization becomes appropriately wide.
Posts like this are some of my favourites because they really make me think about something in a new way. Who knows, maybe the new perspective will actually lead to growth! (Don't hold your breath though).
I appreciate you sharing your perspective here dude, and glad you enjoy the posts. I honestly don't feel re-prioritizations, willpower or discipline are the answer in this regard, as all of these tends to depend on us trying to change our natures. As a misanthrope, what I lament about humanity is our inability to live up to our potential, and it's BECAUSE of the fact that discipline and willpower are such finite resources that we can only act against our nature for short durations.
DeleteI am nothing special. I am a manifestation of my desires, same as anyone else. It just so happens that my desires are physical transformation. If my desires were drugs, you'd look at me with pity as I lie, cheat and steal to get my next fix. If my desires were food, you'd call me a pig/glutton as I shoveled down copious amounts of gourmet cuisine. As it stands, my desires align with something that society sees as a positive, so I am applauded for it...but it's the same exact driving force, amazingly enough.
So do you believe that desires are just written into our being and they're unchanging? I don't know about that. People can change for sure, and do all the time. Maybe you're saying you can't force yourself to change though, and have to have some sort of primal spark to re-order your inner priorities? If that is the case, is that spark just delivered to you by the cold unfeeling universe, or is it something that you can drive yourself?
DeleteAs an example, were you just born to be a great father and husband? Or did that develop in you as you matured emotionally, gained perspective with age, and fostered those relationships? In most cases I think you CAN alter your inner desires, but it's probably not so simple as writing down a mission statement and setting an alarm.
"So do you believe that desires are just written into our being and they're unchanging?"
DeleteNot at all: I simply don't believe we are the ones that change them. We respond to the change.
" or is it something that you can drive yourself?"
The sheer fact one is driving themselves to it is, to me, proof that it's NOT what one desires. I do the things I want to do. If I don't want to do it, I have to FORCE myself to do it...and the power to force myself runs out.
Alright, I think I see what you're getting at. Like I said earlier, an interesting perspective that I'll have to think about deeper! Making big changes to your life and personality does require a lot of self-reflection that can be hard to swallow. From my own experience in other aspects of my life, forcing it is a fools errand, in that I agree.
DeleteThanks for posting this. I’ve always been bad at sleeping. Broken sleep, waking up in the middle of the night and can’t get back. I’ve tried so many things but I let it be an excuse to not train. Now I train every other day like clockwork regardless of how I sleep. I’ve made great progress and can’t tell you how much your posts have effected my life. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThat really means a lot dude: thanks so much for writing it. It's still so hard for me to realize just how much I can impact others.
DeleteLong time reader, first time poster. I keep coming back to this one. It resonated more than you'll ever know for me as I am 4 months into the position of Dad, 1 year into the position of Husband, and 4 years into the position of Very Active Dog owner.
DeleteTangent: Have you ever read Mark Twight's stuff? Kiss or Kill is a great read and hits some of the same beats as this post. Dude's principally known now for training 300 and Henry Cavill but is a great alpinist.
Appreciate you swinging by dude, and great to hear it's been having an impact. I've heard of Twight, but haven't' read his stuff. I'll have to look for it.
Delete