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Flexible In Approach; Rigid In Resolve

Every morning, my alarm goes off at around 7am. Today was no different. The beeping started and I finally managed to drag my arm to the nightstand and drop it over the snooze button at 7:08am.

I remember the time exactly because I must have looked at “7:08am” three of four times as I continued to snooze until I finally realized—wait a second—the time hadn’t changed!

I fumbled for my phone and realized it was actually 9:24am. Yup. I forgot to switch my alarm clock back to real time and left it switched to “alarm set time.” I missed my morning workout and was supposed to have already been reading, uploading quotes, and eating breakfast.

…And I hadn’t even gotten myself upright yet.

It was in this moment that I had to make an important decision—how to get done all that I planned with two hours less time? Because losing two hours is no joke—and everything I had planned to get done was important to me.

Here’s what I did:

(1) Knowing that I had off work for the upcoming weekend, I swapped my Saturday Rest Day with my Thursday Workout Plan. Skipping workouts isn’t an option, but moving it to a different time within the same week is! That saved me an hour.

(2) I showered and got right to reading, uploading quotes, and eating breakfast—at a slightly elevated pace and with none of the normal distractions (e.g. email, stocks, news) This saved me another thirty minutes.

(3) I decided to use this rough start to my advantage and made it my writing topic for the day. This saved me the last thirty minutes as it usually takes me that long to get my writing started.

Staying flexible in our approach allows us to bend and move with the tension of life as it comes. And the tension is going to keep coming. The problem with rigid is that it breaks under tension. Better to take that rigid and apply it to our resolve.

Published inArchivesBuilding HabitsLiving Well