South Bay Cowboys

hab·it – noun – a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. (Dictionary.com)

In the current of life, we’re predisposed to picking up common habits, many bad. Since birth, we’re bombarded with commercial and social influences that mold how we think and act. We’re addicted to unhealthy diets that we’ve been told are healthy. We sit all day. Our health is compromised by industries with far too much political power for us to have much of a chance. We spend money we don’t have. We’re caught up in the never ending stretch to make that next promotion, get that next raise, and sacrifice our true values. We’re turned against each other. These habits are “hard to give up” and common upon peers, so accepted as normal. It takes self-education and grit to finally say enough is enough, chip away at the bad habits and reclaim self-determination. This has been my journey.

I’m constantly finding habits in my life that I can work on improving. There are so many weaknesses from not knowing better and/or not putting in effort. For me, I’m targeting fitness and nutrition. My most common excuse is time. A life with a full time job, two kids, and a very busy family social schedule, logistics is the hardest part of accomplishing anything. But I’m learning that you don’t find time, you make time, as I recently saw posted on a former marine’s Instagram account, jockowillink. His account is filled with pictures of his watch with times around 4:30AM. He wakes up every day around that time to workout and start the day accomplished. His message boils down to no excuses. NO EXCUSES. It makes me think of Yoda… “Do or do not, there is no try.” Trying is not part of the formula. We either decide to do something and then execute, or we’re not committed and make up excuses.

I’ve always wanted to wake up early to make use of the morning hours before work, but I always have excuses. “My kids kept me up too late.” “My kids woke me up in the middle of the night.” “Work is too stressful.” “I’m tired.” Those excuses stopped me from ever waking up early during the week. No excuses. Set the alarm. Commit. When the alarm goes off in the morning, wake up. Don’t hit snooze. Snooze is an excuse and a lack of commitment. Wake up and accomplish. Sometimes you need inspiration to help solve a problem in the simplist way possible, and jockowillink was that inspiration.

Of course being the process oriented guy I am, I still formed a plan around this new path to success. A few days ago, I set my alarm for 6:00AM with the intent of working my way down to 4:30AM. As I write this, I woke up at 5:00AM. Of course it’s a bit odd waking up with the first thought being of a burly marine yelling at me to wake up, but I’ll take inspiration wherever I can get it. I’ll wake up when I commit and have no excuses, I’ll sleep in when I decide myself that sleep recovery is in order. By waking up earlier, I removed the frantic rush of waking up to pushing a family out the door to school and work, and gained the freedom to exercise, read, write, eat breakfast, and take my time preparing to start the day on a positive, productive tone.