Ever since I left my house and went off to college, it has been increasingly hard to go to bed on time.
It’s killing me. I don’t recover from workouts, my mind is foggy, and my memory mists away. My moods feel erratic and neurotic. Energy during the day is a thing of the past.
And yet I cannot stop.
2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am. I keep going to bed late. And sometimes later and later.
I tried so many times to go to be at a reasonable time. I try for a few days, and then I relapse. But we aren’t giving up. We are trying it one more time.
And I didn’t do it alone. My good friend Edgar gave me this kick in the butt:
So what is my gameplan this time? How am I going to succeed when I failed so many times before?
A couple of things:
I will not try to control how much sleep I get
I will not try to control my screen habits
I will not control anything but one single factor, which is my bedtime
At the same time, I will figure out what needs I am meeting by going to bed late and how to meet those needs earlier in the day
I will commit to this bedtime long enough to form a habit
I made a list of reasons why I love staying up late at night:
Completely alone
Lots of time – no rush
Sense of accomplishment (if I feel I haven’t accomplished anything yet it gives me more time to get things done)
Consume art
Nighttime magical vibes
Dread of the next day
More time to eat and digest
I realized that not sleeping is incredibly compelling to me. It is far more challenging for me to go to sleep on time than most people. So as a result, I need to keep it simple. Bedtime at 11 PM for the next 66 days, no exceptions. The challenge will end on December 12th. I am two days into this challenge already.
What does this mean?
I can eat right before bed
I can watch videos in my bed after 11
I can get back up, stretch if I cannot fall asleep, then go back to bed
I can toss and turn at 11
I can get up at 6 am if I have work that needs to be done but I don’t have the time to finish it
In the meantime, in an attempt to meet all my needs before bed:
I will silence notifications and try to find some alone time every day
I will work to identify a task that is feasible to do and will give me a strong sense of accomplishment every day
I will try to get this done early so that I will have larger open times during the day where I don’t feel rushed
I will pursue more art and magical vibes
I will try to leave gifts for myself the next day so I have positive anticipation(ex: a clean empty sink, plans for something fun)
I will try to eat at 8 pm at the latest so I have time to digest before 11
In terms of how to structure the next 66 days, I have not decided yet, but perhaps I will try to focus on each of the needs and strategies every week.
Some additional strategies/thoughts:
Turning off all the lights
Melatonin gummies
So far, finding a way to feel accomplished/ready for the next day has been a game-changer in wanting to go to sleep. Also, it is easier to go to sleep when bedtime is a hard boundary that is very strict and everything else is quite relaxed (I can still get less sleep and wake up super earlier if I feel I’m not prepared for the next day, I don’t have to go to sleep as long as I’m in bed). Nothing is tempting as a valid excuse/difficult decision anymore.
So tentatively I feel this time will be different. My hope is that after 66 days, I will no longer have to try to go to bed at 11, it will just be automatic, and I will start to cherish my sleep and life in general!
I love love love traveling but one thing I cannot stand is sleeping well in hotels.
Hotels rooms always feel:
Too stuffy somehow, not enough circulation (I hate that you cannot open the window)
Too cold
The mattress doesn’t feel firm enough
Blankets aren’t soft or warm and fluffy (they are thin and scratchy)
I strategized last night to get the best nights sleep and here are the things I did:
Ate dinner in the lobby where the air circulation was better and feels like more fresh oxygen
Turn the heat up as high as it would go (78 degrees F)
Made the bed as comfortable as possible moving the blankets and pillows around to create a nice nest
Took a shower, then went back down to the lobby to unwind
Feel asleep in the lobby then went back to the room to sleep
I feel like this actually was a REALLY good routine but I didn’t sleep well because the spicy wings I ate the day before made my stomach uncomfortable. I’m going to try to see if tonight I can fall asleep like in a coma.
I feel like I’m on an adventure, even though I am only 40 minutes away from my apartment in Austin. I am in the city of Leander, northwest of Austin and I’m feeling a bit tired but excited about the solar eclipse today.
I’m in the library and I feel at home but also lonely. I think there is something about being in close proximity to books that remind me of my childhood and about daydreaming and reading about people’s lives and wanting to find close friends and conquer the world.
I feel lonely, and I wish it was easier to connect with others.
The library reminds me of elementary school when everything was pretty simple. If you wanted to be friends with people, you just became friends with them.
I’m feeling really tired because I didn’t go to bed very early last night. I also think the sleeping appliance and my sleep mask are not things I’m used to sleeping with so I don’t sleep as well with them.
I’m focusing on recentering on my house, and that anything is possible in my house.
Today there is a solar eclipse, and I’m excited for that. Maybe I will read a book really quick, then get some work done and drive over to watch the eclipse from this really cool park nearby.
Prompt: How good are you waiting for what you really want?
I remember the psychological test where they said that they could predict the success of children in later in life, just by how much self control they have for delayed gratification, and I wonder what child I am. Am I the type of child who grabbed the marshmallow, despite being told to wait by the researchers the minute they left the room? Probably not, when I was a child I was a stickler for the rules. But what if they gave the choice to me? What if there were no rules? Well I suppose it would feel like a cruel test, to believe internally that I would get two marshmallows if I waited long enough but one would never come.
I think now that I’m not good at waiting for what I want at all. But really what I am, is not good at avoiding distractions when I feel extreme discomfort. Am I running from discomfort? Or do I really want something and are not willing to wait for it? The answer isn’t clear to me.
It has finally happened. I’ve hit plat in Valorant. A journey that was supposed to take 2-3 months, but instead took a year and two months (14 months).
Blood sweat and tears went into this challenge, and I learned something interesting at each rank.
IRON
Iron was an interesting rank because it was the rank when I was first learning how to use my mouse and keyboard in a game. I had never played a shooter game on the pc, and haven’t played many serious games at all on the PC.
Getting out of iron was simply learning how not to make extremely basic mistakes such as reloading out in the open, not getting stuck on walls, planting and defusing the bomb.
BRONZE
Bronze was also an interesting rank. I started actually enjoying the game more here since I had a better idea of what was going on. Bronze rank was still stressful because I would get killed out of nowhere all the time.
I don’t really remember what I did to get out of bronze rank, but I think it had something to do with playing off of my util and learning how to check corners where people hide.
SILVER
I was stuck in silver for a long time. Silver was where I learned a lot about aiming and movement and got quite good at it.
What eventually got me out of silver was learning how to preaim angles.
GOLD
Gold is not a very interesting rank, everyone is pretty much like silver but with slightly better util and aim.
However, perhaps the most interesting thing in the whole challenge is how I got out of gold. I got out of gold primarily by getting more confident.
I did this in two ways:
I focused on a few agents and learned how to get reliable value out of their util (Chamber tp locations, Brim lineups, Sova lineups).
I dealt with some of my underlying negative self talk
I hear lots of things that people say about confidence:
“Stay positive”
“Imagine you are the best”
I always thought these ideas were bogus since I always thought confidence was about one thing: Feeling comfortable in your own skin.
But I started to doubt myself when I say professional Valorant coaching advocating (SEN Zellsis) for the “cocky confidence” mentality and I was stuck in silver.
But I think in the end, I was right. In order to be confident, you need to feel safe and at peace. The real question, is HOW?
Here are the main ideas:
In order to be confident, you need to be ok with not being great (not being smart, successful, attractive, etc.)
In order to be ok with those things, you need to process your traumas and limiting beliefs.
In order to process, you must welcome in your limiting beliefs and incorporate it into yourself.
My limiting beliefs were:
“If I don’t succeed, I don’t think I’m worth anything”
“I need to beat myself up for every mistake and always think I’m worse in order to not mess up”
Simply by saying those things in my head, made me feel clarity every time I started to stress out and I suddenly felt calm. I gave myself permission to continue to berate myself (or not) but simply welcoming these parts in instead of avoiding them (and having them show up as unresolved stress), made me have a clear mentality that made my rise to plat.
I learned I have a huge amount of power, intelligence and creativity that are locked up by stress and fear. Slowing down, focusing on a few things at a time, and embracing my fears allows me to operate at my fullest potential.
