Coaxing my best self to show up

Historically, the time between hitting the snooze button on my alarm and getting out of bed has been the worst part of my day.

One of two things usually happens. One, I might immediately open my phone and start scrolling through facebook, which gets me amped because of the memes and sensational posts. Or, my mind starts to run through my to-do list, and I feel like garbage out of the gate because I’m always behind and that’s the first emotion I’m feeling to start the day.

Either way, I never fall back asleep, which makes me feel even worse because I’ve wasted 9 (or 18 or 27) minutes of my day on top of putting myself into a bad mood. This cycle repeats, every day. 

And every day our culture is like Lucy pulling the football out from under me, and I’m Charlie Brown thinking today is different and ending up on my ass before I’ve even put my slippers on.

This past week, I’ve been trying an alternative snooze cycle.

I’m in bed, my eyes are closed, and I’m cycling through my day. But instead of dreadfully asking, “what do I have to do today?” I’m thinking, “what would my day look and feel like today if I were being the best version of myself?”

And I visualize in my head, myself, going through my day at my best. Hour by hour, I’m feeling my attitude and my body. I’m imagining how I am treating others. I’m thinking about how I’m approach the day’s work if I’m at my peak. I’m thinking about times when my day is going to spiral out of control, and I’m feeling in my bones how to bring it back to balance. I’m thinking less about what I have to do, and more about how I’m going to act.

It’s a dress rehearsal for the day. And it takes about 3 minutes.

I remember from dance recitals  growing up, what dress rehearsal feels like. It’s different than rehearsals at the studio, because you’re in the space you’ll be performing and you’re actually wearing the clothes and costume as if it’s the real thing. It’s as close to the real thing as it gets without performing in the actual show.

But there’s less pressure because it’s not the recital; you know it’s not the real show. Which makes it a risk-free rep. But dress rehearsals are amazing because they help your body know what the real thing will be like, for the most part. So when the real show happens, you’re as ready as you can be.

I tried “dress rehearsal for the day” visualization once, and I was hooked. I’ve done it every day since. As I went throughout my day, after the first morning of doing this exercise, I felt like I was in a prepared posture instead of a defensive one. When things started going badly during my day, it’s like my mind and body had muscle memory kick in to recognize that something was wrong and self-correct.

The truth is, I have not been at my best for the past few months. I have been getting angrier at my children more quickly. Resentment piles up faster when I perceive an affront of disrespect from my family or at work. I am more overwhelmed by my to-do list. I have been in a state of general malaise more days out of the week, then I was a year ago. And like most mortal men, when tension piles up, it leads to conflict more often than it would otherwise.

And I don’t want more conflict in my life. I don’t want to be that resentful husband. I don’t want to be that angry father. I don’t want to be that self-absorbed neighbor or colleague.

The problem is, life has trade offs. In addition to not wanting to feel so much tension, I don’t want to give up on the priorities I care about that give me this tension in the first place. Nor do I want to to accept this tension and have a short fuse basically all the time.

There’s one way I see out of this trade off, and that’s to be my best self: behaving with a better attitude and a clearer mind throughout the day. Because my best self is better equipped to deal with this tension than my average self is. My best self creates growth and love from tension, my average self gets washed over by it.

But it’s not easy to get him to show up all the time, even though I want him to. Which is not unique to me, I think. I think a lot of us want our best self to show up more often.

This dress rehearsal visualization has helped my best self show up more regularly (at least a little), which is why I wanted to share it with others.