What I really want

For some reason, I’ve been putting this off. It’s kind of scary to stand up and say “hey, THIS is what I really want”! Also, once I stop pretending that I don’t yet really know what my goals are, there are no more excuses for not pursuing them.

But although I haven’t written in this blog for weeks or even months, I have spent a lot of time pondering what I’m hoping to achieve with this life design project of mine. And it’s very simple really:

• I want the freedom to decide how to spend my time every day
• I want to make my living by doing things I love
• I want a serene and joyful family life
• I want to be able to spend all my son’s school holidays in one of our two holiday homes

Simple goals, all within reach. And although serenity in my family life will require efforts on various levels, the biggest obstacle to achieving any of these goals is clearly my current employment. Taking the leap into self-employment is a very scary idea indeed, but also the only logical way to get what I really want. I know where I need to focus my efforts; now I need to come up with a plan.

Ah, elusive sleep…

I made two new year’s resolutions for 2011. The first – carried over from 2010 – is to get enough sleep. The second is to be patient with my family. I think the second is going to be reasonably easy if only I can manage the first.

I’ve been struggling with sleep as long as I can remember. As a child, I needed much less sleep than other kids, but I still had to go to bed at the same time as they did. As a consequence, I spent hours in my bed waiting to fall asleep, or reading under my covers with a flashlight. I suspect that during these years I learnt to subconsciously associate bedtime with boredom and sleeplessness, and that this is one of the main reasons for the sleeping problems I’ve had in later years, too.

But there’s nothing I can do about my childhood experiences or the months (maybe years) of sleep I’ve missed until now; my objective is to make sure I get enough from now on. And in all fairness, my main problem today is easy to identify: I go to bed much too late. A snoring husband and a son who wakes up to pee twice a night (and wakes me, too) are additional issues, but again: I should focus on what I can actually change.

The reason why I go to bed too late is simple: I have a really busy life and not enough “me time”. I love and need some time on my own, and the only time I can get that is late at night. Making enough space for “me time” will be part of the next40years project, but right now I will have to choose between enough “me time” and sleep – and sleep needs to take priority, for many reasons:

• too little sleep can cause some really serious health issues in the long term
• too little sleep makes me cranky and irritable with my family
• too little sleep reduces my mental performance, memory and learning capacity
• too little sleep tends to make sex a low priority
• too little sleep makes it difficult to lose weight
• too little sleep makes my mornings really hard
• too little sleep stops me from looking my best

I know all this, and still it’s so hard to put away my book or computer at night and go to bed…

So I’ve enlisted some help. I bought the iPhone application “Sleep Cycle“, which I have been using for about a week now – and  I love it. The application monitors your movements in bed to determine whether you are awake, sleeping lightly or in deep sleep, in order to wake you up at the right moment. I can’t say I’ve felt an incredible difference when the alarm goes off (waking up is still a rather painful experience), but I’ve found the statistics really helpful. It would be even better if the application told me how much time I spent in deep sleep versus light sleep, but at least I can monitor how much time I spend in bed every night. So far, I’ve spent an average of 7 hours and 41 minutes per night. Knowing that it sometimes takes an hour to fall asleep, I think that’s not quite enough, although it’s probably a lot better than my average for 2010, to say the least.

So here’s my objective: The average total time in bed should be above 8 hours at any time. Even if I don’t sleep during the full 8 hours, I will get some sorely needed rest. And if I go to bed too late one night, I’ll need to compensate the following night(s). I’m already behind, so tonight I should be in bed at 22.30 in order to get up at 7 tomorrow. I will certainly have to sacrifice some reading or computer time, but it IS the right thing to do!