This year I noticed a lot of hate towards making New Year’s resolutions.

There seemed to be a defensiveness from those who either don’t believe in them or those who can’t cope with the pressure of not fulfilling them. #differentyearsameme popped up a lot on the ruler of our 21st century lives ~ Instagram. #damnyouyousoulsuckingtimewaster.  There’s no hate coming from over here though. I like the idea of starting again at the beginning of a New Year. Of aiming high and striving towards something.

This year my New Year’s resolution is to get out of bed before midday. 

Oh my god I know! I’m so sorry. Utterly ridiculous but it’s a daily battle. Sadly THIS IS my own middle class/no job/day dreaming reality. My sleeping hours and when-people-should-be-awake-hours are all over the place. I need to find a way to start the day with a desire to go and sit in front of a computer all day. Because that is what I have chosen to do with my life. I have decided that I want to spend all day on my own. Sitting down. WITH MY OWN THOUGHTS.

So, how to break this cycle of unhealthiness and be inspired to set myself up for a productive, working day? Sister With Massive Laugh gives me ‘My Morning Routine: How successful people start every day inspired’ by Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander to read. Simples.

I can do this.

Ahhhh…..Not so simple as it appears all successful and rich people are getting up between 5 and 6.30am. I mean.…just no. Seriously. At this time of year that time of day is technically not day and still the middle of the night. Also, to not fade spectacularly in the middle of the day, it would mean being asleep by 10pm. 10pm is when I’m contemplating my second glass of wine so I’m afraid that’s just not going to happen.

These days 10pm is also when my brain is starting to kick into action. When ideas are starting to flow and grand plans are beginning to form. Unfortunately these ideas and plans don’t seem to stop fizzing and formulating in my head when I get into bed at 11pm. Instead they keep swirling around up there until 3am.

That’s not when it’s supposed all come together. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. The life of a writer, I’m beginning to discover, is not what I thought it was going to be. I thought I could be the sort of writer who rises early, works out before breakfast, drinks a green juice and gets to wear her beautiful wardrobe of beautiful clothes. I wanted to be the kind of writer who sits properly at her desk and tip tip types away for five, six hours a day translating all those thoughts and ideas in her head straight onto the page.

IF ONLY!

The reality is I sat down at my computer at 12.30pm today having risen from my pit at 11.38am. I am currently lying on my sofa in a position I know will make my osteopath weep but is the only way I feel comfortable, warm and can allow my brain to wander. I am wearing a uniform of clothes that I have slept in AND worn continuously for three days straight. I’ve not worked out since the end of October. My breakfast was a cold chicken thigh and a piece of chocolate.

Having read about those rich and successful people’s lives in My morning routine’ I noticed that the majority gave themselves time alone each morning. Time to read, mediate, excercise, eat. It wasn’t time to work or catch up on emails. It was time for themselves to calmly begin their day.

My new calm is I’ve started walking. Everyday*. This has become my morning *ahem* when I wake up routine. My New Year’s resolution is to keep doing it.

I get up whenever I get up and don’t kick myself for having ignored my alarm for 2 possibly 3 hours. I head straight out of the door {because remember I’m sleeping in my clothes at the moment. Not worked out how to change clothes without getting distracted yet} and set off for a walk around Tooting common. I don’t think about where I’m going I simply try to settle everything that’s going on in my head. I check my phone to see how many steps I’ve done. I plan 9,456 things I’m going to do before dinner. I wait until the mental list making subsides. Then the dreaming takes over. I write an entire sketch in my head. Block it for filming, laughing to myself as I walk along. I go over the sketch so many times that I know it inside out. I come home, inhale breakfast whilst standing and type up the sketch. Done. The creative flow has started and from there on in the ideas keep coming. 

I can do this.

As the sun sets I vow today will be the day I go to bed at a reasonable hour. I plan to read until I fall asleep and actually get changed into a nightie….It never happens of course. As the night creeps on my mind starts whirring and making plans again. I think of story lines, staging, shot lists. I dream up costumes and book covers. I plan holidays and outfits and photo shoots. I decide at 2.30am that I need to watch ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ on my laptop to stop the constant thinking. I start to hear the birds tweeting outside and realise I will never be able to get up when my alarm goes off in four hours time. I turn it off and hope that I will naturally wake at 8.30am. I pray that my body clock will simply fall into this pattern of rising and working.

My eyes open at 10.22am and I feel like a failure. I lie in bed thinking. Planning. Devising. I get out of bed at 11.30am and go for a walk to clear my head.

I can do this.

 

*I’ve done it for 12 days so far….

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