5 More Minutes

“Time to wake up!”

Even when said in my Mother’s sing-song voice, I hated that sentence. Oh, did I hate that sentence. There was nothing worse than getting up at 6 AM, stumbling, bleary-eyed through my morning routine, getting in that submarine on wheels, and plunging through the cold winter to the depths of human existence, or as the old folks called it, school.

“Time to wake up!”

I gave my tormentor a nod to indicate I was awake.

“I’m up!” I protested after a few more jabs to my abdomen.

“Oh. Good morning.”

Some things never changed. Even in college, living in a house with 60 of my best friends, I sure did hate waking up for class.

I opened my eyes. I had been awake for a while, but somehow I knew my alarm was finally about to go off. Sure enough, the haunting tune started to play softly just as my hand made contact with the phone. 23 years of waking up every day had taught me well. School, work, something – always something.

Life is like that if you aren’t careful. Just a god-forsaken machine on autopilot. But it can’t last forever. Every morning, there is that critical moment. “Time to wake up!” And suddenly, it isn’t automatic. Suddenly, whatever half-baked reason you had to drag yourself out of bed, morning after morning, day after day, doesn’t cut it. Suddenly, you wonder why you bothered to listen to that annoying voice for so long. Not today.

Wanting Stupid

As a coach, I work with people who want to make a change in their life. The truth is, making huge, life-altering, positive changes is simple – on paper. Envision what you want your life to look like. Now, what kind of person has that life? Ok, now just do what that person does! Poof! But it is never that easy. The human psyche is a bear.* Honestly, you could give a person a step-by-step, absolutely fool-proof, perfect plan for living the best life imaginable and they would look it over, sigh, bob their head slowly, say “yeah, this is probably the right way to go; I’ll give it a shot,” and then walk out the door and do the top five stupidest things they can think of with their idiot cousin Travis. People have an incredible capacity for good and an almost astonishing capacity for stupid. It all comes down to something a very wise man told me in my college days, “People do what they do because they want what they want.” This is why I cringe when people say “yeah, you’re right” or “I probably should do X;” that is the language people use when they understand what they should do intellectually, but don’t actually want to do it. And when it comes down to what one knows is the smart thing to do, and what one wants to do, the want always wins. Fortunately for my sake, by the time someone gets around to the idea of hiring a coach, they are usually sick and tired of wanting stupid.

People think they hire a coach to tell them what they should do. They don’t. 0% of the time do people actually want someone to tell them what they should do. People hire a coach because they need someone to help them figure out what they want and encourage them to go for it (or direct them to seek other forms of help). When somebody hires me as their coach, I usually spend a decent chunk of time at the beginning trying to dig out their WHY. Some people are super into this, some people think it is a waste of time (guess which group of people sees positive changes faster?). I am convinced that you can’t convince anyone of anything; they must convince themselves… don’t try to convince me otherwise. So if a client blows off their WHY at the beginning, I just let them know that we will come back to it (and we will) and we move on. Next we talk about habit forming and lifestyle design. This part is always a little painful if we skipped the WHY because it only has one inevitable conclusion: they can’t get out of bed in the morning.

If you can’t get out of bed in the morning, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that you have been living a lie, probably for a long time, and it’s unsustainable. The good news is, if you accept this fact and you are ready to make a change, you can. Maybe you have never done any proper soul-searching, or maybe it has just been a while; either way, it’s time to remember your WHY.

Your WHY Should Make You Cry

If thinking about your WHY doesn’t make you cry, it is because you are still wanting stupid (see above). Ok, that’s a little harsh, but it’s true in spirit. If you believe that your life has meaning and that you were put on this earth for a reason, that reason has power you can feel. If you can’t feel it, it’s the wrong reason. This is convenient for me because it makes my job easy; you can tell when someone is really feeling something.

Coach: “Why do you want to learn faster?”

Client: “I want to get _____ certification.” (no feeling)

Coach: “You want to get _____ certification…. why?”

Client: “Because it will let me to do _____ and that would be so much better than my current job.” (hint of feeling)

Coach: “You don’t like your current job, but this certification will let you do _____ which is better…. why?”

Client: “I don’t know**… It’s just that, I’ve always wanted to do _____. I had the chance when I was younger and I never took it because I didn’t believe in myself. That was a mistake. I’ve never forgiven myself for it. I can’t undo that, but I’m done pretending that I’m satisfied with Plan B. I want to do ____ and I am ready to do what I need to do.” (FEELING)

If you don’t have a WHY that makes you cry, or clench your teeth, or feel like you could uppercut a train, don’t be surprised when you hit the snooze button. Even when you have a WHY that you can feel, there will still be days when it feels like the train uppercut you – heck, I’m having one today – but if you have a WHY that makes your heart beat faster then, more often than not, you will haul your ass out of that bed.

“Time to wake up!”

Haven’t found your WHY? Here’s a good place to start.

*Is the bear psyche a human? If you are a bear psychologist, please reach out, I would love to interview you on this topic.

**Ironically, this is the often the thing people say right before something profound.

Collin Jewett is an engineer, author, and accelerated learning and memory coach. When not exploring the Colorado wilderness with his wife Jess, Collin can be found writing his next book, recording educational content, or working directly with businesses and individuals to maximize their growth potential.