A Controversial Tweak That Made a Big Difference in My Life
Ugh. Okay, I’m sorry for the clickbait-y headline, but I think you should read this.
When I first floated out this idea on Quora, the first commenter aggressively rejected my argument.
“Oh good,” I thought. “Maybe that means this post will get some attention.”
Yup.
Nearly 8 thousand upvotes later, I’m still semi-mystified why all the hate is coming in. All I did was bash lazy weekends a little.
Hmm, maybe now I get it.
See, all of society is set up to make you think real change can occur within the weekdays alone. Like you can space out during the two days between Friday and Monday and expect the momentum to carry over
It doesn’t work that way.
The clearest example I can think of is my recent switch to becoming a morning person. (yeah, yeah, I know — dead horse).
No matter what time I went to bed, I would have trouble getting up in the morning. I would do a couple of days at 5:30 just fine, but on other days, I would snooze the alarm five or six times.
Then one weekend I accidentally left my alarm on for the same time I get up for work.
“Huh, well I guess I’ll get up”
I did it again on Sunday.
By the time Monday rolled back around, I noticed something very strange — I woke up at 5:28, two minutes before my alarm.
Same thing on Tuesday — in bed around 10:00, wide awake with no alarm at 5:28.
That Thursday was a late night — I didn’t get under the covers until midnight.
“Well, there goes my streak”
Nope. I was up right before my alarm again.
As I’m writing this, thousands of people are going through a program called NaNoWriMo — a challenge to write a complete novel in 30 days. In order to get through it, you have to write every day. If you skip the weekends, it’s all but impossible to get back on track.
For the ones who succeed it will be harder for them to not write in the future than it will be to write.
What I’m saying is this — I do not think humans are meant to work only 5 days out of the week. It might not be seven (rest has it’s place after all), but I didn’t start making progress in the areas I cared about until I put in at least a few hours on Saturday.
Consistency is power. Momentum is power. Weekends have offered me extra time to wield both of those things. Show me a person who is unfulfilled yet leaves two days out of the week completely blank, and I’ll show you potential.
I don’t know if it’s biology. I don’t know if it’s a habit thing. I don’t know if it’s the universe testing you or some strange thing like that.
I do know this:
The weekends, like every other day, are a chance to grow, a chance to move forward, a chance to be happy, and a chance to change your life.
