Don’t Let Your Guard Down At The End Of The Day

Let me know if you can relate with this... You have a full day of good, intentional, healthy choices. You get up without pressing ‘Snooze’, get a good workout in and a healthy breakfast, stay focused on your work and do a good job avoiding distractions that pop up or time scrolling on social media, cook a healthy dinner and enjoy it while you’re present with loved ones, and now it’s time to wind-down for bed.

It’s at this time of night when your will has been spent, you’re feeling tired, and you’re at risk of undoing all of the good work you’ve done all day. Healthy meals are erased by binging on dessert and sweets when you’re not even hungry. You give in to the allure of your phone notifications and catch yourself scrolling mindlessly for 30 minutes. You do ‘one last thing’ for work that leads to doing many other work-related things that aren’t that important. And before you know it, your good day has been spoiled by a few bad choices.

This is the unfortunate fate for many of us. We do so well all day and then in the evening lose self-control. And for those of us who are committed to being our best, we can’t afford to let our guard down at the end of the day.

There’s something called ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’ where people feel the need to make up for their busy daytime schedule by letting loose before bed. It’s an outlet to combat rigidness with unrestrained personal leisure time.

And it comes at a cost the consciously we’re unwilling to pay. We don’t want to undo our good work today or set ourselves back for tomorrow, yet ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’ is common because we’re susceptible to lapses in judgment at the end of a long and tiring day.  We don’t want it or choose it, yet it hijacks our mind and pulls us off course.

Here are a few things you can do to offset this:

1. Have a step-by-step night routine. Rather than needing to figure out what the right choice is, you can decide that in advance, making it much easier to follow through on more productive behaviors. My recommendation is to set an alarm in the evening that kicks off your night-routine so that you have the awareness to do it consistently.

2. Set some rules. Included in the details of your night routine, you can set rules for yourself. Things like “no sugar after 8pm”, “no using my phone in bed”, “no emails after dinner”, etc. This helps establish a boundary and makes it clear to you if you cross it.

3. Utilize accountability. Knowing that you need to answer to your choices later, even your most-tired self is motivated to avoid the consequences of letting someone else down. When you’re aware of what the culprits of your ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’ usually are, you can structure accountability to address it directly

We’re all more likely to make poor choices when we’re tired, but don’t let your guard down at the end of a long day. Instead let your good choices compound uninterrupted in the direction of your goals.