To sleep better, you want to celebrate all improvements you notice, no matter how small. Our brains want to focus on the negative. It’s how we’re wired. But what you focus on is what you create. Focusing on the negative keeps your brain looking for more negative. You want to focus on the positive to tell your brain that you want more of the positive.
Dan Sullivan, an entrepreneur coach, talks about this concept in his book The Gap And The Gain.
According to his idea of the GAP and the GAIN, you have a starting point (where you are now) and you have your ideal (where you want to be). The gain is how far you’ve come from your starting point. The gap is how far away you are from your goal. He’s found that when people focus on the gap, they’re unhappy and always striving for the goal. But when people focus on the gain or how far they’ve come, they are happier, more grateful and achieve their goals faster.
“You’re in the GAP every time you measure yourself or your situation against an ideal.”
I've seen this happen with my clients. One of my clients was sleeping 3-4 hours a night and said he would be happy to get 6 hours a night. Guess what happened? Within a couple of months, he started sleeping 6 hours a night. But he wasn’t happy. He complained about still being tired and not getting enough sleep. He kept changing his ideal and getting frustrated that he wasn’t there yet. Because he got discouraged, he stopped taking his supplements and following his diet and so his sleep got worse again. If he celebrated his progress and appreciated how far he had come, he would have been motivated to keep going and his sleep would have kept improving.
This is why I want you to celebrate every improvement! If you have a great night, be thankful for it the entire next day. Remind yourself that this is proof that your body can do it. My clients email me and I celebrate with them! If you have a poor night of sleep, focus on the good nights. Keep in mind that one bad night doesn’t mean that things aren’t working. Your body is healing and it’s normal for there to be ups and downs.
Here are some of my favorite positive thoughts:
My body knows how to sleep.
Everything is working.
I will sleep better no matter what.
I am doing everything I need to do to get better.