You Actually Can 'Get Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed'

Out of small beginnings…

Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

Establishing a good morning routine is crucial. How you begin your day largely determines how your day goes. As Plato wrote, “the beginning is the most important part of any work.”

By the same reasoning, the most important part of your morning routine is its very beginning: from the moment you arise. That’s where the idea of someone having a bad day because they “got up on the wrong side of the bed” comes from.

You actually can get up on the “wrong” side of the bed. Our habits are tied to cues. And our minds are super-sensitive cue-detectors. Morevoer, our habits are themselves cues for other habits.

If you habitually get up on a certain side of the bed, and after that habitually perform another action, like dropping to the floor to do push-ups, then the visual and tactile cues of that side of the bed will impel you to exercise. That ritual action may then impel you to perform another (maybe you habitually review your to-do list after your push-ups), and so on. The more you repeat those actions in that way and in that sequence, the more automatic and fluid they become.

But if you get up on the other side of the bed, you will be presented with subtlely different cues. Maybe there’s a pile of clothes on that side of the bed that prevents you from immediately doing push-ups. By the time you stumble over that pile of clothes, you may be onto something else (like hankering after a cup of coffee) and you may not be reminded or motivated to do your push-ups. And if you skip your push-ups, you may neglect to review your do-list. And before you know it, your whole day is thrown off.

As Jordan B. Peterson wrote:

“Life is what repeats, and it is worth getting what repeats right.”

And when it comes to our habits, small details can have big repurcussions.

As Benjamin Franklin wrote:

“A little neglect may breed mischief ...

for want of a nail, the shoe was lost;

for want of a shoe the horse was lost;

and for want of a horse the rider was lost.”