I haven’t been sleeping.  I haven’t been reading.  I haven’t been praying.  I haven’t been living healthy.  I haven’t been working well.  I haven’t been blogging.

Do you know why?  Because I haven’t been sleeping.

I have had such a struggle over the last couple of years with sleep.  I’ve been going through another spell (the longest so far) where I am just not able to get to sleep at a decent hour so I sleep in through the morning and feel lousy all day as I try to stay awake on too much coffee.

I’ve realized something about myself…it’s all or nothing when it comes to having my life together.  A lot of people would say that they never have it all together, but to me, it feels like either I have it all together or I’ve got none of it together.  Recently I’ve realized that it all comes down to one simple thing: Sleep.

When I sleep well (and that has to do less with how many hours I get and more with the time I actually get to sleep), I find it incredibly easy to get the rest of my life in order.  If I’m well-rested and awake by 7:00 am, I slip into a routine where I make time for God, work, family and fitness every single day.  I take time to reflect on life and blog about it and read my Bible.  I make time for eating right and getting some exercise.  I have more energy to play with Ansley and be with my wife and I’m more focused at work.

However, when I get to bed late, even if I’m up by 8:30am, I tend to barely make it through the day, having accomplished very little and generally fail at everything that is important to me.

This morning I woke up feeling great.  Becky has made it a priority the last couple of nights to get me on a good sleep pattern and it’s already paying off.  I woke up at 7:00 am feeling great.  I had a decent breakfast with the family, answered a ton of emails, had an early video call with a client, read my bible, dealt with some support issues and technical problems with my business and overall got a ton of work done…and it’s not even 11:00 am yet!  I am already making plans to get to the gym later today and to eat a healthy lunch and dinner…and get in bed by 11:00pm.

Oh yeah, and as you can tell, I’ve started blogging again.  Here’s to many more days like this to come.

By the way, here’s a picture of Andrew who has no problem sleeping!