I often invite you to commit to being 10% more awake today.

Being 10% more awake means:
– Operating actively (less time on autopilot)
– Asking questions, being curious
– Mixing things up, interrupting usual patterns
– Thinking creatively and strategically
– Learning/considering unfamiliar ideas
– Acting more intentionally
– Taking more responsibility
– Being aware of your mental and physical states
– Interacting meaningfully, listening to understand

It’s so easy and efficient to stay in familiar patterns. Your body and brain want to default to cruise control. It’s up to you—you the Chief of Everything—to take the lead and step things up.

All well and very good—being more awake is clearly helpful. But…we have to address the key questions:
How do you become more awake?
And better yet, how do you make this the default for all your days?

Here are tactics to apply.

First:
Set an intention for the next day before you go to sleep for the night, and include specific actions required to bring the intention to reality.

Fundamentally, this is planning ahead…but hopefully aligned with goals and desires we hold for ourselves. We humans are granted the unique capability of planning ahead and creating goals and desires for our lives. We do not have to experience our days based on instinct and survival functions only. We get to choose what we want to do and achieve in the course of our days.

Setting an intention and reviewing action items the night prior points you in the direction being awake to make the most of the day ahead.

Next:
“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.”
I’m a fan of this quote attributed to Thomas Edison because it’s really practical as a method of being more awake upon rising. And it’s a powerful extension of setting the intention.

Actively inviting your subconscious to participate an assignment, something you’ve thoughtfully selected to align with tomorrow’s goals? Wow—this is an ultimate alliance of what I call you subconscious 97% support staff with your 3% strong and brilliant self-executive.

This point is likely not completely new to you. Maybe you’ve gone to bed thinking about a challenge or a task and awakened with the ideal solution. Or perhaps you’ve experienced the miraculous fun of waking up having written a song, or crafted a letter or drummed up some advertising copy for that deadline project.

It’s amazing what you in your dream state can create and conjure!

In giving my subconscious an assignment before going to sleep, I am very focused on making that assignment something important and meaningful.

Just 10% more! Dial up it up. Come out of autopilot, give your subconscious assignments, wake up—and see what happens!