I was exhausted out of my mind last Saturday night. It was my 10th night in a row sleeping in a bed that wasn't mine. I desperately needed some good rest, but once again, I had a short night of sleep ahead of me. However, I was lucky enough that daylight savings would give me an extra hour of sleep. Because of that, I woke up the next morning feeling quite refreshed. That extra hour of sleep did the trick! Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, right? Despite all the travel and lack of sleep, I was saved by an opportune night of bonus sleep.
Except it wasn't daylight savings. In my delirium, I mistakenly believed last weekend was daylight savings....one week early. That's the thing with our minds; perception is reality. Everything happening around us influences how we think and feel. I truly believed I had an extra hour of sleep; thus, I felt more refreshed. This is a similar but opposite phenomenon I experienced with my biometric watch. I would wake up in the morning feeling like a million bucks, only to discover my sleep score was terrible. Instantly, I went from feeling refreshed to feeling beat down. Our mind plays tricks on us! I ultimately tossed my watch because of this.
This is one of the reasons I continually beat on the drum of behavioral science. Our minds are constantly under attack, influenced to make decisions that neither benefit us nor align with our goals. This is why my clients can say they want to get on a budget and find margin in their lives, then, three hours later, make impulsive financial decisions that sabotage what they claim to value.
This is one reason people linger in crippling debt instead of using their cash savings to get free. The safety they feel from having cash in the bank emotionally outweighs the perceived benefit of being debt-free, even though the debt wreaks havoc on their life and costs them thousands of dollars.
This is one reason companies are so dang good at marketing to our animalistic instincts. They can invent products out of thin air, make us want them, slowly influence us to believe we need them, ultimately leading toward an unavoidable purchase. It's psychological manipulation at its finest.
One thing I find helpful is to take a step back, slow down, and think through decisions before making them. I rarely rush purchases and will regularly sleep on them to ensure I'm not acting on impulse. It's also one of the reasons I NEVER use debt, as debt allows us to short-circuit the pain sensors in our brains that would potentially protect us from ourselves.
Your mind is playing games with you. If you don't believe it is, then it's probably playing games with you as you speak. We can't stop it, but a little self-awareness goes a long way.
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