Don’t Have Time to Get Enough Sleep? Well, as Arnold Says, Sleep Faster!

If you want to get serious about winning, you have to get serious about sleeping.

Get My List of 100 Books That Will DRAMATICALLY Improve Your Life (Free)
I failed at achieving several of my goals last month, and a massive part of that was not having my sleep dialed in.

That, and having to defend myself against an assault charge (which I did, successfully) that disrupted my life for an entire year previous.

They say that a clear conscience is the softest pillow, which is probably why I didn’t have too much trouble falling asleep this past year. But this isn’t an article about the agonizingly slow criminal justice system, it’s an article about why sleep is your secret weapon in the fight against mediocrity.

On 8 hours of sleep, I feel as though I could cure cancer while fighting off a pack of hyenas at the same time. But anything less than 5?

Like trying to run on a treadmill in the middle of a giant jar of molasses.

I know that Arnold Schwarzenegger says you just have to “sleep faster,” and while I do love that line, consider this your reminder from your friend Matt to GET SOME SLEEP!

It’s IMPORTANT. Your success rests (no pun intended) on whether or not you keep doing the fundamentals, over and over and over, and sleep is definitely one of those fundamentals.

One of the best books I’ve ever read on sleep is called Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker, and I highly recommend it. So check that out if this is something you struggle with.

But as much as I love reading, you don’t need a whole book to tell you what you’ve likely experienced many times.

You’re not operating at nearly peak efficiency without giving your body at least the minimum amount of sleep you require, and your results will always suffer for that. So you have to ask yourself…

How important are my goals and dreams? Are they less important than your extra hour of TV after a long day at work?

Do they take a back seat to keeping up with the lives and activities of people you’ve never met and who you’ll never actually develop relationships with?

Do you even care that you’re not showing up for yourself and that you’re leaving so much success and achievement — not to mention life and vitality — on the table? Or on the mattress, I should say?

Your sleep is so incredibly important to your success and although usually I’m pretty good at getting enough of it, “pretty good” isn’t going to cut it for people like us who demand the BEST from ourselves each and every day.

My sleep could have been worse, but “could have been worse” is not how champions talk to themselves.

You and I are never going to be able to do all those things that light us up inside — and direct and support our lives — if we don’t get serious about sleeping.

But know too, that even though I was letting myself down when it came to sleep, I was still getting myself to the gym.

Even though I didn’t feel like it.

Because when you don’t feel like it is when it’s most important that you get there.

I feel so (weirdly) passionate about sleep because I know what a difference it makes my life and could make in yours.

I’d hate to see you become less of what you could be, through factors that are almost completely within your control.

As I mentioned above, Why We Sleep is a wonderful book that goes into all the science of sleep and what it does for us. And what the lack of it does to us.

There’s also Be Useful, by Arnold Schwarzenegger, another amazing book I ended up taking five whole pages of notes from.

The sleep book listed above is just an Amazon link, but for Be Useful, I’ve written a complete breakdown with all the key ideas, takeaways, and action steps that you can read for free.

Thanks again for reading this article, I hope you get some fantastic sleep tonight, and I hope you have an incredible day tomorrow because of it!

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

P.S. These 100 Books Will DRAMATICALLY Improve Your Life👇

Each week, thousands of people get my absolute best book recommendations by email. Join 3,700+ people and I’ll also send you my recommended Reading List. Click here to subscribe for $0.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***

From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

***

Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.

All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.

A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.