Remember the blue screen of death… you’d get it after spending hours writing a research paper or something just to find out the thing you were working on didn’t save?
We still do that… but we do it with our bodies and minds!
For years I wore 5 hours of sleep like a medal. Bragged about it, quietly proud, running on coffee and grit and the story that rest was for people who wanted it less than I did. I had it exactly backwards.
Sleep is where the reps set. You train the muscle in the gym and it grows on the pillow. You learn the skill during the day and your brain files it overnight. Skip the sleep and you’re doing all the work without ever hitting save. For leaders it’s worse, because tired you makes tired calls and then hands them to a whole team that has to live inside them.
So now I treat sleep like the rep it is. A non-negotiable I schedule first and build the day around, instead of the thing I get to if there’s time left over. Screens out of the bedroom, a bedtime I hold more nights than not. It’s the least glamorous discipline I’ve got and it moves everything else on the list.
Fill the tank before you lead the team. You cannot pour steady, patient leadership out of a body running on 5 hours and a prayer. I’ve tried it. The people closest to me paid the tab.
Here’s the reframe that finally landed for me. Rest isn’t the reward you get after the work. Rest is part of the work, the half where it all consolidates. Treat it like the lazy option and you’ll keep grinding and keep wondering why you feel a step slow.
I still fight it. There’s always one more thing worth staying up for, and it’s almost never worth what it charges me the next morning. Give yourself grace, then go to bed.
So what changes this week if you treat sleep like your most important rep instead of the first thing you cut?
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Sleep as the rep that "sets" everything else is a reframe I needed. I used to treat it as the first thing I'd sacrifice when the week got tight, then wonder why my patience was gone by Thursday. What changes for me this week is protecting the same bedtime even on nights I feel productive enough to push through, since that's exactly when I used to talk myself out of it.