Defeat “I don’t wanna” with Preparation

Wake up from the alarm. Groan. Stretch. Sigh. Lament that you don’t want to get up. Debate about not getting up. Get up and shuffle off to the restroom. Consider skipping morning productivity and going back to bed.

Does this sound like you every morning? Of course it doesn’t – it sounds like ME!

Yes, I’m neither joking nor lying when I share with you that mental and physical resistance are at their worst for me first thing in the morning. I’m usually tired, my body aches, and my brain just “doesn’t wanna” (yes, read that like a three year old). The days where this doesn’t happen are a pleasant surprise for me, so I’ve come to rarely expect them.

As much as this current reality can suck, what’s really nice is that there’s a surefire way to defeat this morning resistance: preparation. And not only can preparation set you up for success in the morning, it can set you up for regular success against any resistance – procrastination, overwhelm, etc. so long as you put it into action.

So, let’s take a look at what the purpose of preparation is, how you can put it into practice, and what difference you can expect it to make in your day.

Identify the sources of resistance

In order to do the things we don’t want to do (which, inevitably, are the things that get us the results we want), we generally default to using willpower for fuel.

When we decide to create a “morning routine”, plan out our day, start an exercise habit, create content on a schedule, or anything that we believe will get us results, we start with excitement first. We think of the outcome, and that becomes our “why” of creating a new habit. This fuel tank, built on dreams of the future, fills very quickly.

That fuel begins to deplete once we actually start the work, and usually depletes to zero somewhere between 24 to 48 hours later. We’ve all done this and know this, but sometimes we’re not sure how to get through even something like 120 hours (5 days) of our new, previously exciting routine.

This is where preparation comes in. While excitement and willpower are good, strong ignition sources – they’re a horrible source of fuel to fight daily resistance as they’re just not all that powerful.

Preparation, on the other hand, means thinking through and identifying the sources of resistance we each face personally, then attacking them ruthlessly before they even show up. If we’ve done our job right, we’ll probably grumble, be cranky, and “not wanna” do the work – but we’ll do it anyway because we’ve made it so easy to get the work done that we “might as well” do it.

So now that we know what preparation means (identifying and removing sources of resistance in advance) – how can we actually go about doing that, even if we’ve never done the routine before?

Set the stage

If we are going to prepare well, we must follow the concepts of the great chefs and filmmakers that have come before us by adopting their terms “mis-en-place” and “mise-en-scene” and taking them to heart.

These two terms mean “put in place” and “place on stage”, respectively, but the context of the terms is what we’re really after.

Any chef that hasn’t prepared and organized their ingredients and tools is going to have a much harder time crafting a dish that thrills us. Any filmmaker that doesn’t first create the context of their scene is going to find it impossible to get us to suspend our disbelief (and buy that Han Solo is actually on the Millenium Falcon and not Harrison Ford dressed up funny on a soundstage).

Just the same, we’re going to make taking action on our routines by first setting the stage and putting things into place.

To do this well, we must first have a routine. We can’t say “I’m going to make a song tomorrow” and expect to wake up and knock it out of the park. First, we have to think (or act) through what it takes to make a song. As silly as it may sound, I advocate making a list of all the steps required to complete your routine. For our song example, this may look like:

Turn on computer
Open DAW
Create new project
Create a track
Place an instrument plugin on the track
Place track in record ready
Hook up MIDI keyboard
Noodle on the keyboard

So on and so forth. Every step in that list we can quantify as a point of potential resistance. For example, if you have a laptop, you likely don’t have a single place where it lives and allows you to quickly get to that “noodle on the keyboard” step. Therefore resistance will come in the form of grumbling that you have to pick up your laptop, move 5 feet to your desk, hook it up to your audio interface, get your keyboard, etc. Meanwhile, turning on our Playstations or Xboxes requires two steps – a button press to power on our TV and a button press to power on our console.

Hopefully that comparison hits you over the head with why we so easily lose when using willpower against resistance.

Once we’ve made our task list, it’s time to set the stage. Take some time to consider what it would take to make each one of those steps as easy as possible. Using our song example, we can give our computer a place where it lives, have our interface and keyboard hooked up ahead of time, and build a template project that removes all the setup steps to get working in our DAW.

Doing those things would turn our previous list into:

Turn on computer
Open DAW/Template project
Noodle on keyboard

That means our routine just became way more simple and we have a tremendously lower number of places we’ll face resistance!

As cool as this is, I realize that the reality of doing it successfully can be rough. I just took an entire day last week to clean and reorganize my workspace so that I don’t face resistance in programming or making music in the future. That required tearing apart and deep cleaning my work area – it wasn’t fun, it was exhausting!

But we can overcome that pain and exhaustion by reminding ourselves of the results we’ll get from this preparation step.

The difference between extreme and mediocre sucess

This year I became acquainted with an ambient musician, now a dear friend of mine, who goes by the name Blakmoth. While I started by loving his music, I ended with being in absolute awe of his work ethic and workflow.

In 2020, Jack (Blackmoth) released 12 albums worth of music. He created 18 and over 100 separate singles, most of which he’s chosen not to release. He also doesn’t use a DAW (using one is like pulling teeth to him) and records directly to tape. Not to mention he’s incredibly prolific on social media.

You can think I’m joking, but feel free to check out his content – he’s on Spotify, Bandcamp, and Instagram.

How does he do this? Through extreme preparation.

His work is mostly done with synthesizers and eurorack modules. He spends time learning each new tool he gets and putting it in a place and order where he knows exactly how to get the sounds he wants out of it very quickly. All of his signal chain is setup and ready to go the moment inspiration strikes him, and he records all of his content live – no editing.

That also means that if he introduces a new piece of gear or needs to rearrange his setup, he has to go back through the preparation process all over again. Therefore, keeping prepared and “in his groove” so-to-speak is paramount to creative success and creating an absolutely massive volume of content.

“But Adam….” you say, “That’s absolutely impossible. I could never be that prolific! Plus I’m not organized or a neat freak!”

I understand how you feel, but here’s reality – Jack’s results aren’t unrealistic or unobtainable. He’s not an extreme “elite unicorn performer” that has capabilities you don’t. He’s simply put an extreme focus on preparation and removing distraction. In fact, the “tactics” he uses for success are downright boring.

We tend to think if we were “more organized” or “had a better morning routine” or were more “actualized” that we’d get everything we want and always be upbeat about it. But, the reality is far more basic than the theory of those concepts. We’ve become naturalized to easy distraction via the lack of resistance of our entertainment.

So, ease the resistance of the cool things you want to do by putting in work to prepare and make them easier ahead of time. While you’re at it, increase the resistance of everything else (your phone, the TV, etc). After you’ve done that, willpower won’t be required much anymore.

So, what is this whole “preparation” thing about again?

Preparation means identifying and removing sources of resistance in advance
To prepare well, craft a routine by making a task list, then remove resistance points by simplifying the tasks
If you prepare well, consistently, you can expect some pretty extreme success
Preparation is way more enjoyable than crafting “the best morning routine”

I really wasn’t kidding

I do get up every morning and groan that I have to get out of bed and get going – but I’ve even solved that through preparation. I set out my keys, kettlebells, jump rope, book, planner, and a filled water bottle the night before (I use all of these things in the morning) and then I sleep in my workout clothes.

Every evening I do this and get to sleep on time, I do the work out I don’t want to do when I wake up and then feel so much better for it.

See extreme preparation in action

And again, I implore you to check out Blakmoth (Jack’s) content on Spotify (or your favorite music app), Bandcamp, and Instagram. The amount of high quality content he puts out is incredible, and has been a great example and source of inspiration for me in the last few months.

Go get inspired, and then prepare to do the work!