Self discipline?

For some time, I've been analyzing my ability to employ self-discipline in everyday life.

The hardest thing for me has always been my inability to carry out the tasks that I have planned the day before.

For example, if I plan to wake up early to, say, meditate, I always find that at the moment my alarm rings, I just 'feel' the need to continue sleep - and I always go back to sleep. Now, I've been planning like this everyday for the last couple of months - with no result. The 'urge in my head' to continue sleep is just too strong. Even if, before going to sleep, I tell myself that 'I need to wake up' and I set up 3 alarm clocks - I just fall asleep when they wake me up in the morning. The first minute after they go off, it seems to me that there is a 'battle' inside my head - a part is urging me to just go back to sleep and a part is telling me to 'stay awake'. But I always fall back on the bed and, after waking up at my usual time of about 7 am, I instantly 'remember' that, yes, I did wake up earlier, and yes, I do feel regret for just 'giving up' and going back to sleep.

Now, I've tried to learn from each such instance, and every time I keep on telling myself - tomorrow 'I WILL' get up and 'I WILL' do this and that (i.e. meditate). I even plan how I will be thinking at the moment I'm woken up by alarms - that they are waking me up FOR A REASON. But, when it 'comes to the crunch', I don't remember any reasons that I was thinking about the day before - something drags me back to bed. Infact, once I even thought that my one-minute switching off the alarms was part of a dream - ' get up switch off anoying alarm - go back towards bed and sleep '.

I am beginning to realize that there MUST be a reason for my 'not waking up', but I don't know what it is yet. I mean, I COULD think that it is my 'higher self' that is 'intervening' to keep me asleep, but, wouldn't that be doing a disservice to MY INTENDED self-discipline? (If I INTEND to do something and I don't, when is it a case of a lack of self-discipline and when is it a case of higher-self intervention?)

I mean, I know that I am making 'conscious choices' when I'm telling my self: 'I will wake up and I will do this and that'. But, when the time comes, it seems like I choose the choice of 'go back to sleep' - a choice that I did not plan on. Put it simply, 'I feel' the need to sleep and act on it.

Does anyone have any comments about their experiences with self-discipline?

rafal

Educating the Self is the hardest thing in life. Don't expect it to be any easier in the future. On the contrary, after meditating 2 hours every night for several years - it just gets harder to continue...

Imagine that your awareness expands to the point that no one around you is interested or can understand what you are talking about. Then, your Ego asks you a nagging question: how much MORE different that everyone else do you want to become?

What keeps me motivated is The Final Goal.

Tom