The Snooze Button Struggle Is Real (And How I Finally Beat It)
Confession time: I used to be a compulsive-snooze-button-hitter.
Always. Sometimes five times a morning… sometimes ten. College was where I learned how to do this. In the first couple of years of my 20s, I pressed that button so relentlessly that I would actually set my alarm earlier, knowing full well I'd just snooze my way back to the original wake-up time. Some might call this maladaptive, toxic behavior; others… well, they might call it a desperate attempt at brilliance. Regardless, it was terrible for my sleep schedule and, even worse, for anyone within earshot of that incessant alarm (so, SO sorry to my past roommates, neighbors, and friends on vacation – you deserve better).
I always longed to be that mythical kind of person who could just pop up with the alarm, no snooze necessary. But how? It felt like an impossible feat, a characteristic reserved for perfect creatures or morning news anchors.
We all have these "things" we just keep doing. Behaviors we feel we can’t stop, despite our best intentions. You can usually spot them when we utter those self-defeating phrases like, “I’m just the kind of person who… hits snooze, doesn’t work out, eats an entire sleeve of cookies with wild abandon, or stays up too late binging just one more episode;” “I wish I could delete Instagram;” or “you’re so lucky that….” It’s as if these behaviors are etched into our very identity, unchangeable and unavoidable.
But how do we genuinely change these ingrained patterns? For real? Forever? This isn't about willpower (because let's be honest, willpower is a finite resource, especially at 6 AM). It's about strategy.
The Small Steps, Big Impact Philosophy
Turns out, two of the most influential habit formation experts of our time, BJ Fogg and James Clear, have some very strong opinions on the power of small, tiny steps. Their work has been pivotal in shifting my perspective from overwhelming aspirations to actionable, tiny changes.
Dr. BJ Fogg: The Power of Tiny Habits
Dr. BJ Fogg, a social scientist and the insightful Director of the Stanford Behavioral Design Lab at Stanford University, literally wrote the book on this: Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. It’s not just a clever name, folks; it’s truly about creating incredibly teeny-tiny routines or habits around the things that genuinely matter to you.
In his groundbreaking book, he asserts that "there are only three things we can do that will create lasting change: Have an epiphany, change the environment, or change habits in tiny ways." Let's break those down a bit:
Having an epiphany: This is notoriously hard to do on command. Short of my roommate threatening to no longer pay rent if I kept snoozing (a genuine threat, by the way!), a sudden, profound realization rarely materializes when you most need it.
Changing your environment: Also challenging, though sometimes less available. Unless I move my bed to the roof (tempting on a hot summer night, but impractical), radical environmental shifts aren’t always feasible for a simple snooze problem.
Changing our habits in TINY ways: Ah-ha! This is where the magic happens. But how? Dr. Fogg posits that building a new tiny habit requires three key ingredients: motivation, ability, and a prompt.
For me, the first tiny behavior I chose was moving my phone away from my bed. This was a minuscule step towards my ultimate goal of not hitting the snooze button (that came after!). My motivation was clear: I desperately wanted to stop feeling groggy and guilt-ridden every morning. My ability was high: plugging in a phone isn't rocket science. And my prompt? After brushing my teeth before bed, I would plug my phone into the kitchen wall charger. Simple. Unassuming. But incredibly effective.
Now, let’s check out what another, incredibly famous expert has to say about this habit:
James Clear: Identity-Based Habits
Then there's James Clear, the author of the mega-bestselling Atomic Habits. He famously states that "change is hard"—thanks, James, tell us something we don't know?! But he also offers a profoundly powerful framework: focusing on crafting a new identity around the behavior you'd like to change.
Clear suggests that lasting change isn't about achieving a goal; it's about becoming the type of person who achieves that goal. The key is to focus on the identity first, to create truly lasting, snooze-free mornings (or whatever your goal may be). So, how do you do this?
Decide the type of person you want to be.
Prove it to yourself with small wins.
I decided I wanted to be the type of person who seizes the day, someone who wakes up ready to go, full of energy rather than regret. To prove this to myself, I implemented my tiny habit: I moved my phone away from my bed. Then, I took the leap: I set two alarms one minute apart (you heard me – a minute apart!), and crucially, no snooze was allowed. Most mornings, it works remarkably well. Why? Because I focused on identity ("I am a person who seizes the day"), then process (moving the phone, setting the alarms), and finally, the outcome (no snoozing).
So sometimes, when we want to make big, life-changing decisions – like finally kicking that snooze habit – it’s not about a monumental effort. It’s all about the small, consistent steps we can take to change what we believe about ourselves and our capabilities.
And then, here's the crucial part: celebrating those small wins. Not so that you become toxically positive, but so that you hit the dopamine receptor to build good feelings associated with the behavior, so that you can kickstart and maintain motivation. Each time you resist the snooze, you're not just avoiding a button, “you're casting a vote for the person you want to become.”
Am I perfect at avoiding the snooze button now? Absolutely not. Life happens, travel disrupts, and some mornings, the temptation is still incredibly strong. But have I improved every single day since deciding to care?
Mostly. And that, my friends, is more than enough.
