After hearing about it for many years, last month I decided to join the 5am Club. Although the concept of the 5am club has been around for centuries (ei: “the early bird gets the worm” or “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”) it was made popular by personal growth guru Robin Sharma in his best selling book… you guessed it “The 5am Club” (link here https://www.robinsharma.com/book/the-5am-club)
The basic premise of the book that by getting up at 5am we will be able to accomplish much more in our day because our minds will be at their sharpest and we won’t have any distractions. Robin goes even further by suggesting that our 5 am morning should consist of 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of planning and 20 minutes of self improvement or study. I am always looking for ways to grow and become the best version of myself so I decided to give it a go.
My first mistake was thinking I could just set my alarm for 5 am and I would bounce out of bed full of piss and vinegar and get a crap load of work done before the sun even woke up. Ha! Reality check…..What actually happened is I laid in bed cringing, telling myself that this was crazy and why would someone ever want to get up at 5am, while hitting the snooze button for 30 minutes. When I finally kicked my feet over the side of the bed and stood up I stumbled to the kitchen to make a coffee, tripping over Tessie who must have thought Mom must be in distress to be up this early. However, I did manage to get my workout in, planned my day and listened to a podcast, but by noon I felt I had just completed a TransAtlantic flight and had the worst case of jet lag I have ever experienced.
So now, on to day two, and I decided I needed a plan. I started by setting a reminder on my phone to get me to go to bed an hour early. I then put my alarm in a different room. I chose the bathroom, because you can’t hit snooze if you have to get up and go to another room to turn it off. Then I put on my workout clothes (yes I slept in my workout clothes, please don’t judge me), left my laptop open to my workout video and filled my water bottle and set it beside my laptop. I set my journal and headphones on my desk and put Tessie’s leash beside the door. And off to bed I went. And you know what? IT WORKED! 5am rolled around and out of bed I went. Workout completed, day planned, ebook completed, and I even walked Tessie while watching the sunrise. By 7am I had completed more than I do in most days. The big caveat is that if you are going to join the 5am Club….Do it gradually and have a plan.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are still some days where I just blow it, and weekends I do sleep in because lazy mornings on the weekends are good for the soul. (that’s another blog) But staying consistent with the 5am club has helped me to become more productive and given me a better sense of appreciation for all that I do. For now, this is what works for me. Will it always? …..I guess time will tell.
To quote Robin Sharma. “Small daily improvements, overtime, create stunning results.” and think given this stage of my life, I would have to agree.
