The Early Morning Challenge

I love the idea of starting each morning with quiet, reflective time—it just seems like a great way to start the day. But when it comes to making this a reality, my love of sleep or lazy mornings gets in the way. Plus, anything that feels “optional” in the morning when I’m tired easily gets pushed to the side.

To help inspire me to make early rising a new habit, I decided to read a book that I discovered recently, called “The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life” by Robin Sharma. As of early this week, I’ve officially finished the book and, although it was a bit more of a “self-help” type of book than I expected, there were some themes I took away from it that I found inspiring.

And this is where today’s post comes in. I’m going to start my own challenge similar to this, but first to help you to understand WHY, I have to give you the gist of the book.

Intro to the 5AM Club

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“The 5AM Club” revolves around the idea that waking up at dawn every single morning—and making this time meaningful—will enhance all areas of your life. “Own your morning and the quality of your day rises exponentially which, in turn, upgrades the calibre of your life exceptionally.”

At times I thought this idea was a bit far-fetched and over the top, but I appreciated a lot of the quotes and diagrams in the book because they helped convince me that making this habit could contribute to my well-being in multiple ways (even if it doesn’t necessarily change my life).

In the book, the mentor (or, The Billionaire) guides a man (The Artist) and woman (The Entrepreneur) through the habit of joining the 5AM club, teaching them how to not only make it happen, but to get the most out of it to enrich their entire lives.

There are several diagrams in the book representing different aspects of this habit, but I want to highlight two of the most basic and impactful ones: The Habit Installation Protocol and The 20-20-20 Formula.

The Habit Installation Protocol

This says that to make joining the 5AM Club a true habit, you have to do it for a minimum of 66 days, which is broken into three stages: Destruction (breaking down old habits), Installation (doing an “interior renovation”), and Integration (securing it as a part of your daily life). So that’s 22 days in each stage. As the book says, “All change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end.”

The 20-20-20 Formula

Now, the point of waking up at 5AM is so you have a full hour to work on yourself. The book breaks this into a structure of three 20-minute pockets, which I love because I’d imagine this makes it harder to waste time or get distracted.

• 5:00-5:20 – Move. Right after you wake up, do intense exercise that makes you sweat and breathe deeply. Listen to music or podcasts if you want, as well. The goal is to get your blood flowing and jolt yourself into being awake (and improving physical health, of course).
• 5:20-5:40 – Reflect. Immediately after a workout, turn your focus inward and do some journaling, meditation, planning, etc. This is intended to increase your productivity and focus all day.
• 5:40-6:00 – Grow. After your 20 minutes of reflection, take time to review your goals for the day, read or listen to a book (this is great way to make yourself read more), listen to a podcast, or study a topic. The point is to inspire you and “fuel your hope and your craft.”

Starting My Early Rise Challenge

The book did just enough to convince me to get out of bed earlier every day to focus on improving myself. This is why I wanted to share the “challenge” I’m creating for myself and extend it to anyone else who’s interested.

For the next 2+ months, I’m going to start rising at 6AM every morning to follow the 20-20-20 formula. Katie, the rules clearly state 5AM is the magical time. Yes, I know. But this is pandemic land and I have a few hours of free time every morning as it is, so at this point in my life, I can accomplish the same things an hour later. If I started my workday earlier, then I would definitely do the 5AM thing—and I still might on some days—but for the most part, I think 6AM is the magical time for me.

Knowing I’m waking up to immediately exercise also makes it more difficult because I really love slow mornings. But that’s kind of the point, to improve my will-power to do what’s good for me vs. give into laziness. “When we least feel like doing something, that’s the most important time to make sure we do it anyways. This exercises our will power muscle, which in turn improves self-discipline in all areas.”

Now, in order to start the full hour ready to go, that involves waking up slightly earlier to actually be able to jump into the process on time and not sleep in. The Billionaire/mentor in the book details his full day schedule, and he starts his 15 minutes before 5AM. So for me starting at 6AM, I’m going to wake up at 5:45 so I’m ready to exercise by 6AM. I may start early so I have a couple minutes to warm up and at least 5 minutes to stretch afterward.

I enjoy the structure of the 5AM Club system, because it’s straightforward and leaves very little wiggle room for excuses.

• Wake up 15 minutes before you start your hour.
• Spend 20 minutes exercising.
• Spend 20 minutes reflecting.
• Spend 20 minutes learning something (to grow).
• Move on with your day.
• Do this for 66 days.

Boom. Done.

I will be starting this “Early Morning Challenge” on Monday because Mondays always feel like a fresh start. So! If my start date is Monday, August 17th, that means I’m doing this until Thursday, October 22nd. (TIL you can google something like “66 days after august 17th” and it will straight up tell you. Thanks, technology.)

Full disclosure: While I plan to wake up at 6AM on weekends, too, I can pretty much guarantee there will be a few weekend mornings that I sleep a little later. I’m very focused on keeping this to a minimum, though.

Final Thoughts

As you can probably tell, I’m very focused and weirdly excited to wake up early, but more so to see how moving, reflecting, and growing impacts the rest of each day. Sometimes it just takes an official plan to get motivated.

I think I’m also feeling optimistic about this because I like to always be working on myself (in a variety of ways). It’s one of the most productive things I can do for others, really. Because I want to be healthier, more empathetic, more knowledgeable, and just more in tune with the role I play in this world. Dedicating even 1 hour to guided self-improvement helps me accomplish this.

And also: “The things that get scheduled are the things that get done.” So if you like the idea of having time carved out to be alone, I invite you to join me in my hella productive morning routine! However, this is all assuming you can make it happen while still getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep (or however much you need). As I’ve said before, life improves when you get more sleep. And I don’t see any way to stick to an earlier rise time (and be incredibly diligent, at that) without being well-rested. So sleep is an integral part of the 5AM (or 6AM) club.

I hope to check in a couple times before October 22nd, possibly sharing what I’m doing with my morning hour and how I’m feeling as I get used to my new morning habit. What do you think? Will you join me in my early morning challenge?