Waking up at 5 AM: My 30 days Challenge

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I'm going to Wake up at 5 AM for the next 30 days. Why? Because I feel more productive in the morning. It is a well known fact that a lot of the most successful people in the world wake up early. They do it because they know they can produce more when they wake up early. There is something about waking up early that is hard to explain...You accomplish so much more during the day it is quite crazy.

I've actually never met ONE SINGLE PERSON that wakes up late that is successful in life. Quite the opposite, all of the people that I know that wake up late are all unorganized, have no purpose in life...they are basically not successful.

I'm going to wake up at 5 AM for 30 days straight and this is my journey. I'm going to post every day to keep track of my progress and share what I've learned in the process.



I am more productive when I wake up early. I can accomplish so much more when I wake up at 5:00 this is actually crazy. These days I wake up between 6:00 am to 9:00 am. I don't like the fact that I am not consistent with my schedule. One thing I have learned in my life is that true freedom comes from discipline.

Most people dream of fancy cars, fame, wealth, etc....At the same time, most people dream of laying by the beach all day and do nothing. They think this is what freedom is all about... They are wrong.

I've actually tried it and it absolutely SUCK. I'm an internet marketer and I am making enough passive income (money that keep coming in without me having to work for it) for me to do nothing all day and live a VERY comfortable lifestyle.

I'm actually making way more than I used to make in Finance (used to be a real estate analyst). I tried for a while to do nothing all day and it ABSOLUTELY SUCKED. After a while you almost become depressed because your life has no meaning. I would much rather have a busy lifestyle. I would much change the world and impact the lives of many people than sleeping all day or watching TV...And to be honest, I think most people want to do nothing all day because they don't understand what brings happiness in their life.



I realized that early on in my life and this is why I continue to work so hard and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. This is exactly why I want to make it a habit to wake up at 5 AM everyday. I know that by doing this, I will progress and accomplish so much more.

I don't think I even need to tell you the benefits of waking up early....You already know what they are. The hard part is EXECUTION. Everybody knows they should eat healthy food...the hard part is EXECUTION! Everybody know they should do exercise...the hard part is EXECUTION! The goal is to make it a habit.

It takes about 30 days to cement a habit. You are going to go through 3 phases. (I learned these phases In a program called Wake Up Productive, Click Here to read my summary of it)

Phase 1: The first 10 days. In these first 10 days, you will "defy gravity" so it is going to take A LOT OF EFFORT. Your brain is not used to it so it will require A LOT of energy to stay on track.

Phase 2: Day 11 to 20. This is called resistance. It will be less intense than the first 10 days, but your mind will still resist by giving you excuses.

Phase 3: Day 21 to 30. This is called acclamation. You will start integrating the habit into your life and resistance will slowly go away.

87% of the energy in putting a space shuttle in orbit is spent in the first two minutes...It takes A LOT of energy to resist gravity.

Basically, the beginning is the hardest part and this is where most people quit. I am conscious that this is going to be hard and this is why I am going to use tools to help me succeed.



Tool #1: Accountability. First of all I am going to post one blog post per day for 30 days to track my progress, no exceptions. I know that a lot of people are reading these posts so this will motivate me to take action. One thing I have learned over the years is that by making your goals public, it gives you tremendous energy. You KNOW that people are watching and you want to perform well. Another place where I will use accountability is on a Forum called WarriorForum. I am going to post each morning after I wake up (not right after, but like 30 minutes after or so) on the forum so that people know I woke up at 5:00 am. A lot of people know me on this forum so it will give me leverage and pushes me to actually do it.

Tool #2: Thought Restructuring. I have a morning routine that I do everyday. The purpose of this morning routine is to put me in a peak state that will allow me to function at a peak level for the rest of the day. During this morning routine, a do a few thoughts restructuring exercises that I learned from CBT (Cognitive behavioral therapy). The main premise of CBT is that how you feel is related to how you think, so if you change how you think, you will feel different. I'm going to incorporate one CBT exercise in my morning routine that I'm going to apply to waking up at 5:00 am.

Tool #3: Smart Alarm! Did it ever happen to you to put your alarm, and then the next day you woke up, closed the alarm and went back to bed WITHOUT EVEN REALIZING IT? This happened to me so many time it is not even funny anymore. This is why I downloaded an app called Step Out Of Bed. I love this app! It is literally impossible NOT TO WAKE UP with this alarm.

You have two options: the first one is to program the alarm in a way that when the alarm rings, you will have to walk a certain amount of steps before it stop ringing. YOU CANNOT CLOSE THE ALARM UNTIL YOU MAKE THE REQUIRED STEPS. It literally forces you to wake up, hold your phone and walk. The other option is to program your alarm in a way that you will have to take a specific picture with your phone for the alarm to stop. For example: when you set up your alarm, you take a picture of the TV in your living room. When your alarm rings, the only way to make it stop is to take another picture of the TV in your living room. It literally forces you to walk all the way to the living room to take the picture.

I'm going to set up the smart alarm at 5:05 AM and at 5:00 AM, I will use my regular Iphone alarm with a song ( No Church In The Wild by Kanye West). I picked this song because this is the song that played at the Unleash The Power Within Seminar by Tony Robbins when it was time to do the fire walk at the end of the first day (Click Here to read my review of this seminar) and every time I hear this song, I feel extremely motivated.

Tool #4 Rewards. I'm going to reward myself for waking up early. Look, this is not the first habit that I am changing a habit and I know that my brain is going to give me hundreds of reasons to NOT WAKE UP. This is how our brain works and this is why I incorporate CBT exercise to re-program my brain, but on TOP OF THAT, I want to reward myself every time I wake up at 5:00 AM. I'm going to do this by adding a few slices of bacon to my breakfast. I absolutely love bacon and this will give me a good reason to wake up.

The goal here is to make my brain literally CRAVE waking up. For those that don't know me, I'm a pretty fit guy and I try to maintain 8% body fat so I'm only going to do this in the early stage of this habit formation (first 10 days). I'm also going to drink decaf coffee every morning with my breakfast. I quit drinking coffee months ago because I was literally addicted to it. I used to drink about 10 cups of coffee per day...I used to be a really anxious guy also and the coffee made it worse. Anyways, I completely eliminated coffee from my life and I'm glad I did, but I really enjoyed the taste of it and this is why I bought coffee without caffeine. It will give me another incentive to wake up early.



I'm starting tomorrow morning! I'm going to post every single day for 30 days and I will keep you guys updated on my progress, on the challenges and what I've learned by doing this. My goal with this is to inspire other people to do the same and to keep myself accountable. Feel free to join my challenge! This is probably one of the best decision you will make in your life!

Please leave a comment below or let me know any questions you have. I'd love to hear what you think!
#mind warriors #challenge #days #waking
  • I'm joining you,I agree on every single thing in this thread,plus I have to change my habits,well,most of them.
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  • Woke up at 5 am using my alarm with the song. My brain was already making excuses like : meh, just sleep another 5 minutes, why are you doing this? Why would you wake up at 5 even during the weekends? You didn't sleep enough last night just sleep more....

    Once you are aware that your brain is going to work against you especially in the beginnings, it is easier to restructure these thoughts in a way that is more helpful. “Oh look, my brain coming up with excuses again...let's not listen to it and wake up”. The rewards also helped, as I woke up, I immediately shifted my focus to the decaf coffee I was about to make and the bacon (Yeah, I know it sounds strange but it works).

    Overall it was quite easy to wake up at 5 AM this morning. I fell asleep at like 11:30 pm though, so tonight I have to make sure to go to bed early. My girlfriend is coming over later today and I already told her that she will have to leave early because of my 5 AM challenge. She knows I have to go to bed early now! I'm going to not take any naps during the day so this way I get tired early tonight and I fall asleep earlier than yesterday.
  • Day 2:

    For some reason my alarm with the song didn't rang (probably woke up, removed the alarm and went back to sleep), so what woke me up is the Step Out Of Bed Alarm.

    I woke up at 5:00 Am, but I stayed in bed semi-awake for line one hour in bed this morning.

    This is not good. This is not good enough. I remember telling myself : It's ok I'm awake, I can just stay here a little bit...

    Again, my brain looking for excuses. I need to fully stand up and be awake next time, or it doesn't count. There is no point of waking up at 5:00 AM if i'm not productive from 5:00 Am.
  • I have have to come up with a new idea of alarm as my family are no so keen on getting up at 5am. So, I purchased myself a wrist watch with vibrating alarm. Yeh, baby! Everyone is a winner.
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  • I think this is a great way to use every hour of your life.
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  • Day 3

    Woke up at 5:00 Am, and didn't waste time in bed like yesterday. As soon as I woke up, I got up and did a 10 min meditation while sitting in my bed.

    Was really easy to wake up at 5 AM today actually, compared to yesterday.

    One exercise that I do that I learned by reading CBT books is to take a sheet of papers and draw a line in the middle of the sheet. On the left side, you come up with reasons why doing this behavior ( in my case, waking up at 5 AM) is great and on the other sides, you write the negative consequences on the behavior. This is an exercise that is really simple but works and I do it everyday in my morning routine (that I call the Freedom Routine).

    Advantages of Waking up early:

    -Makes me more productive

    -Build discipline

    -No regrets

    -Puts me in a good mood

    Disadvantages of waking up early

    -Requires some efforts

    -Must go to bed earlier

    When you compare the advantages versus the disadvantages, it is really easy to see that the benefits outweighs the disadvantages and it gives your brain clarity. By having clarity, it will be easier for you to change the habit.
  • Banned
    You could be even more productive If you woke up at 4 AM.
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    • 5:00 am is the sweet spot for me. Everybody is different and it will depends on the life situation of everybody, but for right now, 5:00 am is the sweet spot for me.
  • Day 4:

    Can't believe I woke up at AM during the weekends...I think I've never done that in the past! I loved it though because it makes me way more productive. By the time it is 1:00 pm I already accomplished what most people will accomplish in their day. I could literally just stop working by 1:00 pm and go by the pool and tan all day.

    That's what I love the most about Online marketing: I can control my time...

    Right now my schedule is made in a way that from 1 pm to 3 pm I go to the gym and I go to the pool. My gym has a really nice outdoor pool and it only takes me about 30 min to workout....so I have about one hour and a half to just relax by the pool.

    When I used to work in finance I was not able to do that. I was working from 9 to 5...The problem is that the sun is mostly out only from 9 to 5...so you don't get to tan by the pool. It's literally impossible to do it with that kind of job. That's why I call anybody that work in an office 9 to 5 jobs slaves. They are not free, they don't control how they spend their time.

    Anyways, had no problem waking up at 5:00 am this morning! Had no problem going to bed early yesterday too. Everything works perfectly fine. I think the reasons why it works so well is because this is not the first time I change a habit and I know how it works and what it takes. I'm used to it and I have the tools to do it. I use a lot of CBT exercises and exercises that I have learned over the years in seminars and by reading self-development books.
  • Day 5

    Went to bed a little bit late the day before but I woke up at 5 AM without any problems...

    It's not normal to me to wake up at 5 am and go to bed early. I wouldn't think I would adjust that quickly to be honest, but I'm only on day 5 so I don't want to be over confident. Sometimes it's when you think you are in control that you lose focus.
  • Day 6

    Woke up at 5AM but said to myself: mehh, let's just lay there for another 10 minutes...

    Bad Idea. I woke up like one hour later. I didn't make it this morning basically because I went back to sleep.

    It's really hard to change this habit because when you wake up in the morning, you are not really awake and it's like if you don't take smart decisions. You can't rely on willpower to do it, because early in the morning like that, you are not even awake yet...It's like if you have no willpower. It has to become a habit and it takes time.

    The good news is I FELT REALLY BAD ABOUT IT. It means the habit is starting to kick in. It means I associate a lot of bad stuff about NOT waking up at 5 AM and a lot of good stuff to waking up at 5 AM.
  • MValmont please I'm looking for your latest course but I couldn't find it
  • I'm with you!
    I get up every day at 5 a.m., I feel energized, inspirated, motivated.
    I don't see what's so hard about that.
    A little tip: write down your goals for the next day before you go to bad, so that you know why you're getting up so early.
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    • I don't know, but this is one thing that I've always wanted to do consistently but I never actually did it. The time is now.

      The hardest part is to go to bed early in my case. I used to go out a lot.
  • Day 7

    Had to use my Step up of bed Alarm for the first time this morning! The step out of bed alarm is an app that I downloaded. It forces you to walk for a certain time while you hold your phone. This way, you have no choice but to wake up. For some reason I closed my two other alarms without even realizing it this morning...Good thing I had the Step Out Of Bed alarm programmed for 5 minutes after!
  • Day 8

    Woke up without any problems this morning...I'm getting used to it and I really, really like the fact that at 12 pm I accomplished so much already.
  • Interesting experiment.

    I've been thinking about it, and I think it's a good way to win some time short-term. But in the long run, you will just shift your day. You will wake up earlier, but get tired earlier as well.

    I think the most important part is that you get out of bed after you wake up. Staying in bed for 2 hours after you woke up is just a waste of time.
  • i must be perfect
    im always awake by 5 am
  • Day 9

    Woke up without any problems...Was a little bit tired because I had to go somewhere with a few friends and I ended up coming home later, but I still managed to wake up at 5AM. The hardest part so far really is to go to bed early. I'm just not used to it.
  • I think that's quite a huge assumption to make of other people, frankly. If you look at a number of leading studies on IQ, people who have a higher IQ stay up later and wake up later. It is correlated with greater intelligence and greater creativity and also contrary to popular belief it is not a choice you make. It's coded in your DNA, having to do with your chronotype.

    I have never been a morning person and I usually stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. and wake up at noon. My employees start earlier, but I work the best at night and get way more done. There are the same number of hours in the day for all of us. I can accomplish way more than most people do with my schedule because I don't work tired. I work rested. I get up when I'm done sleeping, which makes a lot of biological sense, not at some random time determined by external factors. Then I continue working until the day's work is done, which may or may not be any given time. Usually, it is not.

    I think you need to find what works best for YOU, but to assume other people are lazy or losers because they don't wake up early is just silly.
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    • As I said, I'm doing this because I ( like in me, not other people, ME) am more productive early during the day.

      Also, I've never met anyone that wakes up late that is highly productive. By highly productive I'm not talking about making a few thousands per month by the way...

      I'm not saying these people don't exist, I'm just saying I've never seen one.
  • Day 10 & 11

    Both mornings were perfect. Didn't need to use the second alarm and didn't hit snooze one time. I feel like the habit is getting strong and I can't even imagine myself waking up late anymore because I've seen the difference in productivity. I can get so much more done it's crazy. I know that we all have 24 hours in the day and if I wake up super early it means that I'm going to bed earlier, but it really makes a difference.
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    • That's funny, most people I know far prefer to get up late and stay up late including my friend who is a radiologist and works night shift. He makes $465,000/year.

      I would say I've been pretty damn productive considering I've directed a movie I also wrote that's on iTunes, Amazon, and XBox (and came to Hulu at the time), written a couple of books, and run my own business for 8 years.

      I think whatever works for you is great but I wouldn't get anything done being tired all day. I've never met anyone who is really productive going to bed in the middle of the day at like 9 pm. I still have 7 peaceful hours left to work by that point.
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  • I'm not "angry" about your thread, I just think you have a very strange mentality about what hours someone sleeps. Do you deny all of the research that indicates people who go to bed later and wake up later have a higher IQ on average? Because that's a fact. It has been confirmed numerous times in numerous studies. Productivity, however, has not been proven to be at all correlated with when you sleep. Your idea is anecdotal and nothing more, signifying nothing. There are countless successful people who prefer to work late and get up late. Most of the people in my industry are that way, and so are most people working in Internet marketing.

    My friend has one week on, one week off, so I doubt you have the freedom he does. He gets 26 weeks off per year! Hardly a bad gig

    As I said, though, I admire you for doing whatever works for YOU. If getting up early is working great for you, by all means, you SHOULD do that. But productivity is about drive and motivation and has nothing whatsoever to do with what time you wake up. If you're sleeping for 7-8 hours, you have the same number of waking hours to do work that anyone else has who is awake for 7-8 hours, no? So why would you assume that there is some magical effect of getting up early? It doesn't make any logical sense. There is no "easy" solution for being productive. You just have to work hard and be focused on your goals.

    Waking up super early is for the birds as far as I care. I would go through my entire day tired because it would be going against my basic biological functioning. Night owls -- which is a chronotype and biological reality -- don't work effectively in the morning, so what you're saying is nothing more than discrimination. It's basically saying that all night owls are unsuccessful, lazy, unproductive individuals, and nothing could be further from the truth. Maximum productivity is all about doing whatever works for your body and your mind, so if that's waking up early, you should do that. If that's going to bed later, you should do that. It's about how productive you are while you're awake. Being awake but tired because you're going against your basic body chemistry, then you're doing something horribly wrong.

    An early morning person doesn't do well staying up late, their mind is hazy and they don't function well. I wouldn't ask them to stay up every day late and sleep in because it's against how their body functions. It would be useless. But I also wouldn't say, "Early morning people are retarded losers who can't stay up late and don't get anything done because they go to bed way too early to be productive." That's because I -- unlike you -- recognize that successful people do whatever works for them.

    One thing successful people definitely do NOT do is follow the schedules of other people or try to emulate societal norms. Successful people are leaders, not followers.
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    • You need to hang out with more successful people my friend.

      How many millionaires do you know personally? I know a lot, and all of them wake up early.

      How many biographies have you read? Probably not a lot, because you would have noticed that most highly successful people wake up super early, that's a fact. The only successful person that wake up super later that I know of is Alwleed Bin Talal, and it is because of the the time zone he is in, and he wants to be up on time for the markets in new York etc.

      Also, I don't care about IQ. This research is also probably crap. There is always a new study out there that says something different...Always.

      Do your research my friend. I've done mine, and all the people that I know that bring me these research about IQ and Genetics are just people that are lazy and not productive in life and are trying to feel good about themselves.

      Freedom is about productivity. Your friend has one week off and one week on? Cool, But I have enough money in my bank account to NOT WORK EVER AGAIN a single day in my life.

      Why do I continue to work? Because I enjoy it. This is true freedom. Freedom comes from being able to make your vision a reality. It's not about not doing anything all day and having no responsibility. I've tried that actually and it completely sucked. Most people that strive to do nothing all day never tried it.
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  • Ever read the productivity project by chris bailey?

    Really recommend it - productivity = time,attention,energy.

    It's up to us to cultivate these resources.

    Nothing wrong/right/better about waking up early.


    Takeaway: Waking up early doesn't make you more productive--there's no difference in socioeconomic standing between early risers and night owls. What makes you more productive is becoming deliberate about how you live and work--including with your wakeup ritual.

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  • here is why people are pushing back ..i am at least smart enough to understand this is a personal developent forum..

    and not a daily blog ..or a youtube blog or a personal journal..

    by putting your ideas here you are going to get discussion and disagreement....and trolling by people who do not find much if any value ..in how many alarms you need to set to get out of bed in the morning

    thats for your blog your vlog or your face book page ..

    the very fact you already have enough money that you don't have to work anymore ..and up to this point you have never gotten out of bed that early before ..it is really frackin hypocritcal.. to start proclaiming the value of getting out of bed super early ..if that is not how you got to your current state of financal success ..

    you got what ever success you have .. without waking up super early ..you are claiming to be a success .. but you never woke up super early.. yet you are telling us ..no successfull person you know ..wakes up later in the morning ..

    so you either do not know yourself ..well basically
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    • I'm ripped right now. I'm at like 9% bodyfat. My goal is to get to 8%, so I'm going to eat a little cleaner and probably do more boxing to get more cardio.

      Does that mean I should not do it because I reached 9% bodyfat by eating crap sometimes?

      Your logic is flawed. It doesn't make any sense.

      I can't even understand what you guys are talking about to be honest. Our mindset is totally different.

      I know that I can accomplish more by waking up at 5 AM every day, and this is why I'm doing this, that's the bottom line. Yes I make lots of money right now, but I could be making WAY MORE. It's logic 101 here. Anyways I'm going back to work.
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  • Myself and my husband have been waking up at 5:45am every morning for the last week and we work from 6am to 8am solidly ahead of our daughter waking up. These two hours are by far the most productive in my day. I get to finalise projects without my inbox growing, have a fresh mind and I basically can do more with my morning for excercise and my lifestyle without feeling like I am 'wasting' work time. I can't believe what a difference this has made in our work lives and we have noticed that it has allowed both of us to feel more organised and get more out of every day. In addition, due to the fact that I have clients all over the world getting up earlier allows me to speak or contact people in other timezones when they would otherwise be offline due to our business being based 'down under'. I am sticking to my 5:45am wake up and 6am start to my work day, it's absolutely changed my productivity and boosted the quality of my work.
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  • Day 12 ,13 & 14

    Everything is doing great. I feel like the habit is strong and I can't imagine myself waking up later than 5 AM anymore. You know to habit is getting strong when you associate a lot of pleasure with doing it and a lot of pain to not doing it.

    This is why a good exercise to build a good habit is to simply make a list of all the benefits of having the habit and all the disadvantages of it. What I like to do is restructure every single one of the disadvantages. This come from CBT therapy and it works. The mission is to change how you feel about the habit and the best way to accomplish that is by changing how you feel about it by changing how you think.

    Example:

    Benefits of Waking up early:
    -Increase my discipline
    -Puts me in a good state for the rest of the day
    -Get more done
    -I'm already in the zone when people are just waking up
    -Force me to go to bed early and not go out

    Disadvantages of waking up early
    -Have to go to bed early. New way of looking at it: This is good because it forces me not to go out.
    -Require a lit bit of effort at first.....Which is good because everything worthwhile require efforts at first.
    -Have to deal with other people. Lots of people trying to make me stop, have to argue with people all the time because they want to prove that it is useless...Which is perfect because it shows me which ones of the people that I know that understands success.

    If you do a list like this everyday for the habit you are going to change, your brain will start to make these associations automatically and it will be much easier to change the habit.

    One funny thing I've noticed by doing this challenge is how the hardest part is OTHER PEOPLE. It's actually insane how other people feel threatened when you are trying to do something.

    Ever heard that the 5 people you hang out the most with are a good representation of what you will become? Well, it is true. The reason is you will pick up their attitudes and their beliefs systems. If you go to a high school and hang out with people who think school is not important, chances are high you will start to see school as unimportant also...Why? Because you will hear them telling you REASONS why it is not important, without hearing reasons why it is important (Because you don't hang out with people who think it is important). This is why you need to choose who you hang out with.

    Since I wake up at 5 AM and I tell people about it, I've heard a lot of people telling me reasons why this idea is stupid. Here are a few things I heard
    -It is too early
    -You will do it for a while then stop, so why do it?
    -You will have to go to bed earlier so it is useless
    -You just need to be better at time management (which is funny because they know me and they know the lifestyle I have and how much money I make...and they are broke)

    When I made the decision to eat super healthy the same thing happened. Some people told me :
    -Why live this way? You won't enjoy life
    -You won't be able to do it long term

    Look, these people are not trying to hurt me, it is just human nature to express how you feel about something. The problem when you hang out with people that are not successful is they are going to influence how you think. You have to be aware of that or you will be easily influenced by them without even realizing it.

    The bottom line is this: when you have a goal you have to block all the negative bullshit and focus on the positive. You have to remember that only a small % of people are successful out there, so you will have to block a lot of noise.

    Rule of thumb: the people that are trying to make you quit are the people that feel uncomfortable with you having success. People telling you not to eat clean are people that are out of shape, etc.
  • Day 15 to 23

    I was really busy these days so I didn't do any updates on this 30 days challenge, but everything is going great!

    Most of the times I wake up 5 minutes before my first alarm and I'm fully awake. At this point I would have to force myself to go back to sleep! This is huge progress because when I started I was REALLY tired when I woke up at 5 AM.

    Productivity wise, I accomplish more since I started doing this. For me, it is really hard to be productive after 6 pm for some reason....Even when I did, I was not fully focused and it was basically a waste of time.... Even if I woke up at 10 AM for example, after 6 PM it was really hard to work, so it didn't leave me a lot of time to work and get stuff done. This is why waking up at 5 AM makes me more productive...When it is 6 PM, I've already accomplished so much and now I can fully relax.

    Since I started this 30 days challenge a lot of people told me that everybody have the same amount of hours in their day and that waking up early doesn't change anything.

    I don't agree at all. It is all about the psychology. As I said, most people have a really hard time being productive after 6 PM (and some people have a hard time but they are convinced they are able to do it...but that's another story..). When you wake up early, it's like if you are smarter with your energy. Being productive is all about using your energy properly. It is about focusing 100% of your energy at the task at hand, whether it is work or relaxing, and for some reason when I wake up early it is easier for me to do that.

    I'm going to continue until day 30 and probably that I'm not going to wake up at 5 AM during the weekend, but I'm definitely going to continue to wake up early during the week.
  • successful people wake up early so that they can work out or exercise. It's not just naut being being healthier, research has shown that a good workout or exercise in the morning is a great way to prepare your body for the day and get a handle on your stress later in the day.
  • Dat 24 to 30

    I had no problems getting up at 5 AM...Honestly this is one of the best thing I've done in my life. I was way more productive while waking up at 5 AM every single day of the week. My only concern with this is could someone do this long term? As I said before, the hardest part was to say no to a lot of things. I would get invited to go somewhere and I had to say no because I had to be in bed at a certain time so I can wake up at 5 AM the next day.

    It's basically hard to function in a society in which pretty much everybody DOESN'T wake up super early. You will feel a huge social pressure on you. Lots of people will tell you that this is useless (mostly people that are not successful in life anyways).

    The only part that I didn't like was to wake up super early during the week-ends to be honest....I like to go out once in a while and during this 30 days challenge I was not able to do it. Was I more productive with my business? Absolutely. Did I maintain healthy relationships during that time? Probably not. I did not hang out a lot with my friends to be honest.

    Now that 100% of my income is online and I can pretty much wake up when I want to, I need to figure a way to have a certain balance in my life. I think I will continue to wake up at 5 AM during the week but wake up much later during the week-end. This will allow me to go out if I want to.

    Overall I highly recommend everybody to try this. It will definitely increase your productivity...It's quite funny because the same people that told me that this challenge was useless are those that have jobs. They basically have NO FREEDOM in their life. They have to be at the office at a certain time, they can't take a day off, they have to ask their boss etc...They trade they time for money....They see me and ask themselves : why the hell would you wake up at 5 AM if you don't need to?

    That't the main thing. With internet marketing, you work hard for a certain period of time and then the money keeps coming in. What you create is called passive income. Even when you are not working, the money keep coming in.

    The problem with passive income is you have to build a system to make it happen and it is not that easy. You have to work hard for a while to make it work, and almost nobody is wiling to walk the talk. You know how many of my friends are into online marketing? A LOT. You know how many of them are making money? Only a few. Why? Because most people think that online marketing is easy. And the reality is that yes it is quite easy but you still have to work. Also, It's not for everybody because nobody is going to tell you what to do. You are your own boss. You make your own hours and you manage yourself. When you manage yourself, it is REALLY EASY to just watch youtube videos all day and get nothing done.

    This is why I'm so hard on myself. I know what it takes to make it work. I didn't achieve to make six figures in a short period by not working hard. I literally outworked every single person that I personally know.

    The same people that told me I was crazy to do this are the same people that don't enjoy the freedom that I have now. Now that I have multiple streams of income from multiples sources, I could literally just travel all around the world and do nothing all day.

    That's what true freedom is all about. It's the ability to take action. It's the ability produce something worthwhile that will benefit you for a long time.
  • .
    I have a little ritual I find productive - I call it No PIE. For one hour when I get to my desk I don't do phone, Internet or email. I tackle a job I put off yesterday and clean it up, _no matter what_. Then I 'reward' myself with checking my email etc.
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    • I worked a 3AM shift for a number of years. I felt more productive since I was free in the afternoons. I stopped watching primetime TV which is a waste of time anyway.
  • Hey guys, I love this discussion as I've been waking up at 4:30 AM for over three years now. It's all because I wanted to make a drastic change to improve my life and feel better.

    I'm thinking of building a website around early morning routines. When you talk to your friends about early morning routines, what do you say? What do you think is the biggest problem around creating and maintaining early morning routines?
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  • The real challenge is not waking up at 5am. Its going to bed at 9pm.
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    • So true! Going to bed at a regularly scheduled time has been a challenge for me. Do you have any recommendations on how to overcome this problem?
  • Sounds interesting. I want to see how this will work for me
  • Hi Mvalmont
    Basically I have to post everyday (30 days) when I woke up to get the challenge? And
    I could not found that app in app store or even in internet.
  • This post is empowering it literally forced me to create my own 30-Day challenge starting tomorrow! From now on also, I will make my challenge public so that my friends and other relatives will get to remind me of my improvements. It may look like a hidden bomb in the sand, but it's cool and I succumb to it though!

    After assessment, however, I found out I'm more productive at 6:30 am.

    Below, I attached a picture of my planned activity for the weekdays. In my case, since I work full time here in KSA, our workdays are from Sunday to Thursday. Base from what I learned from one of the posts here in WarriorForum, I will apply the 20-80 rule of hard work. Meaning only 20% of my actual labor job produce 80% of my fully accomplished tasks. So, I will concentrate those full blast productivity period from 8:00am to 10:00 am.

    My main focus for this 30-Day challenge is to finish 4 core goals that I've been struggling very hard to be CONSISTENT at (although I know deep inside me I really can do it but time and consistency are my waterloo):

    1) Online Marketing - making my first dollar online
    2) Blog Contents - traffic generation
    3) Filling Up My Well - reading, reading, and reading
    4) Finish my Long-Due E-book - which I was writing since 9 months ago!

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    • Amazing!

      It doesn't really matter what time you wake up, 5, 6, 6:30, you have to find what works best for you.

      As of right now I'm waking up at 9am because of my current lifestyle (I'm going out a lot)
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    Waking up at 5 AM: My 30 days Challenge

    I'm going to Wake up at 5 AM for the next 30 days. Why? Because I feel more productive in the morning. It is a well known fact that a lot of the most successful people in the world wake up early. They do it because they know they can produce more when they wake up early. There is something about waking up early that is hard to explain...You accomplish so much more during the day it is quite crazy. I've actually never met ONE SINGLE PERSON that wakes up late that is successful in life. Quite the opposite, all of the people that I know that wake up late are all unorganized, have no purpose in life...they are basically not successful.