Waking up at 5 AM: My 30 days Challenge
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.
Why am I doing this?
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.
happiness comes from progress
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.
Here are the tools that I am going to use to make it work
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.
Conclusion
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!
Business founder(thegrowth.school) & growth consultant.