The Ungodly Hour: Description of my first day doing the 5 AM Club — Part 1 of 2
Contents
1. Introduction: The 5 AM Club and why try it?
4. Morning routine part One: Body
The rest of the story can be found under this link.
Introduction: The 5 AM Club and why try it?
Have you ever heard of the book “The 5AM Club” by Robin Sharma? The book ties the personal development story of its main characters to detailed instructions for improving one’s habits to live a fulfilling life. The way the book suggests doing it is via — you guessed it — waking up at 5AM.
Getting up at 5 AM is only a small part of the big story, though. The morning routine of 5 AM Club entails taking the first hour of every day just to yourself — taking care of your body, your mind, your heart and your soul. Simply put, the first hour of the day should be divided into the following three slots:
· 20 min of taking care of your BODY — exercise,
· 20 min of taking care of your SOUL and HEART — self-reflection and planning,
· and 20 min of taking care of your MIND — learning something new.
Being a person that loves sleeping, I hesitantly still decided to give the 5 AM club a try. I’m in a unique situation of having just quit my job to take a career break and thus having a lot of free time in hand. Despite loving the newly found peaceful rhythm, I can feel how days pass by without me getting much done. To me, the worst feeling after another free day is to remember what big plans I had for my career break but failing to achieve any of the goals I set. So, I am now looking to bring some more structure into my days.
My experience from this experiment might differ from that of a lot of other people, mainly through having the privilege of time. I don’t have a 9–5 job, children, family members to take care of, time-consuming hobbies or responsibilities.
However, I do share the fear of an alarm clock going off at 5 am with many of you. In addition, I’m not in the best mental state, having just had a severe burnout which contributed to quitting my last job. There are some reflections and on my past and
So, despite scary and challenging, I’m hoping that the benefits of this experiment help me to get back on track, both physically and mentally.
The night before
03:00–04:20 am — The alarm clock is set to 5 AM. I wake up repeatedly throughout the night, wondering if it’s already time to get out of bed. Each time checking my watch I’m grateful that it’s not 5 AM yet but at the same time I am a bit worried whether I’ll actually get out of bed once the alarm clock goes off!
You see, it’s not my first day attempting to start the day with 5 AM Club. I also set the alarm clock to 5 AM two days ago. However, I turned off the alarm before going to bed because I couldn’t stop scrolling social network feeds until 2 AM. The same happened the day after. Yesterday, finally, I spent half an hour writing a journal contemplating whether at all I want to do this experiment and if so then what was holding me back.
I confirmed to myself that I do want to do it. That’s because after a long LONG break I again had goals to strive towards. I had the energy to reach for them and I had the TIME to work towards them.
Most importantly, though, over the past few years I had completely lost trust in myself and needed to regain that. During that time I had broken more promises to myself than I could count: be it starting to work out again, say “no” to unpaid overtime at work, give my parents a call regularly, learn the German language to improve my life in Munich, save money, you name it! I didn’t reach any of these goals despite constantly promising myself to do so. I now realized I need to regain at least a tiny bit of confidence in myself before my life can start to change for the better. And the only way of breaking out of the cycle I could think of was to wake up at 5 AM.
I don’t know if it was this pep talk and contemplation that helped or a fairly godmother or something else but on the third day when the alarm clock went off….
The first minute
05:00 am — I stand up!!! I don’t understand what’s going on, still half-asleep but I actually got up!
I’ve been preparing for this moment for several days. Maybe you have noticed yourself that a lot of things seem cool at 10 pm or 10 am, or even at 8 pm. However, the same things majorly suck at 5 am!
The 10 pm energising vision of yourself waking up early the next morning to take back control over your life and grow better habits feels like the stupidest idea on earth at 5 am.
Maybe you recognise your 5 am brain in the following monologue as well:
“Was that an ALARM? Are you INSANE? How does waking up at this ungodly hour help you ANY closer to ANYTHING? Just PLEASE get some sense into you and GO BACK TO SLEEP. There’s no point in spending the day being tired! I DON’T CARE what I said yesterday evening! I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly! Seriously, you can get MUCH better use of the day when you just GO BACK TO SLEEP for another couple of hours and–”
Kind of hard to argue with that!? Yes, it is. So, THE KEY to getting up despite all that is: to just get out of bed before getting to any of these thoughts. If you start bargaining with your brain before getting up, you’re much more likely to lose the argument.
So, I let out a sad sigh standing in the complete darkness, still feeling a bit confused about what’s going. I grab my workout clothes that I’ve put next to bed 3 days before and walk to the living room.
As the cracks on my phone would tell you, I’m one of the clumsiest people you’ll ever meet. So, I’m really content for not waking up my partner on my way out of the bedroom. Second win of the day already!
Despite being on the move, I’m feeling really sad at the same time. Really insecure — and negative about my future. Deep inside I’m convinced that this 5 AM routine will not help me in any way. Walking towards the living room, my inner monologue now sounds something to the lines of “The problem is in me and there’s nothing that would make me more productive. It’s just who I am. I’ll anyway not achieve my goals. There’s no point in trying the 5 AM club. Why would I even try? 5 AM Club is going to be another one of my failures. I’d better not tell anyone that I’m trying to do it, it would be too embarrassing to later admit that I failed.” Etc.
Also, just in case adding that I don’t live in a castle. My brain can easily create this length of a story during the 10 metre (30 feet) long journey to the living room.
Morning routine part one: Body
05:01 am — I “arrive” in the living room, change to workout clothes and decide to brush my teeth. Brushing teeth has been the first thing I do for years and I just can’t get to working out without it. In all honesty, excluding the brain bitching about myself I’m still largely asleep.
05:05 am — After 2 minutes of brushing with closed eyes, I feel a bit fresher, return to living room and open the laptop I placed on the coffee table the evening before, click on the workout video I had chosen for myself, step on the mat I had rolled out the evening before and start with a 18-minute workout routine. It’s not particularly hard but just challenging enough to break a bit of sweat! I haven’t been working out for months and really dislike the idea of starting now. I nevertheless start.
Throughout the workout, but especially in the beginning, I feel extremely bored and sad, the negative monologue still going on. I have the feeling in my throat of being close to tears. I can’t fully explain this feeling but the thoughts passing through my mind are related to how hard it is and to the thought that even if I got up today, it doesn’t mean that I will tomorrow or the day after… That my issue is bigger and nothing will help me. That I might have all the time in the world, but nothing will change the course of my life, especially not a couple of extra hours in the morning.
During the self-depreciation while doing sit-ups I suddenly remember a dream I had just before waking up.
It was quite an early morning; it was already light outside but still much earlier than I usually wake up. It was a day with a dense carpet of clouds over the sky. Carpet not so heavy as to make the day gloomy but thick enough to not let a single ray of sun through.
I walk into the small living room of our cosy attic apartment, a bright room with slightly too much furniture. Right there, in the middle of it, there’s a skinny woman standing, in her mid-thirties, long dark brown hair, wearing black skinny jeans and a black shirt. The clothes aren’t broken but they’re worn out. Her hair is a bit messy and really dry. She looks fine but somewhat unhealthy. She startles noticing me, obviously she had not been expecting me. She seems peaceful, yet nervous. Speaking fast, with short sentences and a quiet voice.
I ask who she is and how she got in but don’t get a clear answer. After a while though, I understand that she lives in our apartment building while being homeless at the same time. She’s secretly going from apartment to apartment, spending time in someone’s home during nights and going into hiding during daytime… She’s crawling through ventilation shafts, climbing from balcony to balcony, always being there without anyone noticing. As long as she doesn’t try to change anything, she’s never in severe danger — but she’s also never completely safe.
I don’t have a good feeling about her! I can’t help but think that there’s something more going on there, more than I can see. I feel uncomfortable but keep talking to her, not wanting to be rude, but at the same time can’t wait until she goes. I can sense she would get unpredictable, maybe even dangerous, when threatened or angered.
Finally, she leaves. She opens our balcony door, exits our living room, and jumps to another balcony from ours.
I quickly and securely close the door behind her and spend hours and hours looking for a place where she could have come in. I look for ventilation shafts, check for secret passages behind our furniture… Nothing. I talk to my boyfriend who doesn’t take me seriously and is not worried. I ask our neighbours if they know about the nervous lady, moving from apartment to apartment. They don’t recall anything. As if she doesn’t exist.
I’m relieved that she is gone, and the door is closed behind her. But at the same time, I’m nervous, not knowing how or when she’ll return…
I’m not sure if this dream symbolised anything and if yes, then what. In a way I think she symbolised some part of me that did not want to grow. A part of me that was trying to lure me into staying with my usual habits. Surviving but not striving. A part that was not particularly happy but not sad either, not very healthy but not unhealthy either, not extremely calm but also not very anxious… Was she my mediocrity that felt threatened? My low self-esteem that was worried of me starting to live my life in a way that I will be seen?
Whoever she was, I kicked her out… for now.
05:25 am— I finish the workout, slightly sweaty, still a bit sad, still really insecure. Again, the thought: even if I manage to keep this routine for today, it doesn’t mean that I will in the long run. I’ve started with so many habits and failed to keep them in the long term. I’ve broken so SO many promises with myself.
However, that voice is not as strong anymore as just 10 minutes ago. Trying to do the 5 AM club is a completely new territory for me. I still know I might fail in the long term but it doesn’t sound as dramatic anymore.
Yes, a part of me is afraid of making a change that would change my life.
At the same time, I’m even more scared of the thought of failing to change it.
Yes, a part of me is afraid of making a change that would change my life.
At the same time, I’m even more scared of the thought of failing to change it.
05:25 — It’s still completely dark outside. I finish the workout and decide to take a shower, not knowing if it can be part of the morning routine or I should postpone it to a later time. The temperature I choose is several degrees cooler than usual because I don’t want to get myself all sleepy again. I also keep the shower much shorter. I then put on the clothes I had laid out in the bathroom the evening before. It feel so good to have them ready.
I’m feeling slightly proud of myself. Taking a shower may sound like a small thing. However, getting it done and getting dressed in 10 minutes is a huge win for me. In the previous part I wrote about not trusting myself because of constantly breaking agreements I’ve made with myself. Showering belonged to one of the tasks I had the tendency to dread and procrastinate. It is typical of me to first spend two hours thinking about having to have a shower — while continuing scrolling on Instagram. I’d then go to the bathroom and sit on the floor there for another 30 minutes, continuing scrolling and getting mentally ready. Then, I’d finally have the shower and dry myself off, thinking that it was actually quite nice and that I don’t understand why I’m always procrastinating. Next, I’d go to the living room and continue scrolling in my bathrobe until I’d get cold. After around 30 minutes of suffering I’d put on some clothes. So, showering and getting dressed in 10 minutes — huge win.
Looking back at it, I now know that I was low-key depressed and severly burnt out over the years prior to attempting the 5 AM club. I am now also aware that problems with personal hygiene are a common symptom of depression and burnout. So, in case anyone is going through something similar right now and needs to hear it: instead of pushing yourself to do better, this may instead be a sign of you trying too hard and mean that you need more compassion for yourself.
Anyhow..
— — — To be continued
Thank you for reading! The second part is now published here.
