The 5 AM Club 66 Days Challenge – Week 4

Three wonderful weeks have passed since I started the 5AM Club journey. And with that, the first third of the 66 Days Challenge. As Robin mentions in his book, I have finished the “Destruction” part, where I destroyed my old habits, and just entered the “Installation” phase. In this new phase, I am going to install the new habit. This is the messy part of the journey. After another 22 days, I will enter the last phase which is “Integration” part, where it will be easier to wake up at 5AM than not to .

All professionals began as amateurs, and every master was once a beginner.

Robin Sharma, The 5AM Club

If you want to read my journey through the first 3 weeks, you can go to the following links, however, a short summary of the past week follows.

The 5 AM Club 66 Days Challenge – Week 1

The 5 AM Club 66 Days Challenge – Week 2

The 5 AM Club 66 Days Challenge – Week 3

Summary of Week 3

Last week I worked on my fears. More precisely, on recognizing the fears, see them and trying to deconstruct them. I also took the decision to change my career to entrepreneurship, and I will enroll in a master in business and entrepreneurship in August. So, only from this point of view alone, I can say that my week has been really productive. Here is a list with the things I did, that I am happy with myself for doing (or a little bit proud, if I may say that):

• woke up at 5AM without any hesitation, and without the alarm in the last 2 days
• went for 20 minutes walks out in the cold weather (-20 degrees centigrade – Celsius-) with the teenage daughter of a friend.
• introduced a 13 years old teenage to Robin Sharma’s meditations and his book
• became aware of my fears and acting on them
• make the decision to change my career
• realize that not all decisions have to be the right ones, and it is ok if I fail – that is the way to improve
• realize and practice to not justify my actions to people around me
• avoid negative people and look for win-win relationships

Day 22

Today is the first day of week 4. In his book, Robin talks about the sleep cycles, and how it is benefic for us to wake up between one of them. In that way, we will not feel tired when we wake up. He says that for a good quality sleep, we need to sleep 5 cycles of 90 minutes each. This means 7 hours and a half. In the past days, I started to pay more attention to my sleep cycles. I realized that I always wake up around 4:12AM (3 days in a row I look at the clock and it was exactly that time). So, today I decided to actually act on it, and wake up. I felt very awake, however not ready to start training so early. Instead I read from my book until 4:50AM, then got ready for my workout routine that started at 5AM.

Regarding the workout routine, Robin mentions in his book that we need to sweat when we train, in order to release some hormones or something like that. I don’t remember the names, and the reason for that is that the names are not important for me. My workout routines have not been that sweaty so far. I plan to change that this week. I do have a treadmill in my living room, but I avoid to use it that early in the morning, in fear of not waking up my neighbors. I’ll find something else that is a little bit hard-core.

For the next week I plan to focus more on the “I don’t need to explain myself” and “not all decisions need to be the best ones”. Of course I still want to make the best decisions, but this should not be in my way of doing things. Sometimes risks need to be taken in order to achieve awesome success. And if I fail … what so? What is the worst that can happen? Can’t I fix it? I think I can, and I will.

Days 23 & 24

It’s weekend again. Which means no morning alarm for me. Based on my experience from last week, I have decided that I will continue waking up at 5 AM during the weekend as well. I have not done that. I had more of a socializing weekend, so I went to bed between 9:30 and 10 PM, both on Friday evening when I had my dinner date with my boyfriend, and on Saturday evening when I had a girls pizza night – ish. I know it sounds lame when I say that I stayed late, until 10 PM, but that is already 1 hour past my bed time 🙂 And I had one beer on Friday (cider), and a sip from a glass of red wine on Saturday. Not bad.

Saturday (day 23) I woke up at 5:30 and I started my day by reading the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. Then I trained for 15 minutes- ish and jumpend on the trampoline 🙂 I took the rest of the day off.

Sunday I woke up at 6AM, but stayed in bed until 6:30AM. That did not make me feel good. I look forward to waking up again at 4:12AM on Monday. I actually look forward to Monday morning. Wow. That is what I call progress. I spent the rest of the day reading from my book, writing here, and searching for learning new skills possibilities for me.

Day 25

It is MONDAY , 5 AM !!! yeeey! I actually was looking forward to this day. It’s the beginning of a new awesome week. Let’s see what new things I am going to accomplish today.

As I expected, it was not so easy to wake up this morning. Easier than last Monday though. I made 2 mistakes last night:

1. Alhtough I was in bed by 20:18, I used my phone until 21:20.
2. Although I was not on social media or chatting, I was listening to rock and roll music, which did not help me fall asleep faster after that.

So, lessons learned from last night? I should really keep the routine of not using any electronic devices after 20:00, and definitely not listening to rock&roll music before going to bed. I was asleep before 10 though, which is not that bad in the end, but I only got 7 hours of sleep instead of the 8. Interestingly enough, I still got up at 4:10 AM. I guess this is the right time for my body and brain to wake up in the morning. I should listen to them.

What you do each day matters far more than what you do once in a while. Consistency really is a key ingredient of mastery.

Robin Sharma, The 5AM Club

This week I will find a new skill to develop and master. I will dedicate one hour per day for it. A new skill or an old dying one. My thoughts now are either I start learning how to program, or I start getting deeper into cooling technologies and heat pumps (this is the area of my PhD at the moment). I am still considering other skills. I want to come up with a list of 5 skills, by the end of this week, and decide on one, which I will stick with it for the next 12 months. 12 months means 52 week. 52 weeks means 364 days, which will translate into 364 hours. If I divide that by 8 hours per day (that being a normal working hour), I get 46 days of full time job (45.5 in reality). This translates to 9 weeks of working full time. That is 2 months.

So, the question here is: if you would work 2 months, full time, on a specific domain, would you be able to become an expert? Most probably not, depending on the complexity of your new skill. But, small incremental steps, towards a goal, are always valuable. If I would choose to improve on a skill that I already have, I can see how I can notice a difference at the end of the year, however, if I start with a new skill (like programming), I would probably need more than 1 hour per day, to call myself an expert. Probably even more than 8 hours per day, for an entire year.

I know that my sister’s boyfriend, who is a programmer, will disagree with me on this one. He says that I would need no more than 6 months of full time studying programming in order to be at a level where people will hire me to do this job. We even made a bet: I get a vacation to Tenerife paid by him, if I do his little experiment. He wants to prove that his theory is right. My sister gets a Tesla if she does that.

Day 26

Everything unfolds as it should.

R.S., The 5AM Club

This is the motto for the day. I finally received my flower boxes, so today I am buying flowers, chocolates and make 3 different flower boxes. Then I take photos of them (3 different sizes), and finally finish my online store. It is an awesome day. My boyfriend bought a printer last night, so I can print logo labels now. He is so thoughtful. Sometimes it scares me, but I am working on myself to getting used to that.

My new skills list is in continuing updating. So far I got:

• programming
• content writing
• cooling technologies/heat pumps
• …
• …

I have 2 more spots to fill until the end of this week. I was tempted to write marketing or sales, as I need those skills for my new business, but those are MANDATORY to develop, they don’t get to be on my extra new skills list.

I added content writing, because I am passionate about baking, and cooking in general, and I have a blog about that, that I have neglected in a long time. I am not a good writer, so I have had different authors throughout the years writing on my blog, but maybe it is time for me to take over as well. With all of this 5AM Club, I feel confident that even the skill of writing I would be able to develop and improve.

Day 27

I started my day at 4:45. By 5AM I was already up and running on the treadmill. I am alternating the treadmill training with sit ups and squats. Today it was the treadmill day. I walk at the highest inclination angle, which is 15 degrees, and at a pace of 5.3 km/h, for 20 minutes. I burned around 250 -ish calories. I will steadily increase the pace to 7 km/h, and probably even start running (I am trying not to make too much noise in the morning, because by 5AM, both kids are in my bedroom, which is super close to the treadmill.

Yesterday I went shopping for flowers and chocolates for my new boxes. I planned to prepare 3 gift boxes, take photos and be ready with my online shop, but it didn’t happened. I spent 2 hours and 30 minutes shopping, and that exhausted me completely. Part because I don’t enjoy going shopping (no more than 30 minutes), and part of the cold weather (-20 degrees centigrade). I had a moment when I was about to start complaining about the fact that I was feeling miserable, but I noticed just in time to chance my mindset. Instead I told to myself: today I learned that I am not at my best when I go shopping for longer periods of time. In the future, I either buy online, or will hire someone to do the shopping for me.

Today’s plan is to make 3 gift boxes, and find new suppliers for Ferrero Rocher chocolate candies (apparently all the shops in the city ran out of them, all at the same time). My boxes will look really nice with that type of chocolate.

Another lesson applied yesterday, was that throughout the day, I had several moments when I wanted to give up on my new business. It is not easy, and when you lose so much time and still can’t solve a problem, I get demotivated. In those moments I then repeated to myself what R.S. mentions several times in his book: when you feel like giving up, it is then when you have to keep going (I am paraphrasing him right now). And also that successful people do things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do. The unsuccessful me really did a lot of things that I didn’t like to do yesterday. So, that counts for a winning day for me.

My boyfriend made dinner for us last night. He knows how to cook, although he keeps telling me that “he is improving”. I still have to get the hand out of his culture. It is the first time I am dating someone that has a different nationality than mine. He is Norwegian.

Day 28

Good morning. This is the last day of week 4. Four weeks of the 5AM Club (although, just day 16 ish or so, since I actually wake up from 5, but still day 28 since I am doing the 20/20/20 – ish routine). Do I feel like a different person? Not really. It is still the same me. However, I feel more relaxed, my self-confidence increased, and I am not that stressed. And now that I started to work more on my start-up, I really can see its benefits. This routine is perfect for me. Is it messy in the middle? Oh, yes, it is! It’s awful, I love it!

I had a different type of morning today. My daughter woke up right before I finished my move part, to ask me if I will make breakfast in bed for her today as well, and if so, if I could bring her mandarins and warm milk. Then I stayed in bed with her until she fell asleep. I used this time to meditate. I must say that looking at my kids while they sleep, beats Robin Sharma’s meditation. My heart just filled with gratitude. No amount of words that Robin would have tried to use couldn’t have gotten me to that point. Gratitude is a very special feeling. I am thankful I can experience it. After she fell asleep I went to the living room, and started to listen to Robin’s meditation. It was my son’s turn to wake up. He sat next to me, and we started to meditate together. This is awesome. Then we read together (each one of us their own book). It was the perfect morning.