A Slacker's 5AM Club Experiment

I’m not a type A personality. I’m not a driven, ambitious, go-getter entrepreneur. I tend to go with the flow and take the slower path. It’s my personality and always has been. I have achieved. I have a Master’s Degree and been successful in two careers, on the way to a third. But I did it in my time and while being driven may have helped, I often still voted for sleep over killing myself for a task or project. 

I’m not the type of person to be attracted to the 5AM Club or Robin Sharma. Sharma seems like a type A personality. He seems like the guy who would enjoy spinning especially if the instructor did a lot yelling. That’s just my impression. Wikipedia says he was a litigation lawyer who gave it up at 25 to write self-help motivational books that help people achieve not only career success but personal emotional and spiritual balance. He has written 12 books including MegaLiving and the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. He has his own coaching business. Sharma Leadership International. He’s the kind of person I want to spend exactly zero time with. I’m sure he’s great and people love him but he is not my type of people and we would not get along. Seriously it’s very hard to roll my eyes at the word MegaLiving. No, just no. 

His 2018 book, The 5AM Club: Own your Morning, Elevate Your Life (which just the title has so many words that send me running) has been making the rounds in the interwebs with people trying his methods for starting the day and achieving success. 

DISCLAIMER: I have not read the book. I watched a youtube video (embedded above) which summarized the book. Gave me the basics. So if I have things wrong, we should blame the video. If this method works after one month, I’ll read the whole book. 

What’s the method? The first horrifying piece is waking up at 5 AM. There are specific ways to spend that first hour of the day according to Sharma. You want to engage your Physical Well-being, Spiritual Well-being and Mental Well-being. 

5:00 – 5:20 Move, preferably sweat. Do a workout or yoga, something to wake the body up. 

5:20 – 5:40 Reflect. Journal or meditate, but reflect on your life day, progress, etc. 

5:40 – 6:00 Learn. Listen to a podcast or read a book or increase your education about something you are interested in. 

Already I’m seeing some problems because there’s no transition time built in, like putting on workout gear. I’m sure Sharma’s response would be well wake-up at 4:45 AM to put on your work out clothes so you can work out at 5am. But already I’m going to make some changes. 

Yes, I’m going to do this 5am, own the morning business for 30 days to see if it changes my life, brings me wealth and glory, improves my physical fitness, heals my mental health issues, brings me the love of my life and grows my power like the grapes that thrive on the vine (to quote Encanto). Why when it’s everything I hate? Cause right now my life is not on track to achieve anything I want. I’m barely job searching, I’m gaining weight, not losing, my nutrition is not in control, I have no income and no forward path and no real purpose at the moment. If that’s where I am getting up at 9am, maybe I could stand to get up at 5am. 

Will joining the 5AM Club help change a slacker’s routines and habits to be more productive, healthy and achieve the things I want? Maybe? Let’s try it and see what happens. 

My modifications. 

5:00 Wake-up

5:15 – 5:55 Go for a walk while listening to a podcast. I’m combining move and learning so 40 minutes for that. 

6:00 – 6:30 Tea, Journal & planner. Reflect on this process or whatever I want to and look at the calendar for the day ahead. 

6:30 – 7:30 Breakfast and get ready for the day

7:30 – 8:00 Start the work/job search day. 

I’m unemployed and can afford the flexibility. I think any process or method or routine needs to work for you as an individual. This plan will work with me I think and still I will have achieved a great deal before I was even awake on any other day. So Day 1 today. Let's do this thing.