How getting up earlier has changed my life

01 Aug How getting up earlier has changed my life

The 5am Club

Some of you know I’ve recently read a book called The 5am Club by Robin Sharma, it sounds like such a cliche but this book has actually changed my life. For as long as I can remember I’ve struggled with sleep and getting up in the morning. I would drag myself out of bed, still tired and only really wake up when I was the right side of a shower and two large cups of coffee. I always intended to go to bed early and catch up on sleep, but somehow I never did, and if I had a lie in at the weekend I’d feel even worse. I was pretty much permanently exhausted.

Then I read The 5am Club. Now I’m not going to pretend I’m following the book to the letter here, because I’m not. For a start, for me it’s the 5.30am Club! However, I’ve come up with my own version of a morning routine, which 6 weeks in is working very, very well and I can’t believe how much difference its made.

The first hour of the day:

The idea of the book is to have an hour first thing in the morning where you do specific things to get yourself in the best frame of mind for the day, waking up your mind and body. The formula is 20 minutes of exercise/hydration/breathing, 20 mins of meditation/journalling/planning and 20 minutes of growth/learning/reviewing goals .The idea of doing this so early in the morning is that it will generally be quiet and you can focus without distraction. I won’t go into any more details here, but if this interests you I’d highly recommend you read the book and then find your own ideal morning routine.

My morning routine:

The alarm goes off at 5.30am, I either take my dog for a walk or do 20 minutes of Yoga (either from You Tube of doing my own thing) and drink some water. I’ll try to do this very mindfully, if I’m in the house nobody else is up and if I go out for a walk there’s not usually anyone else around so its easier to be lost in your own world! I then do some meditation, usually a quick guided meditation from an app or You Tube and write in my journal. My journal entries will be thoughts of the day, whatever comes to me but will always have some gratitude practice in there to focus on the good things. I’ll then find something to watch or read which will teach me something. This will generally be something business or therapy related for me but it doesn’t have to be. Anything that stimulates the brain is good!

I can honestly say the hour flies by and when I’ve finished I feel refreshed and motivated.

The 90 minutes “get it all done” morning session:

So by the time I’ve done all this its 6.30am. I’ll then go get a cup of coffee and go into my office and start work for the day. Being the owner of Poppy Therapies means doing lots of lovely therapy treatments but it also means I’m the accountant, marketing consultant, website maintenance operative, purchasing clerk, cleaner, tea lady and general lackey so there’s always lots to do behind the scenes. This used to get done through the day in between treatments, with varying degrees of efficiency! Now it all gets done in the mornings, in the hour and a half before 8am. I then go get a shower, have breakfast and walk the dog before I start the day, which could be doing treatments at home or out visiting care homes. Any down time through the day now means I can catch up with the house, get the evening meal started or just relax! I’ve basically created myself an extra day a week just from a 90 minute working session each morning from 6.30am.

My evening routine:

Obviously getting up early means going to bed early, and here’s where I’ve learnt something else that’s surprised me. I’ve always struggled with quality of sleep and getting up in the mornings, a firm believer that I wasn’t getting enough sleep. So I started getting into bed at 9.30pm, reading and relaxing (no phone scrolling etc) and settling down to sleep at 10pm. I did this every night and started sleeping much better, and after a week or so I started waking up naturally at just before 5.30am. Turns out my body needs seven and a half hours sleep, and if I sleep longer than that I feel more tired. As a lifelong insomniac this was life changing!

So that’s my routine Monday to Friday, what about the weekend?

At the weekends I don’t do it. The book will tell you it takes 66 days for something to become a regular habit, but also you only have to do it 5 days a week to make it stick. Because I’m getting so much done through the week its made my weekends my own (many self employed business owners do all their admin at the weekend, and so did I!) so I’ll go to bed a bit later and get up a bit later. But… what I’ve found is my body seems to have trained itself for seven and a half hours sleep so no matter what time I go to bed, that’s how long I sleep for. And once I wake up, I get up so I have so much more time at the weekend as well.

So there it is. My morning recipe for juggling a business and family life. I hope you’ve found some inspiration in this post, if you’ve enjoyed it give it a like (little heart at the bottom) and let me know if you’ve decided to try it and how you’re getting on.

© Carol Bailey 2024