5 AM Club - Robin Sharma mentions the importance of rising early in almost all of his books/speeches/blog etc. I tried to join the 5 AM club before with little success. I was very inconsistent and eventually stopped it. Steve Pavlina suggested a simple but powerful tip in this blog post How to Become an Early Riser, which helped me to wake up at 6 AM daily for about 6 months until I came back to India.
Early Rising Tip: Go to bed when You’re sleepy (and only when you’re sleepy) and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time (7 days per week). The catch is - irrespective of when you go to bed, you always wake up at a fixed time. No excuses. The first few days will be tough and you may feel tired throughout the waking hours. Once your brain realizes that there will be no sleep after the fixed time, it will push you to sleep early. The natural cycle of sleep will set in. I had 100% success with this technique.
48 Day Challenge: Starting today, I am going to wake up at 5 AM daily (irrespective of weekends, travels, party, night outs). Why 48 days?. It counts to one Mandalam. Though there is religious interpretation/usage of Mandalam for doing poojas, it was originally developed by Siddhars as a measure of time for medication. If you do any specific task at a specific time consistently for 48 days, it becomes a habit. So, I choose to wake up daily at 5 AM for 48 days - to make this a permanent habit for me. If I miss a day, I will restart from Day 1.
PS: You may see many references on the internet that 21 days is enough to forge a habit. Since I am going to do this for the rest of my life, I chose 48 days for my experiment.
It’s not the waking up time that makes you successful, but what you do in those extra hours does. So, We need a plan to utilize those extra hours to work towards your goals or passion or health or acquiring more knowledge or improving meditation skills etc. Here is what I planned for the extra hours.
My Morning List:
This is not a final list of tasks. I will keep changing the tasks or reorganize it as per my needs in the course of time. I decided to spend 2 hrs compulsory for myself in the morning and additional time as the day permits. You can prepare your own list. If lists overwhelm you, just do one simple thing like, listen to soothing music, learn an art, go to gym, learn yoga, learn meditation, watch the sunrise, go for a walk in the beach, walk in the grass in barefoot, write a poem etc., - Do whatever that makes you happy, as the first thing in the morning. Get it?
We, humans, tend to drift away from our goals every now and then, right. I do. So, I need to have a Not-To-Do list as well, to keep me focused on my To-Do list.
I may find some other distractions to my To-Do list in the coming 48 days. I will add them to the Not-To-Do list and keep a focus on my goals.
I am beginning to feel contentment with myself, happy with my life (Thanks to Sangavi). A thought of unknown origin tells me - It’s time to give back. But, I don’t know what to give or how to give. I am searching for a meaning for my life, even though my conscious atheist self, says that there is no meaning. I want to organize my lifestyle and channel my energy in proper ways so I may find many excellent & exciting ideas/opportunities that my entire life would not be enough to complete them. Feeling excited as I write this.
PS: Today I woke up at 4.47 AM and did tasks 0 - 5 :)
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