Skip to main content

The 5am Club


"All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and so gorgeous at the end." Robin Sharma
Thanksgiving weekend 2019, I finally bought Robin Sharma's book The 5am Club. I had the book on my reading list for about a year. I had heard Robin Sharma on a YouTube video and had been inspired to recommit to getting up at 5am. Although, I am not a morning person by nature and in fact, I am more of a night owl, I have gone through two periods in my life where getting up at 5 am has made a significant and positive difference in my life and I just knew that buying and reading the book would help motivate me to get up at 5 am consistently, not sporadically as I have been doing for the past few years. 
In 2003 I gained over 40 pounds during my pregnancy. A year after my son was born I resolved to lose the weight I had gained. I had a 7 am to 3:30 pm schedule at the time, that meant I had to get up at 4:30 am every morning to work out before work. In less than a year I lost the weight and felt great, the change felt "gorgeous at the end" (as Robin Sharma's quote above states). Then life happened and getting up at the break of dawn didn't happen for another 10 years. 
At the end of 2013, after my husband and I had filed bankruptcy and had gone through a perfect storm, I learned Transcendental Meditation (TM). For almost 2 years after that, almost every day (weekends were the exclusion), I would wake up at 5 am to practice my "morning ritual". My morning ritual consisted of my first alarm going off at 4:30 am and then being up at 5 am to do my TM, do an hour of reading while sipping my morning latte which I so enjoyed and then doing an hour of exercise (usually a jog) all before having to get ready for being at work by 8 am. It was so difficult to consistently get up at 5 am in the beginning the road, the change was difficult. However, after just 6 months of consistently having my morning ritual, I loved it and felt so "in the flow" of life. Then, somewhere along the road (2016 or so) I backslid, no more waking at the break of dawn (consistently i.e. daily).
I have now been on a 3 year journey to try and get back into my morning ritual and I swore to myself that buying and reading The 5 am Club was going to be my motivating factor. Sadly, since Thanksgiving weekend, although I have had some 5 am risings they are definitely not every day and it is definitely not a habit yet, I am far from the "gorgeous end". This journey however has been a reminder of how much (I believe) our level of discipline, commitment and will power can be impacted by our ingrained beliefs and emotional imprinting. I am just saying that changing habits can be really, really hard for some of us. I am not making excuses and I am also OK if someone feels that I am. I am not giving up, I am determined to consistently (daily) have a morning ritual again. I am starting  to think though that the 6 am club might be a better fit for me 😅

As always, please visit my website to learn more about my upcoming events and workshops in Santa Barbara, CA

www.vidaconsultingservices.com
www.vida805.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Rubber Hits the Road

“Life's challenges can either make you or break you. Let them make you ". Billy Cox I wrote in a prior blog post that enjoying the journey of Life entails several things including, "...dealing with obstacles, struggles, challenges, losses and curve balls as they come but not letting them keep us down..."  Back in April of 2018, when I started my blog post and wrote those words, when I was getting my new business project Vida805 off the ground and was getting ready to self-publish my book, my Life changed drastically. That's an understatement, it was more like a major curve ball came my way. I was truly blindsided by Life's circumstances. I am not sure if I am ready to process all of what happened and how it has affected my life and the lives of so many other people. Not because I am not ready to disclose the details, I have been open about it (there was no way not to be) with family, friends and acquaintances but more so because I am still processing i...
2 comments
Read more

Improve or Play?

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” ― E. B. White If ever there was a quote that I can 100% relate to, it is this one. Actually, I have a long list of quotes that just hit me in the gut with the truth they speak (to me) but I do love this one from Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White. I have noticed that I have always had this battle going on in my life, since age 18 when I decided to be a professional social worker. “Work hard, play hard” was another way that I lived this quote and all through my teenage year to early thirties, I did just that. As the years have gone by I have realized that my desire to improve the world and play has not diminished, try as I may. And believe me I have tried not to care about improving anything but myself. But my compassionate heart (sometimes I think “Yeah thanks Mom” in a sarcastic way) and the “rescuer” in me always seems to rem...
1 comment
Read more

Playing In Puddles

 â€œWhen life throws you a rainy day, play in the puddles” Pooh Bear I am a couple months away from playing in the puddles of yet another rainy year (2021) figuratively speaking. Fortunately, my last rainy year, more like storm was in 2018, so it has been a minute since I’d seen the rain. In early 2023, I will officially become a traveling therapist, a few months behind schedule but being I have a very flexible schedule these days it’s not a big deal at all, it was just my antsy pants that wanted it to be sooner. I will be working on my existing business (psychotherapy) by doing a deep deep dive into trainings and certifications that will allow me to be of utmost service to the clients I serve. I will also be contributing to the nonprofit I run by researching alternative treatments/modalities across the US and possibly the world. I will be working on building my new business which entails a certain level of social advocacy for young men and I will be traveling and having fun along th...
Post a Comment
Read more