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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

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