In The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life, Canadian elite performance and leadership writer Robin Sharma describes the morning routine used by his clients to maximize their productivity, activate their best health and bulletproof their serenity in this age of overwhelming complexity.
Own your morning. Elevate your life.
Take excellent care of the front end of your day, and the rest of your day will pretty much take care of itself. Own your morning. Elevate your life.
Gargantuan results are much less about your inherited genetics and far more about your daily habits. And your morning ritual is by far the most essential one to calibrate. And then automate.
When we see the icons in action, the forceful seduction sold to us by our civilization is to believe they were always that great. That they were born into their exceptionalism. That they won the fortunate DNA lottery. That their genius was inherited. Yet the truth is that we are watching them in their full blazing glory after years of following a process, one that involved ceaseless hours of practice.
When we observe magnificent players in business, sport, science and the arts we are observing the earned results of a monomaniacal concentration around a single pursuit, astronomical focus on one skill, intensity of sacrifice applied to one aim, unusual levels of deep preparation and extreme amounts of solid patience. Remember, every professional was once an amateur, and every master started as a beginner. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary feats, once they’ve routinized the right habits.
The 5 AM Club
Rising at 5 AM truly is The Mother of All Routines. Joining The 5 AM Club is the one behavior that raises every other human behavior. This regimen is the ultimate needle mover to turn you into an undefeatable model of possibility. The way you begin your day really does determine the extent of focus, energy, excitement and excellence you bring to it. Each early morning is a page in the story that becomes your legacy. Each new dawn is a fresh chance to unleash your brilliance, unprison your potency and play in the big leagues of iconic results. You have such power within you and it reveals itself most with the first rays of daybreak.
Nothing beats going to sleep early each night with an unspoiled conscience and a mess-free heart.
Hard is Good
Hard is good. Real greatness and the realization of your inherent genius is meant to be a difficult sport. Only those devoted enough to go to the fiery edges of their highest limits will expand them. And the suffering that happens along the journey of materializing your special powers, strongest abilities and most inspiring ambitions is one of the largest sources of human satisfaction.
Pain is the doorway into deep.
Tragedy is nature’s great purifier. It burns away the fakeness, fear and arrogance that is of the ego. Returns us to our brilliance and genius, if you have the courage to go into that which wounds you. Suffering yields many rewards, including empathy, originality, relatability and authenticity.
We only hear what we’re ready to hear – All learning meets us exactly where we’re at. And as we grow greater, we understand better.
RULE #1
An addiction to distraction is the end of your creative production. Empire-makers and history-creators take one hour for themselves before dawn, in the serenity that lies beyond the clutches of complexity, to prepare themselves for a world-class day.
RULE #2
Excuses breed no genius. Just because you haven’t installed the early-rising habit before doesn’t mean you can’t do it now. Release your rationalizations and remember that small daily improvements, when done consistently over time, lead to stunning results.
RULE #3
All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. Everything you now find easy you first found difficult. With consistent practice, getting up with the sun will become your new normal. And automatic.
RULE #4
To have the results The Top 5% of producers have, you must start doing what 95% of people are unwilling to do. As you start to live like this, the majority will call you crazy. Remember that being labeled a freak is the price of greatness.
RULE #5
When you feel like surrendering, continue.Triumph loves the relentless.
Heightened Awareness
When you deconstruct how the superstars, virtuosos and geniuses achieved what they did, you’ll realize that it was their heightened awareness of the opportunities for daily greatness that inspired them to make the better daily choices that yielded better daily results.
Exceptionalism is a journey. Virtuosity is a voyage.
History-Maker Focus #1: Capitalization IQ
Developed by eminent psychologist James Flynn. The valuable insight he conceived is that what makes a legendary performer so good isn’t the amount of natural talent they are born into but the extent of that potential they actualize—and capitalize. Many of the finest athletes in the world observed, “had less innate skill than their competition. But it was their exceptional dedication, commitment and drive to maximize whatever strengths they had that made them iconic.
Victims have big TVs. Leaders own large libraries.
History-Maker Focus #2: Freedom from Distraction
Simplify. Streamline everything. Become a purist. Less really is more. Concentrate on just a few work projects so you make them amazing versus diluting your attention on too many.
An addiction to distraction is the death of your creative production
- Stop managing your time and start managing your focus
- The closer you get to your genius, the more you’ll face the sabotage of your fears.
History-Maker Focus #3: Personal Mastery Practice
The quality of your morning practice determines the caliber of your daily performance. Battles are won in the early light of intense training—when no one’s watching. Victories occur before warriors walk onto the field.
Inside Out
External always expresses internal, without always reflects within. Your creativity, productivity, prosperity, performance and impact on the planet are always a sublime expression of what’s going on inside of you.
External always expresses internal. And to experience empires in your outer life you need to develop your inner ones first.
Mindset, Headset and Soulset
- Healthset is all about dialing in your physical dimension so your brain is operating at its highest level of cognition and so your energy is igniting and so your stress is dissolving and so your joy is expanding.
- Mindset is all about your psychology and Heartset is all about your emotionality, and Healthset relates to your physiology, Soulset refers to your spirituality.
History-Maker Focus #4: Day Stacking
Remember that each of your prized days represents your precious life in miniature,” the billionaire observed. As you live each day, so you craft your life. We all are so focused on pursuing our futures that we generally ignore the exceedingly important value of a single day. And yet what we are doing today is creating our future.
Small daily, seemingly insignificant improvements, when done consistently over time, yield staggering results
The 5-3-1 Creed of The Willpower Warrior
The 5 Scientific Truths Behind Excellent Habits
- Truth #1: World-class willpower isn’t an inborn strength, but a skill developed through relentless practice. Getting up at dawn is perfect self-control training.
- Truth #2: Personal discipline is a muscle. The more you stretch it, the stronger it grows. Therefore, the samurais of self-regulation actively create conditions of hardship to build their natural power.
- Truth #3: Like other muscles, willpower weakens when tired. Recovery is, therefore, absolutely necessary for the expression of mastery. And to manage decision fatigue.
- Truth #4: Installing any great habit successfully follows a distinct four-part pattern for automation of the routine. Follow it explicitly for lasting results.
- Truth #5: Increasing self-control in one area of your life elevates self-control in all areas of your life. This is why joining The 5 AM Club is the game-changing habit that will lift everything else that you do.
The 3 Values of Heroic Habit-Makers
- Value #1: Victory demands consistency and persistency.
- Value #2: Following through on what is started determines the size of the personal respect that will be generated.
- Value #3: The way you practice in private is precisely the way you’ll perform once you’re in public.
The 1 General Theory of Self-Discipline Spartans
To regularly do that which is hard but important when it feels most uncomfortable is how warriors are born.
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
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