Why I Woke Up at 5am for 5 days
By: Beck Chen
Tags: Wim Hof, Habits For Success, Life Lessons, Life Hacking, Morning Rituals

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

What triggered this?

I’m 23. I recently graduated and I have 300$ in my bank account.

I’m unemployed and I feel disinterested in life.

I lost passion for the things I used to be passionate about. I wasn’t creating, writing, dancing, or practicing yoga.

I spent too much time on Netflix.

In the past month, my life went from a 15/10 to a 2/10. Safe to say I was feeling lost and I didn’t feel a sense of purpose in life.

I’ve never been one to gripe about bad days but the bad days dragged on for weeks, affecting my relationship and my self confidence.

I had a breakdown as I shared my struggles with my partner. 4 hours later, he paid for my spot to join this challenge. I’d be starting the 5am wake up challenge the very next day. I accepted it. What more can I lose?

What is this challenge?

Josh Froc leads a 5am for 5 days challenge. Currently online, the challenge is:

You wake up at 5am and log into the Zoom meeting to start the day off with positive energy in a community.

We start with a Wim Hof breathing exercise.

A guided meditation follows.

We then share our journal entries with one another about a specific prompt Josh posts on Facebook everyday.

The challenge focuses on manifesting your 5 year self. What achievements are made in 5 years? What is the vision you want for yourself?

I couldn’t have found out about this challenge at a better time.

My New Formula to Successfully Wake Up and Get Up

Waking up at 5am is pretty hard. Especially when the bed is warm, dark outside, and Vancouver’s experiencing a week of rain and cloudiness. I found these three things to help me actually get up and start my day.

Before bed, write down 4 things you need to complete in the next day.

Knowing the 4 things I absolutely need to complete the next day helps me maintain a clear head in the morning. When I wake up, I have a list of “must-do’s” so I have my eye on the prize. I won’t be scrambling in the morning trying to figure out the importance of which task to do, wasting precious hours of the morning.

I scribble the 4 tasks into my bullet journal that I keep by my bedside. The tasks can be as small as “vacuum the house” to as big as “apply to 6 jobs today”. When I check the box after completion, I feel productive and great.

2. Night time routines prepare you for your mornings.

Doing this 5am challenge really emphasized just how important your night time routine is. Preparing your body and mind to have a restful night allows the next morning to be easier to take on.

My current night time routine is simple. Drink lots of water, do a little bit of stretching in my bedroom, light a candle, read.

Obviously turning off your tech devices would help immensely for a better night’s sleep. I’m still working on decreasing my tech usage before bed little by little. Baby steps…

3. In the morning, try state changing and manifesting your desires.

Tony Robbins has a special morning routine that involves a combination of physical exercise, a breathing technique, and a gratitude practice. I tweaked it a little to suit my liking.

The State Change:

I start with the quick in-and-out breaths with TR’s unique physical arm movements. The specifics can be seen in the the linked video above (0:00–0:30 sec). That gets my heart rate going and allows me to feel my heart beating and feel how alive I am.

The Manifestations:

I then sit or lie down. In my head, I choose an area in my life I’m working on. It can either be health, relationships, career, family, education… etc. I close my eyes and begin to imagine my future self in ideal situations. Currently, I’m focusing on love and career.

I imagine crisp imagery of myself feeling joy for my partner when he’s succeeding in life. I imagine his laughter, his smile, his excitement and I start to bubble up in joy. I’d start to catch myself smiling.

I imagine my future self having humorous meetings with co-workers. I imagine the feelings of joy when I pitch a new idea to the team. I imagine what I wear when I start work. I imagine someone bringing their dog into the office on a Monday.

This goes on for about 10 to 15 minutes, only focusing on one area of my life a day.

Conclusion

I think the worst part about this rut is that I remember the feeling of having a purpose to wake up in the morning from January up until some time in October. I remember the feeling of joy when I picked up a book. I remember the feeling of love and community in all my friendships and my relationship. I remember the feeling of excitement when I went to a dance class. Where did all those feelings go?

Josh’s journaling prompts pushed me to dream bigger about my future. As a typical realist, I turn down big thinking so I won’t get damaged by unmet expectations. But what’s the point of doing anything if you’re not going to do it big?

I’ve been practicing the three tactics for successful mornings since January 2020. By October, I ceased to do any of them. In January, I consistently wrote down tasks that needed to be done the next day for about 7 months until I got tired of it. In May, I found out about the idea that having a solid night time routine can really help you have the best mornings. So I tried that for a couple months. In August, I tried out state changing for 14 days as a challenge for myself.

Now, I highly believe in combining all three methods to boost my productivity, self confidence, and success. This is the first week of my new combination and I will write my progress down again in a couple months to see how I’m feeling and what has changed.

I’m still learning how to manifest, how to think big, and I’m still learning how to give myself love and security. This was the radical shift I needed to get out of my head and start believing in my self.

If you’re interested in this 5am for 5 days challenge, follow this link here.