PDF Summary:The 5 AM Club, by Robin Sharma

You have a unique talent you were born to master, but knowing how to reach your creative and professional goals is not always easy. In The 5 AM Club, Robin Sharma explains how to discover your inner genius and maximize your abilities by adopting an early morning routine that activates your creative and productive potential. Your daily “Victory Hour” will enable you to narrow down your goals and reach them like a master. With this powerful tool you can become influential in your field and create a lasting impact on the world.

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Real behavior change that persists over time is difficult. But with the proper Mindset, you can be better prepared to reach your goals. The following ideas can help strengthen your understanding of the type of willpower needed to make successful long-term habits.

5 Truths About Creating Habits

• Willpower is not ingrained, but developed through persistence.
• Discipline is the reward for waging war against your comfort zone.
• Recuperation is needed to recharge your fortitude.
• Habits are formed through a process, not a desire.
• Discipline in one area of life overflows into all areas of life.

3 Principles for Discipline

• You can’t win if you don’t show up to play.
• Your confidence increases when you finish what you start.
• Your grit in private translates to grit in public.

1 Theory for Greatness

• Do what is right, instead of what is easy.

You’ll experience growing pains as you start to shift your life, but true change requires struggle. If you can make it to the other side of this struggle, you’ll be rewarded with a new life. The following four steps of habit formation will help you begin the process and stick with it to the glorious end.

4 Steps to Forming a New Habit

Step 1: Start with a trigger that jumpstarts your new behavior. To wake at 5 a.m., this trigger is your alarm clock.

Step 2: Begin the ritual of the behavior you want to make a habit. After the alarm goes off, jump out of bed immediately before your brain convinces you to go back to sleep.

Step 3: Reward yourself to reinforce your ritual. Each day you get out of bed at the sound of the alarm, give yourself a treat that creates joy. You will begin to associate the ritual with joy.

Step 4: Repeat the process every day. Repetition is the key to new habits. Each day you successfully perform your ritual, you’ll alter the wiring in your brain by creating a new neural pathway for that behavior. Eventually, the pathway will form to the point where the new behavior becomes automatic.

The 3 Stages of Mental Transformation

You must go through these steps for 66 days to build a new neural pathway. During this period, you’ll travel through three 22-day stages on the way to automaticity: Destruction, Installation, and Integration.

Stage 1: Destruction

To rewire your brain to ingrain a new way of life, your old way of life must cease. During the destruction phase, you will feel your old self begin to slip away. This sensation will stimulate your Ancient Brain to thwart your progress. This stage is where courage and willpower will help you escape your brain's efforts to scare you off with fear and doubt. If you remain disciplined in your practice, you’ll eventually succeed in moving to the next stage.

Stage 2: Installation

Now that you’ve successfully erased your old patterns from your brain, the work of rebuilding begins. Your army of neurons will work overtime to construct your new pathway brick by brick over the next 22 days. Because of the energy required, the rest of your faculties will suffer. You may feel out of control, anxious, or confused, and you will want to quit. But these feelings are part of the struggle required to transform. Realize that you are far along the path, and stick with the practice to get to the end.

Stage 3: Integration

The final 22 days are when the magic happens. You’ve pushed out of your comfort zone and created a new pattern of behavior. Each day you continue your practice, you pave the new neural pathway to cement the behavior. When you reach the end, your new behavior has reached automaticity, and you no longer have to think about it. You will be fully immersed in your new way of life.

What to Do During the Victory Hour

Now that you know how to make rising early a habit and what you should focus on during the Victory Hour, you’re ready to learn how to use those 60 minutes to strengthen that focus.

The 20/20/20 Formula

The Victory Hour is separated into three 20-minute periods to prepare your brain and harness your power for a successful day.

Period 1: Exercise from 5 a.m. to 5:20 a.m.

After you get out of bed, perform vigorous physical activity. Go for a run, do jumping jacks, or follow along to an exercise video. The activity is not as important as the level of activity. When you exercise to the point of sweating, you trigger beneficial chemical processes in your brain. Your brain releases hormones and neurotransmitters that help to transmit positive feelings throughout the body, improve mood, and support cellular reproduction. These chemicals also stabilize the Ancient Brain by reducing the release of cortisol. At the end of the 20 minutes, you’ll be more psychologically sound and focused.

Period 2: Reflect from 5:20 a.m. to 5:40 a.m.

You stimulate your internal spirit when you sit quietly for periods of reflection. By staking claim to this solitary and tranquil period before the rest of the world wakes up and tries to distract you, you fortify your four internal empires and begin the day more connected to your true self. During this period, you might sit with your thoughts, journal, or meditate—better yet, do all three.

Period 3: Grow from 5:40 a.m. to 6 a.m.

Read books about icons in your industry, listen to podcasts that increase your knowledge and skills about your craft, watch videos about innovation, or consume self-help materials to deepen your personal awareness.

This process is perfectly designed and ready to use to help you achieve deep awareness and peak performance. You have no excuses for wasting that precious first hour. Stick with this process for 66 days to make living an exceptional life a habit.

A Good Morning Starts With a Good Evening

You won’t be able to successfully exploit the benefits of the Victory Hour if you’re exhausted. How you end the night before is just as important as how you start each day. You must get enough quality sleep to support your mental capacity and overall health.

The benefits of sleep are endless. When you’re asleep, the brain cleanses itself with cerebral spinal fluid. Think of it like washing your car. Your neurons are scrubbed clean so they are shiny and new and ready for the hard work ahead when you wake up. Human growth hormone is also released when you sleep, which regulates emotions, improves cognition, and increases energy. These processes keep your brain healthy, which helps keep the rest of your body healthy.

You disrupt these processes when you don’t get enough sleep, and sleep deprivation has been shown to lead to premature death. A successful nightly ritual will help you sleep better and wake stronger so you can tackle the Victory Hour fully recharged and ready to grow.

An Optimal Nightly Ritual

You should be in bed and ready to sleep shortly after 10 p.m. to be able to wake up recharged at 5 a.m. If you’re used to staying up late, this ritual will be difficult to follow, but you can use the same steps of habit formation to build your nightly routine.

The following are suggestions for how to manage the last three hours of your day:

• From 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., eat your last meal of the day and turn off all devices. Studies show that the blue light from technological devices reduces the production of melatonin, nature’s sleeping pill, in the body. Without melatonin, the body is not signaled to sleep, and the sleep you eventually get will be restless.
• From 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., use the quiet environment to engage meaningfully with family, read, meditate, or take a bath. Your goal is to help your body unwind and relax to prepare for sleep.
• From 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., prepare your exercise clothes for the morning, make time for gratitude practice, and get ready for bed.

Optimizing Your New Habits for Long-Term Success

You’ve worked hard to organize your evenings and mornings to create exceptional thoughts, beneficial behaviors, and successful outcomes. Now use the following tips to amplify your growth and keep the momentum going.

• Create a force field of solitude for your work, and leave all distractions outside of this space.
• Use the first 90 minutes following the Victory Hour to focus on one important project that will elevate your craft and productive output.
• Follow that 90-minute period with cycles of 60 minutes of quiet, stable, and focused productivity and 10 minutes of rest and recuperation. Continue this cycle for the remainder of the workday.
• Accomplish five micro-improvements a day. Write down five things you need to accomplish to have a productive day, and celebrate each one when you complete it.
• Workout again after the workday is done to help you wind down for a successful nightly ritual.
• Get two deep-tissue massages a week. Massages reduce stress, provide pain relief, and activate positive chemical processes in the brain.
• Use your commute to continue your education. Turn off the news and talk radio, and listen to audiobooks or podcasts that deepen your knowledge base in a meaningful way.
• Hire people to help with mundane tasks so you can focus your energy on your genius and activities that engage your passion.
• Schedule your weeks in advance. On Sunday morning, reflect on the past week and organize the week ahead. If you write something down, you're more likely to follow through.
• Create a learning hour during your day. Beyond the 20 minutes in the morning and time during your commute, commit to educating yourself for one hour a day to really become a leader in your field.

Take Time to Recover

Your brain is like a muscle, and like any muscle stretched to its limits, it needs time to recover and prepare for more strenuous activity. The period of recovery is when real growth happens. When you stop and rest, you give your brain time to incorporate what it’s learning. If you don’t rest, you will overextend your brain and hit a wall, which is commonly known as burnout.

Take technological vacations two days a week, spend time in nature, and do things that delight you, like cooking or dancing. When you return to your creative space, you’ll be relaxed, focused, and ready to produce.

Your Path to Legendary Status

You uncover your full potential and true spirit when you use the principles and practices above to join the 5 AM Club. As you master these processes, you’ll feel all aspects of your life synching together to create a new self embodying seven virtues: 1) bravery, 2) forgiveness, 3) integrity, 4) understanding, 5) sincerity, 6) politeness, and 7) humility.

Exemplify strength by staying steadfast in your work. Exemplify courage by waging war for your life every day. Exemplify grace by spreading as much love as you can to everyone you see. People will recognize your power and strength, and you will be remembered as a legend.