PDF Summary:The 5 AM Club, by Robin Sharma

In The 5 AM Club, Robin Sharma contends that the early bird really does get the worm. He explains how adopting an early morning routine will activate your creativity and productivity, allowing you to discover your inner genius and maximize your abilities. By spending your first hour every day working on your mind, body, heart, and spirit, you’ll gain the tools to become influential in your field, achieve your goals, and create a lasting impact on the world. Our guide explains the principles behind the 5 AM Club, breaks down the basics of habit formation to help you jumpstart your new morning routine, and explores Sharma’s advice for sticking with this routine for good. We also go deeper into why some people find it easier to wake up at the crack of dawn, why you can’t stick to habits even when you know they’re good for you, and what other experts say to help you reach your full potential.

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Sharma’s four sources of strength correspond with what some experts call four wellsprings—sources of energy which, when nurtured, can help you better manage your inner resources. They give the following tips for working with each wellspring:

Body (Health): Build rituals (like Sharma’s Victory Hour) and take breaks throughout the workday, switching gears by occupying yourself with something other than work, like a chat with a friend.

Emotions (Heart): When you’re feeling negative, encourage positive feelings by taking deep breaths, telling others you appreciate them, and think empowering thoughts.

Mind: Carve out 90- to 120-minute blocks to concentrate on important tasks, ignoring distractions like emails and phone calls.

Spirit (Soul): Reflect on what activities make you feel the most “flow” and feel engaged and satisfied. Then find ways to do more of these activities.

Arena 4: Compounding Shifts

Sharma says that when you focus on one day at a time, you can put all of your energy into reaching peak productivity that day. Generate high-performance days to gain a high-performance life. To achieve levels of creativity, performance, and success you didn’t know were possible, regularly refine and elevate—or compound—your morning ritual.

Compounding shifts are small changes that accumulate to great effect. For example, if you take off from Los Angeles and fly a straight path for five hours, you’ll land in New York City. But if every 10 minutes, you shift the plane to the right by 1 inch, you could end up in the Caribbean.

(Shortform note: Darren Hardy details the power of compounding shifts in The Compound Effect, and he also notes a potential downside. He writes that small changes maintained over time lead to unexpectedly dramatic results, and changes in one area of life can compound with other areas in a ripple effect. But he warns that this also works in reverse: A small bad habit leads to a large problem—and also ripples into other areas—over time.)

Join the 5 AM Club: Create New Habits

Sharma says that mastery doesn’t happen overnight—persistence separates the dreamers from the achievers. You must consistently show up and work within the guidelines of the 5 AM Club to unleash your potential. He shares his insights for building resilience, willpower, and determination to make waking early a habit.

The 5-3-1 Doctrine of Willpower

Sharma says that real behavior change that persists over time is difficult. The keys to creating lasting change are understanding and harnessing willpower and discipline. Here’s how they work, according to Sharma.

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.

(Shortform note: Sharma says that you need willpower and discipline to create and stick to new habits, but that’s easier said than done. That’s because many of us have what scientists call “one brain but two minds”: In The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal explains that one mind caters to immediate gratification, while the other mind delays gratification in the interest of long-term goals. Our willpower and discipline tend to waver when we’re tired, distracted, stressed, or mildly intoxicated, leading us to give in to instant gratification. But learning your own self-control traps and pitfalls can help you create strategies to succeed.)

3 Principles for Discipline

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

(Shortform note: Discipline helps you push through discomfort and fleeting moments of motivation to accomplish your goals. However, if you attempt to be disciplined 100% of the time, you’ll eventually break down. In The Science of Self-Discipline, psychology researcher Peter Hollins explains that rigorously exercising discipline to resist strong temptations can exhaust your will, just like too much exercise can overwork your muscles. If you never take a break, you’ll eventually deplete your capacity for discipline, and this can affect different areas of your life, such as your diet and exercise routine.)

1 Theory for Greatness

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

(Shortform note: Sharma’s theory for greatness doesn’t focus on intelligence or talent but emphasizes what professor Angela Duckworth calls grit. In her book, Duckworth describes grit as a personality trait combining perseverance (having resilience) and passion (having direction), which allows you to keep moving forward on your path, even when things get hard.)

4 Steps to Forming a New Habit

Sharma says that 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.

(Shortform note: In How to Do Things You Hate, Peter Hollins says that to push through growing pains, you should embrace them. View discomfort as your ally, not your enemy—discomfort is the source of all growth, while comfort tends to make you stagnate.)

The following four steps of habit formation will help you begin the process and stick with it.

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. 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.

Alternative Frameworks of Habit Formation

While Sharma breaks down the process of habit formation into four steps, many experts identify six components, some of which overlap with Sharma's steps:

1) The Cue: This is the same as Sharma's "trigger." Also called prompts, cues are what start the automatic program running in your brain. They can either be external (something in your environment) or internal (your thoughts or emotions).

2) The Routine: This is the same as Sharma's "ritual." It's what you do automatically when the program runs.

3) The Reward: This is the positive sensation that your brain associates with the routine or with completing the routine. It gives your brain a reason to execute the routine.

4) The Craving: This is a powerful urge to execute the routine in anticipation of the reward. Some experts argue that the cue triggers the craving, which in turn causes you to execute the routine.

5) Repetition: This is necessary for habits to form. It takes time and repetition for your brain to build the routine for the habit program.

6) The Belief: In A Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley argues that every habit tends to be grounded in something you believe in about yourself or the world you live in. James Clear also discusses the importance of beliefs in Atomic Habits, writing that when you see a habit as part of your identity—who you are, not just what you do—the behavior starts to reinforce itself: Your actions prove your identity, and your identity sustains your actions.

The 3 Stages of Mental Transformation

Sharma contends that you must go through these steps for around 66 days to build a new neural pathway. During this period, you’ll travel through three 22-day stages on the way to automaticity: Breaking, Building, and Blending.

(Shortform note: Sharma cites research from the University College London that habit formation takes around 66 days, but it’s important to note that this is the average based on the study; results from person to person varied from 18 to 254 days.)

Stage 1: Breaking

To rewire your brain and ingrain a new way of life, Sharma says your old way of life must cease. During the breaking phase, you’ll 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, says Sharma, you’ll eventually succeed in moving to the next stage.

Stage 2: Building

Now that you’ve successfully erased your old patterns from your brain, the work of rebuilding begins. Sharma explains that 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’ll want to quit, but these feelings are part of the struggle required to transform. Realize that you’re far along the path, and stick with the practice to get to the end.

The Right Way to Break and Build Habits

When trying to overcome ingrained behaviors, you might keep reminding yourself what not to do, but research suggests focusing on the forbidden behaviors makes it harder to break old habits and build new ones. In one study, researchers looked at how consciously suppressing an old habit affected building a new one. While all the participants learned the new habit, those who were told to suppress the old habit didn’t unlearn it—in fact, the old habit got even stronger.

The researchers suggest that instead of forcing yourself to break an old habit, you can try these tactics instead:

• Make it easier to build a new habit by creating systems that support it.

• Find a role model—seeing someone else consistently perform a desired behavior can encourage you to build that habit.

• Adopt a growth mindset, or the belief that you can improve through effort and learning.

Stage 3: Blending

According to Sharma, 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 will have become automatic, and you’ll no longer have to think about it. You’ll be fully immersed in your new way of life.

(Shortform note: Though Sharma’s discussion implies a relatively smooth and predictable process of habit formation, it’s normal to encounter setbacks as you incorporate new habits into your life. Punishing yourself for those setbacks can only undermine your motivation and increase stress, making the process even harder. On the other hand, having self-compassion can help you get over lapses—for example, research suggests that being kind to yourself can help support behavior changes when it comes to health.)

Get Started—and Make It Stick

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. In this section, we’ll discuss Sharma’s specific tips for using that first hour of your day, plus how to make sure you’re in it for the long run.

The 20/20/20 Formula

Sharma separates the Victory Hour 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. Sharma says that the activity itself 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.

(Shortform note: In Spark, John Ratey goes into more detail about the connection between exercise and your brain. He writes that exercise helps us learn by stimulating the growth of new neurons and strengthening existing ones, limits the negative effects of stress, and improves our mental health by regulating neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. Sharma recommends 20 minutes of exercise each morning, which closely aligns with the World Health Organization’s guidelines: They recommend 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week, which leads to significantly lower rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other diseases.)

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

According to Sharma, 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 sources of strength (mind, heart, health, soul) 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.

(Shortform note: While taking time to reflect can contribute to your holistic development, experts say you should take care not to fall into the trap of rumination, self-criticism, or negative self-talk. When your thoughts veer toward the negative, practice self-compassion and think about what you can do to move forward.)

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

In the last stretch of your Victory Hour, 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. These activities can shift your attention away from mindless media consumption, leading you to greater awareness and new insights.

(Shortform note: In encouraging you to shift your attention away from mindless media consumption, Sharma is advocating what Cal Newport calls digital minimalism. In his book, Newport says that people feel overpowered and exhausted by websites, apps, and social media platforms, but continue scrolling because tech companies make their products and services addictive. Newport says you should only use technology that benefits you by deleting your social media apps, limiting your smartphone’s capabilities, and transitioning to “slow media”—high-quality sources that you only check once or twice a day.)

A Good Morning Starts With a Good Evening

You won’t benefit from 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. (Shortform note: How can you tell if you’re getting “enough” quality sleep? In Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker says you should check if you have a sleep deficit—the difference between the amount of sleep you need and the amount you get. Some signs of a sleep deficit are: You don’t wake up naturally at the time you set your alarm; when you read, you often lose track and need to read a sentence twice; you feel drowsy just hours after waking; and you need coffee to feel functional.)

Sharma says the benefits of sleep are endless. When you’re asleep, the brain cleanses itself with cerebral spinal fluid. 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. (Shortform note: To boost your brain’s nighttime cleaning, experts recommend that you sleep on your side with slightly bent knees, using a supportive pillow for your head and another between your legs to keep your spine straight. This position has the added benefits of reducing snoring, helping with sleep apnea, and easing back pain.)

According to Sharma, 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. (Shortform note: In Why We Sleep, Walker goes into more detail about what happens when you don’t get enough quality sleep. Aside from having negative effects on your attention, concentration, and emotional control, sleep deprivation may also contribute to Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and obesity, among other diseases.)

An Optimal Nightly Ritual

Sharma says you should be in bed and ready to sleep shortly after 10 p.m. if you want 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 Sharma’s suggestions for how to manage the last three hours of your day:

• From 7 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 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 to 10 p.m., prepare your exercise clothes for the morning, make time for gratitude practice, and get ready for bed.

More Habits for Healthy Sleep

Shawn Stevenson offers additional tips for forming healthy sleep habits in Sleep Smarter. First, get more sunlight in the morning. This prompts the release of hormones that make you more alert and trigger important biological processes (such as hunger and thirst). It also prompts your body to produce hormones needed for a normal sleep cycle: melatonin, which prepares your body for sleep at the cellular level; serotonin, which aids in the production of melatonin; and cortisol, which helps regulate your circadian rhythms.

Second, reduce your screen time, as Sharma suggests. Stevenson recommends replacing screen time with calming activities such as reading a book or practicing gentle yoga stretches.

Third, get the timing of your sleep right. Stevenson says that the optimal time for your body to make repairs during sleep is from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. So, similar to Sharma, he recommends that you go to bed before that window. If you’re still awake around 10 p.m., you’ll get a second wind, and you’ll probably have a harder time falling asleep.

Optimize Your New Habits for Long-Term Success

Once you’ve organized your evenings and mornings to create exceptional thoughts, beneficial behaviors, and successful outcomes, you can work to amplify your growth and keep your momentum going. Below are some of Sharma’s tips for protecting your focus and energy, making your schedule more efficient, and taking care of your body.

Protect Your Focus and Energy

Sharma advises that you create a force field of solitude for your work, leaving all distractions outside of this space. Extend this to your personal life, making sure to keep out negative influences. (Shortform note: In Indistractable, Nir Eyal says the common sources of distraction are other people, email, group chats, meetings, smartphones, cluttered desktops, articles on your web browser, and social media. He offers suggestions for managing these and fortifying your force field of solitude, including posting a “do not disturb” sign on your workstation and installing browser extensions to block out websites that tempt you away from your tasks.)

Sharma also says to write down five things you need to accomplish to have a productive day, and celebrate each one when you complete it. (Shortform note: You can write down your tasks using the Bullet Journal Method, a single-notebook system that helps you be intentional about how you spend your time and energy. The five things you need to accomplish will go in your daily log, but this is just one part of the journal, which also includes a future log and a monthly log to help you keep track of longer-term goals. The method requires you to put an X beside the tasks in your daily log that you’ve completed—a cue for you to celebrate a small win to help you keep your momentum going.)

Make Your Schedule More Efficient

Start your week strong. Sharma advises you to use Sunday morning to reflect on the past week and organize the coming week. If you write something down, you’re more likely to follow through. (Shortform note: While Sharma advises you to organize the coming week on Sunday, Brian Tracy writes in Eat That Frog! that you should make a list each night for the next day. He says that spending 10 minutes on a plan can save you as much as two hours.)

If you have mundane tasks to complete, hire people to help so you can focus your energy on your genius and activities that engage your passion. (Shortform note: In The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss suggests hiring a virtual assistant. You can delegate tasks that are time consuming (so it’s worth spending the time to find an assistant for it), specific (well-defined with no ambiguous aspects), remote-friendly, and easier to assign than to do yourself.)

Sharma also recommends that you 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. (Shortform note: Other experts have different recommendations for how you should break down your day. A popular time management method is the Pomodoro Technique, which consists of 25-minute intervals of focused work interspersed with short breaks. The shorter bursts of work are meant to improve focus, reduce mental fatigue, and create a sense of urgency.)

You should also carve out time for learning beyond the 20 minutes during Victory Hour. Sharma says to use your commute to listen to audiobooks or podcasts that deepen your knowledge in a meaningful way, and to commit to educating yourself for one additional hour a day to really become a leader in your field.

(Shortform note: Meta-learning, or learning how to learn, can help you make your new knowledge stick so you can use it to its maximum potential. In Limitless, Jik Kwik says to practice meta-learning, you should focus on three components: your mindset (your belief about what you’re capable of), drive (why you want to do something), and techniques (how you can accomplish it). Focusing on all three elements allows you to accelerate learning and apply what you know more effectively.)

Take Care of Your Body

Sharma suggests that you work out again after the workday—perhaps by taking a walk—to help you recharge for the evening. This workout will help boost your willpower and reduce sugar cravings so you end the day on a strong note. He also recommends getting two deep-tissue massages a week—massages reduce stress, provide pain relief, and activate positive chemical processes in the brain.

(Shortform note: Sharma’s self-care advice may not be feasible for everyone—a walk after work may not be possible for someone who lives in an unsafe neighborhood, and massages are a luxury for those who are struggling to make ends meet. To reap the benefits that Sharma cites, you can try other more accessible ways to take care of your body like doing yoga at home, and releasing tension through self-massage using a foam roller.)

Take Time to Recover

Sharma says that 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 rest, you give your brain time to incorporate what it’s learning. If you don’t rest, you’ll overextend your brain and hit a wall, which is commonly known as burnout.

(Shortform note: In Burnout, Amelia and Emily Nagoski write that women are especially susceptible to burnout. Aside from dealing with the usual causes of burnout like overwork, women also face additional stressors as a result of living in a patriarchal society. These stressors include misogynistic male behavior, pressure to take on extra work (including unpaid labor), and pressure to meet unrealistic body standards, which keep women from spending enough time on recovery. To prevent burnout, the first step is to dissipate your stress hormones by engaging in physical activity or connecting with others.)

Sharma advises that you 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.

(Shortform note: In Dopamine Detox, Thibaut Meurisse says we’re in a constant state of sensory overload that robs us of our focus and ability to meet our potential. He argues that intentionally eliminating activities that trigger dopamine—the neurotransmitter released in anticipation of a pleasurable activity—can help you reclaim your focus. He recommends a total detox for 24 or 48 hours, wherein you eliminate dopamine-inducing behaviors like using your phone, watching TV, and eating highly processed foods. You can replace these behaviors with activities in nature, as Sharma suggests: In The Nature Fix, Florence Williams says that being in nature reduces stress, enhances cognitive function, and boosts creativity.)