Blog

The Power Hour

The Power Hour is one of the best things I have done for myself in the last year. It has made me more productive, more efficient, and more on purpose in my life. It helped me achieve some amazing things last year:
• I increased mobility and flexibility
• I read over 20 books
• I created a vision for my life
• I clearly defined my goals over the next year, 2 years, 5 years, and 10 years
• and more….

What is this Power Hour? It is the magical time from 5AM until whenever you shut it down. The time that the world is quiet and you can devote a minimum of 60 minutes to yourself.

You: Hold the phone. 5AM? Let me stop you right there…

Me: Wait a second. It’s really not as bad as you think. Once you start, you’ll be hooked. It took me a L-O-N-G time to start up my Power Hour. I think I started hearing about the Power Hour back in my first or second year of Chiropractic college, over 15 years ago. My mistake? I didn’t start it 15 years ago.

Let’s do some simple math. One hour a day, 365 days a year, for fifteen years. That equals out to 5475 hours. Put that into days and that would have been 224 days of my life that I would have devoted to my own personal development.

I use the Power Hour to make an investment in myself. To clearly define who I am as a human being. I use that time to read, to write, to envision, to create, to get inspired, and to grow. Can you imagine how much more POWERFUL your life would be if you could devote just one hour a day to building a better you, from the inside out?

Still confused? Let me share with you what I do each morning. My alarm goes off at 4:50. I brush my teeth, grab my comfy sweatshirt, tiptoe downstairs, and brew a cup of tea. Then the fun begins. Seriously.

5:00-5:10 Mobility. I use a foam roller and lacrosse ball to wake up those muscles that have been in slumber for the last eight hours. I do stretches to open up my hips. I roll my shoulders around and get loose. If I’m a little sleepy, I throw in a few burpees to get my blood moving a bit. The point is, I get mobile.

5:10-5:20 My Life Book. This is when I take a moment to go through my Life Book. My Life Book is a lovely collection of pages I’ve put together myself that spells out what I want in life. It has a list of my values, pictures of my family, affirmations, my bucket list, a list of people I want to meet in life and places I want to visit, inspiring quotes, and more. It is a book that I can open to any page and read to remind myself of what I am working towards each and every day.

5:20-5:40 Read. My goal each year is to read 30 books. I choose books that are inspiring and range in topic from personal development to business strategies to financial mastery to parenting and more.

5:40-5:55 Journal. I have four different journals – my regular journal where I can write anything down (challenges, ideas, problems, etc.), my gratitude journal (where I write down the things I am grateful for), my learning journal (where I take notes from books, podcasts, videos, etc. that I want to reflect back on), and my family journal (where I write down those special moments, words, or events in my family’s life that I can look back on)

5:55-6:00 Plan my day. I make a list of the top 5 or so things I need to get done that day. Basically a reminder sheet of what my goals are. By accomplishing those five goals each day, it adds up to a more powerful life. By the end of the year, that is 1825 goals met. Pretty successful, if you ask me.

That’s it. That’s a Power Hour. Other ideas to fill that hour (although I think you will find it flies by) are:

• listen to an inspiring podcast (Robin Sharma, The Wellness Couch, etc. I’ll write more on this in a future blog post)
• meditate
• blog
• work on my book
• complete continuing education course work

I can guarantee you that if you commit to getting for the 5AM hour (check out #5AMclub on twitter and you’ll realize you’re not alone) it will make a difference in your life. The first few days are always tough but it does get easier. And it gets to a point where if you miss your Power Hour for whatever reason, you’ll find your day isn’t the same without it.