Do You Want To Build a New Habit? Make a Two Week Contract
Best way to enjoy waking up at 5:30 am
Habits are about momentum and here is a simple way to help you build it.
You might like it, you might not. At this point, it is like eating broccolis. You can say you don’t like it, but at least try it before.
The broccoli I have been struggling with over the past few months has been to sustainably wake up at 5:30 am each morning.
It took me a while to crack a method to implement new and difficult habits in my daily life.
Have a two week timeframe
Often, you just need to start with a small step to get out of the leave-it-for-tomorrow loop. Take a decision. One simple decision.
Get after your goal and do not surrender no matter what for two weeks.
You can handle two weeks. As soon as it started, it is almost already over anyway.
How many times did you want to [Put here anything meaningful you’ve said you’ll be doing]?
And from day one, you decided to go full throttle, 200% engagement.
I’ll do [meaningful thing] everyday from now on!
See what’s coming?
First bump in the road is like a hole in a space shuttle. Wooosh. Everything is sucked out to the vacuum. Over.
Chill out, try it for two weeks.
Recently I have mapped an entire system to identify and follow through with my personal and professional goals (Inverted Pyramid Method). Unfortunately, I have realised that the way I was using my days and my time weren’t helping as much as I expected to move toward my goals.
Too often, evening tasks were skipped because I was too tired of my day. Mornings were rushed, trying to fit in meditation, breakfast and a quick journaling session.
Not optimal at all. So, I decided to sign a two week contract with myself, to change my habit and wake up earlier.
I believe The Two Week Contract is the easiest investment you can make with the best return.
It is flexible and repeatable for any type of habit you want to implement in your life.
Started from the bottom
You can easily imagine that before building this habit I wasn’t quite there. And to be honest, I was far behind.
Before my 5:30 am waking up habit, I had a common schedule:
- 8 am — Wake up
- 8:10 am — Have coffee and breakfast
- 8:30 am — Shower and get dressed
- 8:45 — Commute
- 9:30 am — Start work
When you are on this path you spend a lot of time in a non-productive state, you work late to compensate, and you are lazy to cook healthy meals. This system was not fulfilling at all.
At some point, you know that it is your responsibility to do something about it, to improve and move forward.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu had surely helped me in the process. My first move has been to switch most of my trainings from evenings to mornings (at 7 am).
You pay, therefore you go.
Crazy how paying to train in the morning helps you get up!
You then realize that waking up earlier unlocks time you never used before, and you are still at work by 9:30 like everybody else. Sounds like an effective plan!
However, still, something did not add up. Even though I achieved more activities and took more care of myself, personal goals were still left behind. Worse, my feelings did not confirm that I was on the right track, at all:
- Stress
- Constant hurry
- Feeling overwhelmed
Eventually, those feelings are the information and triggers you need to realize that it is time for adjustments.
Note: Even better, now I use them as personal alerts to monitor and adjust my daily tasks and routines.
Time to hit the switch button
Countless top performers have built a habit of getting up early.
There are two types of reactions to this:
Those people are crazy. Anyway, I am not a morning person. I’ll never be able to do this. (**excuse alarm is ringing**)
or
How come many successful people do chose to wake up so early?
Boom! You link waking up early to success.
The path to 5:30 am
It has been quite some time that I have been willing to wake up that early. But, somehow I have never managed to get passed under the 6:30 am bar on my alarm clock.
You know: “people doing this are crazy”.
However, having a consistent sleeping schedule was difficult. The time I went to bed and the time I woke up were varying a lot from one day to another.
Still, the idea of waking up extremely early to achieve tasks before anybody else had awaken was stuck in my brain.
As it often happens, if you don’t take the first step, something else will push you to take the leap.
Insomnia has been the switch for me. You wake up in the middle of the night, feeling trapped in a loop of the same thoughts for hours:
- What should I do for this, or that?
- Why am I not doing this or that better?
- How could you let this slip away?
- Do not forget to say/do/correct this tomorrow.
Monkey mind 100%.
Last time it happened I decided to put a stop to it. Enough was enough. The Two Week Contract was built.
Here is the plan:
- Wake up between 5:30 and 5:40 am
- Exercise every day, first thing in the morning
- Meditate every day, second thing in the morning
- No carbs
- No sugar
Note: In addition to sleeping and morning habits, I added some eating rules as a bonus. You can separate them if you prefer, but keep in mind that food influences sleeping quality.
How do you measure success?
Each bullet point realized during the day gives you a point (+1), for a total of 80 points over 16 days.
My success bar was to hit at least 70 points. Leaving some flexibility to take into account weekends and socializing with friends without guilt, just with control.
Finally, I decided to use a social approval bias to help me get out of bed more easily. Everyday, I would be posting a picture on social media (which I rarely do otherwise).
It works like magic, once you tell your friends you will do it, you kind of have to live by your word. I found it was the best way to trick your brain to counter any excuse to fail.
The system works, and it works fast
After two weeks, I completed the challenge with 72 points.
My sleeping schedule was more than 90% of the time contained between 10:30pm and 6 am, which is a solid 7:30 of time in bed.
In addition, I have managed to spend 25 minutes exercising and 20 minutes meditating every morning on average.
Here is the detailed schedule:
- 5:30 to 5:40 am — Wake up
- 5:45 am — Post a photo on social media
- 5:50 am — Exercise
- 6:15 am — Meditate
- 6:35 — Shower
- 6:45 to 8:00 — Eat, read, focus on personal goals
- 8:00 — Get ready and go to work
- 8:30 — Start work
Following this schedule has had many beneficial impacts, some I did not expect:
- Improved sleeping quality
- Secured time for personal goals
- Reduced stress
- Increased motivation
- Increased confidence
- Improved professional and personal relationships
After the first two weeks, I felt such an improvement in the quality of my days that I decided to continue to follow the schedule for a longer period of time.
Eventually, after almost two months, I still continue having a similar schedule. The best thing about it is that I don’t even have to count points anymore. It became my new habit!
Set it up yourself
Here is The Two Week Contract Implementation Pack (free of charge, applicable to any habit guaranteed):
- Set up an achievable goal, related to a habit you want to implement
e.g.: wake up between 5:30 am and 5:45 am everyday during two weeks - Find a way to measure progress on a daily basis
e.g.: count points when you succeeded in the goal - Use social approval as a nudge
e.g.: post daily updates on social media - Hiccups will happen, do not stress too much about it, focus on the goal
e.g.: Have on your fridge or a wall the review of previous days to confort yourself and adapt if needed - (Optional) Team up
e.g.: if you don’t live alone, convince your partner or friends to follow your program (it’s only two weeks after all!)
Counter intuitive learnings
- You are not more tired when you wake up at 5:30 am than when you wake up later
- You will love your new habit (more than you think). Now I wake up most of my days between 5:30 and 5:45 am.
- You are more available for others when you have taken time to focus on yourself in the morning
Sources
Books
The Book Of Joy — Douglas Abrams, the Dalaï Lama, Desmond Tutu
The Art of Meditation — Matthieu Ricard
You Can Heal Your Life — Louise Hay
Awaken The Giant Within — Anthony Robbins
How to Win Friends and Influence People — Dale Carnegie
Podcasts
The Joe Rogan Experience — Episode with Kevin Hart. Topic: Decisions
Jocko Podcast — Jocko Willink
The Tim Ferriss Show — Tim Ferriss
Apps and tools used
Headspace (60€/year) — Guided and non guided meditation app
Sleep Cycle (30€/year) — App helping you track your sleep
Down Dog (60€/year ) — Exercising app used for Yoga and HIIT workouts
Link to previous article
How to make your lifelong goals move forward today ? The Inverted Pyramid
