Have you heard about the book The 5 AM Club? If you haven’t, then let me tell you about it. This book, popularized by author Robin Sharma, states that there is a profound positive effect on your day when you wake up at 5 in the morning and dedicate the first hour of your day to exercise and self-reflection. 

Of course, this is the most ideal scenario. But I prefer to work out in the stillness of my home, when both my daughter and husband are at school. But, I still want to apply the 5 AM Club routine, so I do a personal compromise. As long as it works, then it’s good to continue!

I wake up at 5:30 in the morning. By this time, my husband is already working out in our living room while my daughter is still sleeping on her bed next to ours. 

And while the room is quiet and peaceful, I sit on the bed, meditate, and do the second half of the 5 AM club routine — self-reflection. 

How do I do my self-reflection? In the next part of this article, I will share with you 5 questions that I ask myself in the morning before I start my day. 

5 Questions I Ask Myself Before I Start My Day

I would like to share with you a tiny part of my daily morning routine. Every morning, I try my bestest to start my day with a purpose — both by thinking of what I want to accomplish during the day and also by reflecting on the previous day’s events, learnings, and takeaways. I realized that the more that I do this, the more focused I become about my goals and everything that is important to me.

Question 1: What am I grateful for?

I want to start my day by being grateful. I try to become grateful not only when things are going my way, but also when circumstances are not as pleasing as I wanted them to be. I desire to be a person who can see the goodness in all things. 

I like this aspect of my self-reflection because it sets the tone of my day to a positive one. By being grateful, I am reminded about the goodness of God and other people who make my life beautiful and awesome.

And, both small and big things count when it comes to being grateful.

I am grateful that I had 6 straight hours of sleep.

I am grateful for our AC.

I am grateful that my hubby made pesto sauce and we still have it in the fridge.

Question 2: What do I want to accomplish today?

This question helps me to give a sense of purpose for my day. In answering this, I usually focus on 3-5 accomplishments that will give me a sense of fulfillment before the day ends. 

As social and productive beings, we have many hats to wear and roles to play. So, usually, in answering this question, I think of an accomplishment that I want to fulfill for each role that I play as a person. This is an example.

1. As a writer, I will write one article about homeschooling and submit it today. 
2. As a video creator, I will finish my vlog on the London Eye River Cruise and post it.
3. As a homemaker, I will cook healthy food for my family.
4. For my self-care, I will work out and go to the salon for nail grooming. 

These are not the only things that I will do today. I still have tons of things to do on my to-do list, but I make sure that these 4 things are accomplished today because these are the tasks that will make me fulfilled before I sleep tonight. 

Question 3: What is something that I look forward to today?

Thinking about this in the morning gives a sense of anticipation for the day to come. Answering this question helps me to become excited and gives me energy to keep going! 

Do not judge yourself when you are answering this question. Maybe the thing that you are looking forward to today is simply to watch an episode of Friends on Netflix after finishing your chores. 

Or maybe you are simply looking forward to chatting with your neighbor. Whatever the answer here is important because it allows you to anticipate something exciting or fun to happen in your life today. 

Do you want to know what I am looking forward to today? Of course, getting my nails done!

Question 4: What did I learn yesterday that I am bringing with me today?

This question can be tough because it forces me to look back on the previous day and think about the events, conversations, or ideas that I learned before I hit the sack. 

But this is really important because it helps me realize that the previous day was indeed worthy to be celebrated because I learned something from it that I can apply to my life today. 

Maybe it is a quote from a movie that I watched. Or an idea that I read from a book. Or maybe it is something that I learned about myself after talking to my husband. 

Answering this question is proof that we learn new things every day and that we should always be open to what the world wants to teach us while we are alive. 

And this is an example of my takeaway from yesterday:

I am reminded that our locus of control is only limited to our circle of control and influence. There are things that we cannot control, so don’t bother changing them.

Question 5: If I will give myself 3 affirmations, what would these be?

Self-affirmations are important. These improve one’s self-worth, which will drastically influence how we relate with other people. As Louise Hay said, the way we see ourselves affect the way we interact with other people. 

Through self-affirmations, we also do not need other people to affirm us before we feel good about ourselves. People-pleasing habits will gradually decrease once we know that we are already pleased with our own personalities and characters.

Here are some self-affirmations that we can say to start our day:

I am beautiful.

I am loved.

I am worthy of love and respect. 

I am a good friend.

I stick to my values of generosity and gratitude. 

Once we bombard ourselves with positive statements before the day starts, it is expected that we will feel more positive and we will become more proactive in dealing with negative thoughts, feelings, and situations. 

What’s Next?

I hope that as I share with you a part of my daily morning routine, you will also become empowered to do the same. 

Self-reflection is really important, especially in this chaotic world that we are in now. With all the noise in social media and technology, it is important to pause, redirect ourselves with our goals, and to become purposeful in our day. 

I hope using these 5 questions before the day starts will work for you. 

You don’t have to wake up at 5 AM just like what Robin Sharma did.

But try to set aside a few minutes of your time in the morning to reflect, plan, and affirm yourself. 

This morning routine gives me a sense of purpose. 

I hope it will work for you, too. 

Have a great day!

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