my 5am routine: everything I do before I go into the office

Here's why I believe the saying, I don't have enough time, is the fattest excuse of the century. Now before I get canceled, hear me out, hear me out. I used to be the student that would make that excuse all the time and I would say, oh, like I could be good at X, Y, Z goal if I tried. If I tried. Okay, so let me just say, one, make time. Two, grow up. Because if you wanna do big things, that mindset is not gonna get you where you want to be. So today we're gonna be talking about my 5 a.m. routine and why I do it and what it looks like because I have been doing this intermittently for the last eight years, starting from my freshman year of high school. I used to be a competitive athlete. I was a cross country and track runner. I would wake up at 4.50 a.m. every single morning to run three miles or go swimming or both before class and I would do this every single morning and I would train twice a day, sometimes three times a day and let me tell you, it took a lot of self-discipline to be able to do that. I am not a morning person naturally. I struggle waking up early but I have committed myself to the friction of waking up early whenever I feel like I need a reset moment. Waking up early is my favorite tool to use whenever I feel the need to reset my life. It's a reset button that you can press at any point in time and it has never failed me. Without further ado, here is my 5 to 9 a.m. routine before my 9 to 5 where I am showing you everything I do before I go into the office. For context, I'm 22 years old, I live in New York City and I'm a brand manager working in the alcohol industry. I'm also an avid runner and I really care about being physically fit and mentally fit as well and those are all priorities to me so in order to do that, I wake up really, really early. This lifestyle is part of what has carried into my life for the last decade and it's part of who I am at my core. This is how I balance everything. It's not easy but this is how to do it. ♪ Oh yam, oh yam, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ So first things first, waking up, pretty tough. You gotta do a lot of prep the night before to be able to get yourself to fall asleep at a reasonable hour. I made a video about this, if you'd like to watch it, click this. So I usually wake up between like 5.30 to 5.45, sometimes earlier, sometimes a little bit later. So let's talk about the tasks that need to be accomplished before I go to work. Number one, drink one glass of water. I'm very prone to migraines and drinking water in the morning kind of helps make sure that I am okay in the head. Number two, brush my teeth and put in contacts. I have to be able to see if I'm gonna ace the day, so gotta put in those contacts and brush my teeth because dental hygiene is also important. Number three, I make my bed every morning. I will usually do this before I go to the gym, so that way everything is laid out nicely for when I get back. Number four, I write out my intentions of the day. I think that's very important. I like to write all the priority tasks, usually like the top three most pressing things that I don't want to do as my priorities for the day, so that way I get to them before I go into the office. And usually these are things that are not corporate related but are maybe more related to personal work that I have to do or just admin stuff that I've been putting off. Hour two, 6 a.m. So now it's time to work out. This is when I head over to the gym. I will usually run there or jog there. I try to be very intentional with the types of training that I do. I usually base it on how I'm feeling. I've had a decade of like running experience that I have been able to kind of use to gauge what my workouts will entail. So it kind of depends on like the goals that I'm trying to hit because sometimes I go in phases where I want to be really focused on building muscle and sometimes I focus on building more cardio and endurance strength. Recently I've been kind of doing a mix of both. Let me just say I feel a little bit rude filming in the gym. So there's no footage of me running because it's way too awkward to film there. So this is the footage of me alone doing like stretching and stuff and kind of warm-ups before I get on to the meat of the workout which today I did an interval run. So I did one mile warm-up, then a quarter mile at a 630 pace, then another quarter mile cool down at like 9 minute mile pace, then another quarter again 630 minute mile pace, and then again 9 minute mile pace, and then I do another mile and then I repeat again until you have done the circuit like twice at least. I usually try and like keep my runs contained within like 30 minutes so usually that'll be three miles. Then I will go and do some sort of like body weight training. So I love planking. Planking is probably one of my favorite things to do just because I find that it's so good for the core and I have a herniated disc. I do a lot of stretching. I usually alternate between core and legs because primarily because of injury prevention. My favorite types of planks are planking on a ball. So I get an exercise ball and then I will put my legs on the ball and plank for about a minute and I do that about 5 to 10 times depending on how much I can tolerate and how frequently I've been doing it. I also love leg lifts. I will do like 10 reps of 8. I will do dead bugs. I'll do around like 5 reps of 8 and then I will also do the alphabet. So basically you just lying on your back and using your core to trace out the alphabet with your feet. Sometimes if I have time I will cold plunge. I did not today so that did not happen. Hour three. Shower time and going home. So this is when I quickly shower. I haven't figured out a great way to like not wash my hair twice a day because I just feel like it's gross if I don't wash my hair. So I wash my hair and I blow-dried. It's not great but we're working on it. So breakfast. Realistically this probably looks like me eating a protein bar. Some of my favorite bars are from Misfits. I also like the Barbells bars and I will sometimes make a smoothie if I need additional protein. In terms of protein I try and hit at least 100 grams of protein a day. This is something that I struggle with and have always struggled with. It's very hard especially for women to like be conscious about eating as much protein as possible but you're supposed to eat at least your body weight in grams of protein. So minimum 100 grams of protein. I try to do maybe like 120 if I if I like keep it in but realistically it's around like 100. Then the last and final hour. It is time for hair and makeup. This is where I get dressed and ready to go to work. So I yeah I will try and do everything like super super quickly. So outfit of the day. I am wearing this top sweater thing from Free People and then I'm wearing my work pants. I believe these are from Abercrombie. And yeah so we're just keeping it simple. Oh wet nose. Time to go. Time to go. Last but not least I will usually check off my intention list and plan out the rest of my day. I think it's really important to do some sort of like time blocking system. I really like this planner by Full Focus. This is one that I've used for the last like year. But honestly any sort of like time blocking system and way to visualize your week is really really key. I love having like a really large calendar so that way I can fill it out every single month and have all of my like key deadlines filled in. I think that's really really essential especially for people who struggle with like ADHD and with forgetting deadlines. So so key. I really like this planner in particular because it has time stamps by hour and it also has a section for like your priority like top three tasks and whatnot. But I find the time blocking system to be very very helpful and it really helps to have like a checklist of easy things so it's written out and that way I know exactly what needs to be done for the day. So yeah that's pretty much my everyday morning routine. Whenever it's on the weekdays my weekends look differently. Again this routine is just what works for me and I find that this is what has helped me throughout the last few months. It's subject to change so we'll see what my 5 a.m. morning routine looks like next year but as of right now this is what I've been doing. So thank you so much for watching and yeah cheers to early mornings!