Having been involved in direct sales for 17 years I have enjoyed reading about other woman who have been successful in the industry. Of course, one of the icons of the direct sales industry is Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics. She is an amazing woman and I have enjoyed reading about and learning from her over the years.
Years ago, at the beginning of my direct sales career I first read about Mary Kay’s Five O’clock Club in her book “Mary Kay – You Can Have it All”.
Whenever people would ask Mary Kay how she managed to get so much done she would tell them about her Five O’clock Club and invite them to join her.
Yes, Mary Kay Ash would get up every morning at 5:00 a.m. That extra hour or two each day, before the rest of the world and her family got up, helped her to accomplish all that she needed to do – and she accomplished a lot. I have since read of many successful people who are members of the club too – everyone from Ted Turner to Gandhi.
When I was a young mom, home with 4 small children and trying to balance family with running a direct sales business and everything else in my life, there just weren’t enough hours in my day. After reading about Mary Kay’s club I decided to join. Yes – I decided to get up at 5:00 a.m. each morning. The thing I was struggling with at the time was getting my exercise in each day so I went to the gym each morning at 5:00 a.m.
Now – I’m not going to lie – it was painful, very painful! But I was determined to make exercise a part of my life and if 5:00 a.m. was the only time I could make it happen – I was going to do it. I will tell you that it did get easier – not a lot easier – but easier to get up at that time each morning.
I continued the practice of the 5 O’clock Club for a lot of years – sometimes using it to get my exercise in or other times using it to get up and work on projects I needed to accomplish.
As my children got older though and were gone all day to school I stopped being a member of the 5 O’clock Club. Maybe it was because I had more time to myself during the day to get things done or maybe I just got lazy! I have found that the busyness of life has it’s ebbs and flows – some seasons are crazy busy and others are just busy.
We are entering one of those crazy busy seasons for the next few months with sweet high school daughter getting to graduate and wanting to be involved in as many things as she possibly can and I want to be right there to enjoy it all too. I have a list a mile long of all the things I want to accomplish before graduation (including her scrapbooks!)
Several weeks ago I shared with you one of my goals for my Forty Days of Fanatical Focus – completing her scrapbooks (family goal) and increasing my exercise program. (health goal)
This week it was time to add in Focus Goal #3 – my spiritual goal. In order to accomplish this goal I am once again joining the 5 O’clock Club – with one slight modification – it is now the 6 O’clock Club!
For the last week I have been getting up at 6:00 a.m. each morning (this is a half hour earlier than normal) to spend quiet time reading my scriptures, pondering and working on a new assignment I have been given at church. I have been asked to be a Destiny Leader for our church girl’s camp this summer. Destiny is the “spiritual” part of camp – each day the girls go to Destiny to be spiritually feed and uplifted. In order to prepare myself for this responsibility I knew I needed to take time each day between now and then to prepare what I would say and share with the girls.
Being 17 years older than I was when I first joined the 5 O’clock Club I didn’t want to shock the old system too much so I decided to start getting up at 6 a.m. for a week and then this week it will be 5:45 a.m. and then I’ll push it to 5:30 a.m. the next week (So I guess it will be the 5:30 club eventually!)
I have loved this extra pocket of time each morning. It sets a wonderful tone for the rest of my day and is helping me to find the time I need to prepare for my new assignment.
Is there some project you have been putting off? Are you finding the time in your day for all the things that are important to you? If not – you might want to give the Five O’clock Club – or maybe the Six O’clock Club – the more members the better!
Let me know if you join and what you are using the time to focus on and accomplish.
Leave a comment