Last week my good friend Jackie and I decided to take on the insane, the unimaginable, the possibly life threatening; we made the decision to get up at 4am together for an entire week. Sunday through Saturday, hell or high water, we ran head first into this challenge with all the confidence in the world. And what we learned after this week together is that we most likely had too much confidence because friends, we crash landed HARD.
Before we get too far into the story, let me try to paint the picture of how we even arrived at this challenge in the first place. One day someone told me how the most successful people in the world get up at 4am. These people get a head start on the day, get more done in the hours they’re awake, and seem to have more creativity before the sun ever replaces the moon. Something you need to know about Jackie and I is that once one of us has an idea we don’t even think, we just run with it. And so, within 48 hours we had decided on a week, made plans of whose house we would be meeting at, and awaited the arrival of the dreadful hour.
The Saturday night before all this took place I decided to post about the whole event on Instagram so that friends could follow along on our crazy journey if they so decided. I googled “most successful people get up at 4am,” and the first five articles to pop up consisted of titles such as “internet outraged over claim that getting up at 4am makes you more successful,” or, “the most successful people in the world do not get up at 4am,” and friends, I was in shock. Here I was, getting ready to wake up in seven hours with someone else coming over to join me, and we weren’t even going to become more successful?? Still, we went on. In fact, Jackie doesn’t know about this development concerning our experiment… oops!
Sunday morning, 4am, my alarm goes off with a text from Jackie that she will be over soon. No doubt, twenty minutes later I answer my phone to “what the hell door do I go in?!” and our week began. That morning Jackie and I spent a solid four hours together, reading the bible, journaling, eating overnight oats, and learning more about each other. 24 hours later I was convinced that Jackie and I are soul-friends, as we had painted our nails the exact same color with no consultation or previous conversation. What’s more is these first two days went so smoothly! I got so much work done, cleaned my room, met with people, and wasn’t even crashing as I went to bed Tuesday night!
It’s always the calm before the storm though, right?
Tuesday morning disaster struck in the form of food poisoning. I was down for the count, out of the game, stuck in bed for pretty much the entire day. And remember that hell or high water I mentioned before? <<< Jackie’s Tuesday. We had to roll with the punches and spend Wednesday morning recovering from the storm of our Tuesday's. It has hard to swallow our pride as we never considered the week would include struggle bussing so hard, especially at the very beginning. Thursday we played catch up, literally and physically, spending our morning time processing through everything that had happened in the last two days and praying for each other. While the week wasn’t going as planned and we weren’t spending an hour in the word before going to work out, we were simply there for each other in the midst of a hurricane kind of week, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Thursday pretty much continued in the same kind of theme and held mental breakdowns, overwhelming stress, thoughts of dropping out of school, and many many tears.
On Friday I forced Jackie to sleep in as she was planning on traveling to Columbus that day before leading with our campus worship team that evening. Finally, on Saturday I rolled back over in bed and back to sleep after Jackie informed me that her body was feeling the toll of the week in full force and completely revolting against her. Our week was over.
What did we learn?? Honestly, I would say a whole lot.
Prior to the beginning of this challenge I asked Jackie to think of some of the reasons she wanted to start her day at 4am, and what she wanted to do differently than her normal morning. On Sunday she listed three goals: spend time in the morning with Jesus, work out, and stay off her phone for the first hour or so in order to fill her cup before pouring out all day. At the end of the week I asked Jackie how she felt about her experience and I don’t think I can express her feelings better than she did.
“I feel like I was able to practice being present over perfect. I truly went into it thinking everyday I would be up at 4am no problem because once I commit to doing something I just do it. I know that I can do anything for a short time, so I was shocked to see how actually incapable I was at certain points to control life’s circumstances and make it happen. It helped me practice taking things as they come, not being too hard on myself when things don’t go as planned, and slowing down with Jesus in the midst of trial” - Jackie Burns.
Personally, I wanted to get similar things out of the week such as time reading the bible in the morning, but I also wanted to see the value in my time not only in the morning but also throughout the day. Same as Jackie, I feel like the whole experience forced me to slow down and take each moment as it came. Thanks to this, the day lying in bed with food poisoning, and the Thursday mental breakdowns, I truly did come to recognize the value of my time. I learned that sometimes I have to let my body rest and recoup, no matter how many other things I “should be” doing. I found that while my time may be better spent with a clear mind working on papers and studying for tests, my brain just can’t function like that 24/7. I had to recognize it’s going to be healthier in the long run for me to sit down with a book for an hour instead.
At the end of the week a friend asked if this would become a norm for me and when I asked Jackie the same question, I found that we had almost the exact same response.
“I would see myself doing 4am at a different phase of life, but not every day as a college student. I do think there will be days where I do 5am though to go to the Rec and spend time with Jesus” -Jackie Burns.
Through and through at the end of it all I am extremely thankful for this experience of getting up before sunrise and spending time getting to know a good friend even better. 4am mornings just do not work well with a college student’s lifestyle, and probably aren’t really meant to.
I definitely grew through the experience though, and to sum up what I learned: rest isn’t only important, it is imperative to live a successful life. This was an exceptionally difficult pill for me to swallow as someone who doesn’t like to stop and wants to do it ALL. Not only do I want to do it all, but up until this past week I was convinced somehow I could. But friends, I was severely wrong and while that hurt to learn I’m glad I was taught this painful lesson. After two years of filling my cup past the brim and watching it spill over, I was literally and physically forced to lay in bed for a day and allow myself to rest. I had to humble myself and recognize that no matter how many things I want to get done, I will never be able to do them well if I don’t rest first. Considering this week began with the phrase “the most successful people in the world get up at 4am,” it was a curious turn of events to realize the opposite is more conducive to my own personal success.
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