Power hour: How to change your life in just one hour a day
How can waking up earlier change your life and help you to be more productive and motivated? Cultivate good habits with Adrienne Herbert
Text: Livvie B
A global shift in routines over the past year have had an undeniable impact on our collective mental health, with many reporting feelings of frustration and loss of motivation. Days and nights have merged together as one, and it’s become almost impossible to differentiate between the working day and personal chill-out time. Thankfully, Adrienne Herbert’s impeccably timed book Power Hour is focused on reclaiming your time, creating boundaries, and changing your life with a Power Hour.
In 2017, motivational speaker, personal trainer, mentor and TEDx international speaker Adrienne was approached by Adidas, who asked her to run the London marathon as a global ambassador for the brand. Despite never having run more than 10km previously, she was determined to make this work. But how to fit the training into her already hectic schedule? The Power Hour was born. “That’s when the realisation hit me: if I wanted to find an extra hour each day to train for this race, the simple solution was to get up an hour earlier instead,” she says.
The key takeaway of her book is that, as we all know, it can be easy to procrastinate and put off our goals. Rather than waiting for the perfect time to pursue our dreams, Adrienne says we need to make the time for ourselves; just one hour can change our attitude, habits, health and social connections, leading to a more fulfilling and productive life. Read on to learn how to do it.
Adjust your mindset
The first step to accomplishing Power Hour, says Adrienne, is changing our mindset from a fixed one — when we believe that our abilities and talents are fixed and that there is no way to change this — to developing a growth mindset where we believe that we can learn, improve, and develop new skills with time with some good habits.
Each day we navigate thousands of decisions, many without even realising it. In order to do this, our mind and body develop habits, and these habits often neglect long-term goals and prioritise short-term rewards. In order to make the most of our time and energy, Adrienne tells us that it’s important to create powerful habits, such as the Power Hour.
Reclaim your time
Recognising the difference between having time and making time, or rather, reclaiming the time that was yours to begin with, is key. Harnessing just the first hour of each day is a small price to pay in order to pursue our passions and work towards building a life we love.
Throughout the book, Adrienne notes that whilst her Power Hour starts at an eye-watering 5:30am, our Power Hour is ours to own, and should be unique to us. She suggests you use the first hour of each day, however, as this is likely to be the quietest time before the rest of the world wakes up and starts demanding our attention.
If one hour every single day feels like too much of a stretch to start with, she suggests starting off with just half an hour, or using your Power Hour just a handful of times each week, building up slowly to one hour every day.
Do Power Hour wisely
Our Power Hour is our ‘me time’ so it should be spent doing something we don’t ordinarily have time to do; this might be reading a book, drinking a cup of coffee alfresco, or stretching. Adrienne recommends planning out our Power Hour for the week, so we know how we will productively use this precious time and avoid early morning decision-making. Avoiding our phones is key to ensure we are not distracted by outside influences and can truly focus.
The importance of movement
A fitness trainer by trade, Adrienne has seen first-hand the transformative impacts of movement, and the undeniable connection between regular physical movement and self-confidence, stress management and reduced risk of illness.
With this in mind, she suggests that we consider incorporating movement into our Power Hour. She recommends calling this ‘movement’ as opposed to ‘exercise’ and notes that movement of any kind is beneficial — be it a chilled yoga class, a hike, or even an AquaSpin session.
Sleeping to win
Whilst she encourages finding an extra hour each morning, she does not recommend sleeping less to achieve more. Sleep is crucial to our overall health, and can help with emotional wellbeing, concentration and decision-making, so it’s key that we don’t compromise on it.
Working out how much sleep we need and adjusting your schedule around this will help us to carve out our Power Hour to work towards achieving our goals.
Adrienne Herbert (@AdrienneLDN) is an author, fitness trainer, TED speaker, and podcast host. Her 2020 book ‘Power Hour’ is focused on setting aside the first hour of each day to work towards your personal goals – be it writing a book, running a marathon, or starting a business.
