The 5 Hour rule- a discussion to unmask your full potential

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What is limiting you from tapping into your full potential? Let’s find out.

You work extremely hard daily but never see long-term improvement. Your grades are constantly dropping. You are not up-to-date with relevant information useful in your coursework or general life. You feel trapped in your current level, unable to progress forwards. Your friends are advancing and meeting their set goals or unmasking their potential. So what may be different about you?

Imagine if you were guaranteed ultimate academic success with as minimal as five hours of solid dedication a week; that is one hour a day. For many successful leaders worldwide, their secret weapon is THE FIVE-HOUR RULE. This simple rule can assist you to transform from an ordinary performing individual to tapping into your full potential and ultimately pushing you into your success.

Why did former President Barack Obama create time to read an hour while in office? Why has Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest persons, created time to read during his career? Why did Warren Buffett, the profound investor in history, create time to read?

What do they see in reading that others don’t?

Benjamin Frankin answers this in the simplest but founded statement: “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

Knowledge gives power.

How it works

The 5-hour rule entails investing five hours weekly to focus on deliberate learning. This involves designated time to give your full attention to learning and developing yourself without any form of distraction. As nutritionist advises put, automatic activities with less convenient and more meaningful: eating with your left hand.

Learning and development can entail different formats. A mix of these activities will provide you with a well-rounded experience.

1. Reading: Setting aside one hour a day to consciously learn or practice new skills can profoundly positively impact your life. You can try having a book close to you at all times and setting yourself up to read. Using that time set aside efficiently as possible requires you to have reading goals that would provide direction on what to focus on each specific day.

2. Reflecting: reflection is fundamental to learning. Attempting to consume excess information without reflecting on it may lead to feeling overwhelmed and prevent you from picking new information or skills. This will allow thinking about the lessons recently learned from the reading. Try to create some time

3. Experimenting: Experimentation is necessary if you desire to progress. Put the theoretical knowledge gained into practice to enhance your creativity and innovation. Creativity never thrives if you do the same thing over and over. If the experiment fails, use the unsuccessful experiments as a basis for lessons on ways to improve yourself.

To save time and energy for your thoughts, let’s make the process more meaningful.

1. Determine the appropriate time for you each day to spend an hour learning, reflecting, or experimenting with the new knowledge. The proper time frame depends on your peak productivity hours or other factors that impact your schedule.

We all have busy lives, and it can be challenging to select an actual time to sit down and read. But Obama, who was extremely busy as the president, did it. If Barack Obama could create time in the White House to read an hour a day, then anybody could make valuable reading time.

2. Select information sources- tapping on your potential doesn’t merely means reading your coursework materials. It means “going big or going home.” There are multiple sources of information to learn from.

3. Identify an effective way to reflect

4. Explore the reading world- make a list of all the materials you want to read. Do those materials add value and bring you closer to your achievements?

5. Make reading consistent: train your brain- if it is challenging making the activity habitual, just make the process more manageable. As simply put, when going to the cave, don’t forget your guiding thread. You can set alarms. When the alarm goes off, decide whether you will be self-disciplined to resist opportunities to spend that specific time differently, which may be less impactful in reaching your full potential.

Understand the thin line between learning and working

It is easy not to differentiate between working and learning, and this may be what is causing you to feel trapped at a certain level. You might perceive that working on your coursework the whole day should be enough for you to witness improvement, but rarely is this the case.

When you focus on the day’s problems, such as completing assignments, hanging out with friends, etc., you don’t set a time for your development and growth. The 5-hour rule entails deliberate learning, not merely attending classes and hoping you may learn something. Set goals, be consistent, and see the vast improvement.

We are in for the improvement, not just productivity

Productivity indeed plays a key role in the success of reaching your potential. However, when the main focus is on productivity and efficiency, there will be less dedication to learning. Suppose you constantly focus on your current activity instead of long-term improvement.

In that case, it will be challenging to see significant development. It can be not easy to allow yourself five hours weekly for learning and developing that doesn’t produce immediate rewards. Still, you’ll thank yourself in the long run. Dedicate time to becoming the best version of yourself.

The main premise of the rule is that regardless of how knowledgeable you may be, investing at least five hours a week deliberately learning different things can have exponential benefits in your academic journey and life in general.

It will give you the ability to slow down your busy schedules and get perspective. It is about progress and not perfection. As Bill Gates once stated:

“I am not in competition with anyone but myself. My goal is to improve myself continuously.”