It was a summer night and I’ve just returned home from the local bookstore. As I walked into my living room, I thought about the new set of objectives I had set out for myself. I began to list these objectives in my notepad:

• Edit the Intangible Wealth e-books

• Mutual study with wife on how to cultivate our marriage

• Improve foreign language skills

As I reviewed the list, I asked myself, “When am I going to find time to accomplish these?” I decided that the morning would be the best time to do it and that I would focus on doing one of them during that time. In reviewing my schedule, I decided to concentrate my morning time on improving my foreign language skills!

Why would I want to study foreign languages in the morning?

In the past my foreign language studies were erratic, lacking a definitive track and milestones for improvement. Fortunately, I knew that I could do better than that. I decided that I needed to follow a self-study program with milestones to test my competency in vocabulary and vocal intonations. That type of program is proven to demonstrate faster and better results.

I asked my wife: When in the morning am I going to get this done? I already wake up late as it is, my clothes aren’t ironed, I’ve got to cook breakfast and shave in before leaving out the door in 45 minutes!

One thing we decided is that we need to set our alarm clock one hour earlier throughout the week. That would set aside a specified time to work on my foreign language skills. By sticking to the regimen for the next 6 months, I’d be well on my way to attaining fluency. Excellent! Plus, by doing it first thing in the morning, I know that I will get it done! Problem solved.

When I thought about waking up earlier in the morning, I got excited knowing that we would be taking another step toward our development. I even envisioned awakening in the morning to the pleasantries of hearing the birds sing and the soft caress of the fresh morning air. I inhaled slowly deeply…ahhh, so invigorating.

But it all stopped.

That experience was short-lived and the symphony of bird songs ceased. The soft caress of fresh morning air came to an end. It all concluded the moment that…

I started coming up with excuses

In that moment, my objectives were pushed to the side and my morning time reverie turned into painful drudgery. The excuses poured in as a raspy little voice started questioning me about my reasoning. It said, “Hey Dion, you already wake up early enough, you don’t need to wake up another hour earlier.” Later it followed with,“You’ll be sooo tired! You won’t have any energy throughout the day if you wake up that early!”

I was hit with a blitzkrieg of excuses that had little to do with my objectives for improvement. All of this over waking up one hour earlier in the morning! As I stood there listening to this sales pitch of excuses, I decided I needed to refocus. The raspy little voice began fading out when I started putting everything back into perspective, reconciling all of the excuses and fears with my objectives. In fact, the raspy little voice shut up completely when I asked myself one question:

“If I knew that by waking up one hour earlier in the morning to work on my goals for the next four years I would receive one million dollars in the fifth, would I do it?”

I answered, “Absolutely.” At that point, I knew that…

I found an error in my personal philosophy.

Here’s the error: I found that I valued a million dollars more than I valued increasing my foreign language proficiency. When it was non-financial, only self-education and personal fulfillment, I came up with excuses not to do it. Getting up an hour earlier every morning for the next 6 months to work on a goal that required compromising my personal comfort scared me and caused me to stall. There was no money involved, just sweat equity. On the other hand, when it was a matter of waking up an hour earlier every morning to gain a million dollars I chose to do it without hesitation. There was hardly a delay in making the decision.

This is a red flag.

For me to promptly respond “absolutely” at the thought of waking up early every morning for a million dollars five years from now and respond with doubts and hesitations for self-education and personal fulfillment is a red flag. That type of error in my way of thinking will lead to poor decisions that diminish my potential and undermine my Intangible Wealth . If we ask ourselves these types of questions and answer honestly, I bet most of us will find similar errors in our personal philosophies.

Make an honest self evaluation

Monday thru Friday, most of us set our alarm clocks for early in the morning for work. We get up as the sun rises – some of us eager and some of us dreading – to work hard on our jobs day in and day out. But how many of us are willing to set the alarm clock Monday thru Friday for the sole purpose of investing in our personal improvement?

Action Step – Fix Your Clock

I challenge each of you to set your alarm clock one hour earlier for the next five days to work on a personal goal. Just think of it as daylight savings time!

Not sure what you could do during those extra 60 minutes? No worries. I’ve listed three questions to help you brainstorm a list of rewarding activities to kick-start your day this week:

• What are the 5 things that excite you?  For each of the next five days use one to kick start your day in an exciting way.

• Is there an organization that you’ve wanted to learn about, an opportunity you’ve wanted to invest in, or a career you’ve wanted to research? Do it tomorrow morning so that you start pulling yourself in the right direction.

• How about that idea you’ve been thinking about but have yet to put into action? By following the advice in this article, you now have an extra hour during each of the next 5 mornings to experiment with it. Try it out.

It’s up to you. Are you listening to that raspy little voice bombarding you with excuses? If so, ask yourself, “If I knew that by waking up one hour earlier in the morning for the next four years I would receive one million dollars in the fifth, would I do it?”

Yes! So get started. You’re worth more than a million dollars, aren’t you? By following the action step you’ll feel like a million dollars every morning.