The 5AM Club vs The Miracle Morning — Which One Is Actually Worth Reading?
The way we start the day is one of the most important decisions we make. It sounds dramatic, but it is true.
With the right routine, we make progress every single day.
With the wrong one, we wake up stressed and in a hurry, and start the day already feeling behind.
I started reading books about morning routines because they are highly motivating, and I wanted to improve my morning routine so that I can change my habits and my mindset.
There are two most popular books at the moment, The Miracle Morning and The 5am Club.
I read both of them, and then I actually tried both. Not for a week. For over a year, through two winters, with two kids and a full-time job.
Here is where I landed, so you know what you are reading: I now wake up at 7 a.m. Later than when I started, and nowhere near 5 a.m. The routine that survived is not the one in either book. It is exercise first, then reading and journaling, most mornings, and nothing at all when I am ill.
These books are very similar in theory (waking up early will change your life), but very different in the writing style and the approach. So I thought it would be good to share a comparison of the two and tell you which one I liked the most.
What Is The 5 AM Club?
Take excellent care of the front end of your day, and the rest of your day will pretty much take care of itself.
Robin Sharma
The 5AM Club by Robin Sharma uses a fictional story about two struggling strangers and an eccentric tycoon to deliver its self-development message.
The style is different from everything I have read before, so beware of this. Yet, the advice in the book is valid, so I continued reading it and finished it in a couple of days.
The idea is this: You wake up an hour before your spouse and your kids and use that distraction-free time to focus on your personal well-being, with a mix of exercise, meditation, and reading or learning.
When you wake up at 5 am, you need to implement the 20/20/20 formula:
My experience trying the 5am routine
I have to admit that I never fully tested this routine as it was originally intended. With two small kids, getting up at 5 a.m. simply wasn’t realistic for me, so I shifted it to 5:30 or 6 a.m.
That said, I did fully implement the 20/20/20 method, and I found this structure to be almost perfect. You get 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of meditation, and 20 minutes of reading or journaling.
Nothing feels too long or overwhelming, which makes it easy to stick with long term. I’m not rigid about it either; some mornings I exercise longer, other days I read more.
But overall, I aim to do all three most mornings, and they work incredibly well together. The structure is simple, not complicated, and finishing the exercise that early in the day is truly game-changing.
After reading the book, I did manage to push my wake-up time to 5:30 a.m. Not 5 a.m., and I had no plans to go further, because I have to stay up later in the evening for my kids’ training sessions.
But getting up earlier changed things for the better. I had enough time to exercise, write, and work on my own projects. I felt stronger and healthier than I had in years.
Then winter happened
I read The 5AM Club in summer. Getting up early in July is not hard.
Then winter came. Our heating does not start until 7 a.m., so getting out of a warm bed meant stepping into a freezing room. Neither of these books has anything to say about that.
So I moved my wake-up time to 7 a.m., when the heating comes on.
But I do not think it is only the heating. Seven months on, I am fairly sure 7 a.m. is simply the time that suits me. I wake up feeling rested and ready to get up.
That is the version of the routine I am still doing.
What the book says about getting up earlier
The main premise is that if you keep it up for 66 days, waking up early becomes automatic. Two of the tips stayed with me.
Move your wake-up time slowly. Do not jump from 7 a.m. to 5 a.m. Shift it bit by bit until you reach the time you actually want.
Get up as soon as the alarm rings. Do not give your brain time to come up with excuses for why you should sleep five minutes longer. I used to press snooze constantly.
What your evening has to look like
This is the part most people skip, and why the routine fails for them.
To get up at 5 a.m. you need a strict evening routine. That means being in bed by 9 p.m. and asleep by 10 p.m., with your devices off at least an hour before. You also need to eat dinner a couple of hours before you go to bed.
Unless you sleep for at least seven or eight hours, you will wake up tired, and then the whole morning routine stops making sense.
Strengths
The 5am Club is highly motivational and can genuinely inspire you to make a change. The writing style is simple, with no complex language or structure, which makes the book easy to read and possible to finish in just a few days.
Potential downsides
The main downside is the rigid wake-up time, which may not fit every life stage. With small kids, getting up at 5 a.m. doesn’t always work.
You may also struggle to go to bed early enough in the evening, depending on your work hours or your children’s schedules.
Another downside for me was the writing style. I didn’t truly enjoy the storytelling approach of the book. When it comes to self-help, I prefer a more traditional, straightforward non-fiction style.
What is The Miracle Morning?
Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, and success is something you attract by the person you become.
Hal Elrod
The Miracle Morning is a book by Hal Elrod. It is not a difficult book to read, and you can do it in just a couple of days.
In this one, you do not need to start your day at 5 am, you can start it at 6 or 7. The point is that you get up early enough to have an hour or two for yourself.
When you get up, Hal proposes a SAVERS framework, which is basically this:
- Silence — meditation, prayer, or quiet breathing
- Affirmations — reminding yourself of your goals and intentions
- Visualization — imagining the day ahead, or the life you are working toward
- Exercise — stretching, yoga, or a short workout
- Reading — a few minutes of something intentional
- Scribing — journaling, to reflect, plan, or express gratitude
You do not need to do all six every day. On a busy morning, one or two still counts. The book also covers how to wake up earlier, how to stop hitting snooze, and how to prepare the night before through what Hal calls the Miracle Evening. A good morning starts the night before.
So you can see now that these books are very similar in their message. In this one, Hal Elrod believes you should use your mornings to feel better and get better.
And indeed this would be a perfect routine. The one where we manage to do both meditation, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and writing.
Strengths
I really like that the timing is flexible. It doesn’t make you feel like a failure if you can only get up at 7 a.m.
He also stresses the importance of sleep, which I think is crucial. We shouldn’t cut back on sleep just to squeeze in a routine. Sleep is essential for our health, well-being, and immunity, and no morning practice should come at the expense of that.
The routine itself is also customizable. You can do all six activities, or just focus on a couple of them. And if you only have half an hour in the morning, he suggests doing just a few minutes of each.
I really loved this message: do the best you can with the time and energy you have, however small that effort might feel. Because over time, it all adds up.
Potential downsides
At first, this routine might overwhelm you, especially if you are used to simple mornings: drinking your coffee and scrolling your phone.
And I, too, find meditation, affirmations, or visualization a bit hard to do and include in my everyday routine.
What the book says is actually holding you back
Before touching your morning, the book asks you to look at what is really in the way. According to Hal, these are the most common reasons people feel stuck:
- We live in the past and repeat the same thoughts, which leads to the same feelings day after day
- We lack a clear sense of purpose, which makes daily action feel meaningless
- Every choice shapes who we are becoming, and choosing the easy option again and again builds an identity rooted in comfort rather than growth
- We absorb the habits, beliefs and limits of the people we spend time with
- We are not actively working on ourselves through learning or reflection
- We lack urgency, and live as if time is unlimited
Seeing them written out in one place made the way forward clearer to me than any morning routine did.
My experience with the Miracle Morning
I started this one in January 2026. I was waking at 6 a.m. and giving an hour to the routine while my kids were still asleep. I aimed to include all six practices, though affirmations were the one I skipped most often.
Seven months on, here is what actually happened.
I am still doing the Miracle Morning, but in a different form.
I wake up at 7 a.m. now, every day of the week. Not 6 a.m., and not 5 a.m. I moved my wake-up time later, which is the opposite of what both of these books tell you to do.
I cannot manage all six SAVERS in a morning. The one I do every single day is exercise. Reading and journaling follow closely behind. The rest happens when it happens.
Has it fixed my procrastination? I will be honest: no.
What it did do is make me healthier and calmer.
And when I am sick, I stop the routine completely. I try to get as much sleep as I can, and I start again when I am better.
The 5AM Club vs The Miracle Morning: key differences
Which one is easier to stick with long-term?
My honest answer is: neither.
Some people don’t mind getting up at 5 am, and if you live alone and don’t have kids, it’s definitely worth trying.
But if you’re in a different life stage, it makes much more sense to create a routine of your own, one that actually fits your lifestyle. That’s the only kind of routine you can realistically stick with long term.
Start small. Trying to change everything at once rarely works. Move your wake-up time gradually, and introduce habits like exercise, reading, and journaling one by one.
A six-step morning routine implemented all at once might look good on paper, but for most people, it’s difficult to sustain over time.
The real goal isn’t to follow a routine perfectly for a few weeks and then give up. It’s to build something you can keep doing for years, or even for the rest of your life.
The book Atomic Habits really helped me understand why I kept failing when trying to introduce new habits, and what I needed to change in order to stay consistent.
My personal take
When I finished reading the second book, it became clear which one I preferred.
I found the style of The 5 AM Club a bit too cheesy and dramatic for my taste, and I enjoyed reading The Miracle Morning much more. That said, I do appreciate the simplicity of the morning routine in The 5 AM Club, and I genuinely enjoyed following it last year.
What I’m doing now is a combination of both approaches. I don’t wake up at 5 a.m., but I keep the simple three-step structure: exercise, reading, and journaling.
Trying to focus on six different elements first thing in the morning isn’t easy, and for many people, it may be difficult to sustain long-term.
Frequently Asked Questions
Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading and Scribing (journaling). These are the six practices Hal Elrod recommends doing each morning in The Miracle Morning.
Only for The 5AM Club, where the fixed wake-up time is the whole point. The Miracle Morning works whenever you can find one or two undisturbed hours. I have never managed 5 a.m. and both routines still worked for me.
The Miracle Morning, if you are only reading one. It is more flexible and the writing is clearer.
It all goes out the window. I focus on sleep and recovery, and let everything else go. I start again when things settle.
I do not think so, and I am the evidence. I started at 5:30 a.m., moved to 6 a.m., and now I get up at 7 a.m. That is the version that has lasted. What mattered was not the hour on the clock, but having something I actually do when I get up.
Final thoughts
Having tried both morning routines, I now see these books as guidelines rather than rules. The most effective routine is the one you build for yourself, the one that fits your life and that you can repeat consistently for years.
As books, I personally prefer The Miracle Morning. I find the writing style clearer and the message easier to follow.
So if you’re looking for a book about building a morning routine, that’s the one I’d recommend starting with.
But being over 40, I now prioritize sleep and rest over productivity. For me, I’d rather sleep longer and feel better, than rush in the morning. So the key is finding the wake up time that fits your life at its current stage.
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