The Rock released a tough-love motivational app - and using it to wake up earlier for a week made me acknowledge a difficult truth about goals

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The Rock released a tough-love motivational app - and using it to wake up earlier for a week made me acknowledge a difficult truth about goals

the rock

Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for MTV

If anyone can get you up in the morning, it's probably Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

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  • The Rock created a motivational alarm clock called 'The Rock Clock' as part of a larger initiative called 'Project Rock.'
  • I used it for five days to help me wake up an hour earlier.
  • In the app, you can set a project, a deadline, and select the sounds you want to wake up to.
  • After one week of use, I realized that motivation starts with me - and without that internal desire to reach a goal, external motivation won't have the the same impact.


Waking up is hard to do.

Sometimes I wake up when I intend to, but lay in bed for an extra 10 to 15 minutes staring at the ceiling, debating the value of those extra minutes, and coercing myself into actually putting my feet on the (cold) floor. Usually this happens somewhere between 7:15 and 7:30 a.m. - even though I tell my phone to wake me around 7 a.m. Usually I end up rushing and not actually checking things off my morning to-do list.

Ultimately, though, the problem isn't my inability to avoid the snooze button - it's that I really just need some extra time in the morning to shower, eat, dress, and chill out for a minute before getting on the subway and heading into work.

I've tested numerous approaches to my morning routine with the hopes I'd find something that sparked some inspiration to become that person that wakes up at 6 a.m. I tried some of the more sudden/scary Apple alarm sounds - like the one that sounds like a truck backing up - and I've made my alarm upbeat songs I liked (that have since lost their previous happiness-inducing power). I've also tried setting the time for drastically earlier thinking my snoozes would then equal out to the time I actually want to get up (that trick never works).

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So when someone at work told me the Rock had a motivational alarm clock - well, I just couldn't resist giving it a shot.