I read The Miracle Morning back in the Fall of 2015 in the midst of a hard time and lapped up the formulaic routine the book provided to get my shit together. Or get my shit together enough to then really start getting the real shit together.
The Miracle Morning is about a set of morning habits that can help you start your days positively and ultimately help you accomplish your goals and live a happier life. The author, Hal Elrod, shares his own story of being at the end of his rope before trying some out of these habits and that fall I was certainly at the end of mine. A few of my coworkers whom I respected and wanted to emulate were also reading the book . . . and I was ready to try anything.
I do recommend reading The Miracle Morning, but here’s the cheat sheet (or which you can find many more detailed summaries with a quick google).
First: Get up early, like 5am early, and execute a version of this routine (SAVERS):
- S – Silence: Aka Meditating. Or prayer or breathing. Silence.
- A – Affirmation: Read out encouraging words to help you overcome fears and achieve your purpose.
- V – Visualization: Imagine yourself doing the steps needed to accomplish your goals.
- E – Exercise: Move your body. Even just for five minutes. Or do a full workout.
- R – Read: Read, read, read.
- S – Scribe: Write, journal, document your reflections.
This can take an hour, or two hours, or five minutes if you’re doing a mini one. When I first completed the book I did this routine pretty diligently for a while and I do think it was a major factor in getting out of my funk enough to make some major decisions that needed to happen in my life (ultimately leaving my unhappy marriage). It was also the first time I meditated and started using Headspace, an app I still use to meditate daily.
I have not held this routine perfectly since 2015 — far from it — but you might remember me writing my own version of this miracle morning earlier this year. As I set my goals for 2019, a big part of accomplishing them was taking back my mornings: waking up early to meditate, read, write a blog post, and then exercise before work. As the year has progressed this routine has varied somewhat with the times but all in all, remained steady.
But I have to admit it’d been a good many months since I’ve gotten up at 5. That’s the first thing to go for me when life gets busy or stressful. I stay up a little later, I hit the snooze a few more times, I skip my morning reading and push my blog writing to the evening to fit in a morning run.
I felt like I needed a reset and books usually work to motivate me so I thought about picking up The Miracle Morning again for a reread. And I’ll tell you, even deciding that I was going to do that had me implementing the old trick (that many people spout but I heard first in this book) to put my phone across the room so I have to get out of bed to turn it off. The hardest part about waking up is the first five minutes, so get out of bed, brush your teeth, and drink a glass of water. Since I learned that back in 2015 those three simple things have been the most effective to reseting my morning routing back to the 5 am hour.
In looking up The Miracle Morning again I found that they did adaptations specific to certain professions or interests and I ended up downloading The Miracle Morning for Writers. It’s the same structure but framed for making more time for writing through this routine. Nothing groundbreaking there, but I appreciate the reiteration on both fronts.
So now, I have to go put my phone across the room. See you in the morning.
With Love,
Natalie