The Miracle Morning Review- Introduction
The Miracle Morning, available in both print and audio formats, presents best-selling author and speaker Hal Elrod’s remedy to living a life of mediocrity. Although we are all born with tremendous potential, most of us ultimately fall short of this, and “settle” for less than what we want in life. Each day is much the same as the day before.
However, Elrod argues that everyone deserves to get and is capable of getting what they want in every area of life, including relationships, finances, career, health, spirituality, happiness, and more. His answer is implementing a simple daily personal development routine, which he says can empower anyone to surmount challenges, turn circumstances around, and transform any area of life, in a surprisingly short time.
Elrod’s Story Behind The Miracle Morning
The Miracle Morning method grew from lessons Elrod learned from two “rock bottom” experiences in his life.
- A devastating near death car accident that left him with brain damage and eleven broken bones at age 20.
- The financial collapse of his business plus a deep depression in the recession of 2008.
In recovering a from the tragic car accident, Elrod developed several coping mechanisms. He followed a “5 minute rule” he learned as a salesman whereby he allowed himself to feel only 5 minutes of negative emotion before refocusing on gratitude. He accepted situations he had no power to change and instead focused on the positive and gratefulness. During his second set back in 2008, a friend advised him to begin getting up early and go jogging (something he hated) while listening to self-help audio books to get blood and oxygen flowing to the brain while allowing ideas to flow. Miraculously, this advice was so beneficial that it hauled Elrod out of his depression. He began looking forward to mornings instead of dreading them, and within just two months, his life started to improve. These experiences taught him that he needed to take responsibility for creating the life he wanted. He realized that if he wanted a life of extraordinary success, he had to develop himself into the kind of person capable of achieving success.
Newly invigorated, Elrod committed to spending time on personal development. He believed that dedicating a portion of his morning to self development would set him up to attain his goals, to win the day. He analyzed various experts in the field and concluded that waking up earlier and instituting six practices regularly could boost his self development. So he committed to spending time each morning improving himself through Silence (typically meditation or prayer), Affirmation, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing (writing in a journal). His “Life S.A.V.E.R.S.” routine energized and motivated him.
In order to make the actions of Elrod’s “Miracle Morning” into a habit, he recommends sticking with it for 30 days. He states the first 10 days are “unbearable.” He relates the second ten days are “uncomfortable.” But by the final 10 days, he assures us that we will feel “unstoppable.” He refers his readers to several online resources tied to his book, which I myself downloaded and found to be quite useful.
Getting Started With The Morning Miracle Routine
Elrod maintains that an essential element of his program involves waking up earlier with enough time to accomplish the six steps of his program. An indeed, when looking at the habits of numerous successful people, you can find a common characteristic is waking up very early to get a head start on the day. But most of us have a lot of inertia, and are very reluctant to do so. I share the sentiments of Glen Cook:
“Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day.”
So how do we overcome the very tempting desire to hit the snooze button on our alarm? If you think about it, this is a form of procrastination. Elrod proposes a 5 step solution:
- Set intentions before bed: The key is to consciously decide every night to actively and mindfully a create a positive expectation for the next morning. He suggests some bedtime affirmations which you can access through his website.
- Move your alarm clock across the room: This forces you to get up to turn it off.
- Brush your teeth and splash some water on your face as soon as getting up.
- Drink a full glass of water to rehydrate yourself.
- Get dressed in exercise clothes you may have set out the night before, or jump in the shower.
In reading the advice of other experts on this topic, there was a suggestion to go about moving back your target wake up time in small amounts each week, to allow your body to gradually acclimate to the earlier wake-up times. Some suggested amounts as small as 5 minutes, others 30 minute changes. Others suggested avoiding electronic devices at least an hour before bedtime to facilitate falling asleep. Once you have fought off the temptation to hit the snooze alarm and stay in bed and you are up, it’s time to focus on yourself, resist looking at emails, news, social media or the like, and jump into Elrod’s Life SAVERS routine:
S–Silence
To reduce stress and start each day with calm, clarity, and focus, do the opposite of what most people do—begin with a period of silence.
For the majority of people, early mornings are either: 1) hectic—you have a million things on your mind, or 2) slow—you feel lethargic, lazy, and have trouble getting started. Neither is a productive way to start your day. In contrast, starting with purposeful silence will allow you to focus on what’s most important in your life.
There are at least five ways to practice silence: meditation, prayer, reflection, deep breathing, gratitude. You can start your Miracle Morning with just one of them or combine them. Many elect to try meditation.
A–Affirmations
Affirmations are positive, constructive statements that you repeat to yourself as a tool for reprogramming negative thinking to help you change or accomplish something. They’re one of the most effective tools for becoming the person you want to be and achieving your goals. For instance, Muhammad Ali repeated a simple affirmation—“I am the greatest”—over and over and he became the greatest boxer of his time.
Besides Ali, positive thinking and the use of affirmations have helped people like Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Suze Orman, Oprah Winfrey, and many others achieve success and wealth. Affirmations allow you to develop the mindset (thoughts, beliefs, focus) that you need to increase your level of achievement in any area of your life.
We all talk to ourselves already—we have an unconscious, internal dialogue running through our minds, replaying and interpreting past experiences. Unfortunately, for many people, it works against them in the form of self-defeating thoughts. However, getting control of this process by actively choosing positive, constructive thoughts is a powerful way to change your life….
V–Visualization
Through visualization, you increase your chances of success by imagining yourself achieving the results you want.
Athletes, musicians, and others often mentally rehearse a competition or a performance. For instance, golfer Tiger Woods mentally rehearses performing a perfect swing on each hole. Others who say visualization has contributed to their success include Bill Gates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey, Oprah, and Will Smith.
Elrod used visualization to help him complete this book. He visualized himself writing easily, without stress or writer’s block, and enjoying the creative process. He also visualized people reading his book and enthusiastically sharing it with friends. His positive visualization of the process provided the motivation to overcome procrastination.
Combined with reading your affirmations, visualization programs your subconscious mind for success. Some self-help writers believe visualizing your goals actually attracts these outcomes to your life. But whether or not you believe in the “law of attraction,” there are benefits: this technique can increase positive emotions and thoughts, optimize future physical performance and develop coping strategies, and it can relieve stress.
E–Exercise
Besides being good for your health, exercising for a few minutes each morning boosts your energy and mood and increases your mental clarity and focus.
Your Morning Miracle routine should include aerobic exercise such as jumping jacks, pushups, and situps. Alternatively, you could follow along with a yoga video. You can do additional exercise with a longer duration, such as running or working out at the gym, at other times during the day, but you still should do a brief morning routine to get your blood/heart pumping and adrenaline flowing.
R–Reading
Reading gives you the ideas, strategies, techniques, and knowledge you need to achieve your goals and dreams. Learning from and emulating people who have already done what you aspire to do saves you the time and struggle of reinventing the wheel.
With an infinite number of books available on every topic, there’s no limit to the knowledge and life-changing ideas you can gain through daily reading. It would be foolish to pass all this up by not reading. I myself am partial to personal development books.
Commit to read for a certain minimum amount each morning, whatever your schedule allows.
S–Scribing
Scribing or writing in a journal allows you to record insights, ideas, successes, lessons, and opportunities for future development.
Benefits include clarifying your thoughts, reinforcing what you’re learning, and setting a direction for the future. But you get even more benefit from reviewing your journal at regular intervals. For example:
- You gain an appreciation for what you’ve accomplished in a month or a year.
- You feel gratitude for your accomplishments.
- By looking back, you can identify lessons learned and commit to the steps you’ll take to implement those lessons.
Others advocate a bit different style of writing, that of writing three handwritten Morning Pages, a concept created by author Julia Cameron to “provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand.” These pages are about whatever is on your mind that morning, and they are for your eyes only so you can be open and brutally honest. Tim Ferriss, creator of the phenomenal 4-Hour series, practices this habit.
Don’t Be Afraid to Tweak
Having laid out these proposed steps, it is incumbent on me to say that you should adjust your morning routine based on what activities work for you, how early you have arisen, and how you feel that day. Experiment with the amount of time you devote to each activity, but to make it into a habit, try not to skip your usual routine steps altogether. Elrod even proposes a six minute abbreviated Life SAVERS routine, allocating only one minute to each stage.
Conclusion of The Miracle Morning Review
Although The Miracle Morning might garner a rating of maybe a 6 on a 0-10 scale due to a bit of “fluff” that fills the book, its core message has become very popular in that it has inspired many people to transform their lives. Without a doubt, waking up early and having a well-established morning routine is essential to success in any line of work. I personally have benefited from this approach.
I know I have not exhaustively covered this topic. If you have suggestions or comments about other useful tips and tricks you use to jump start your day, please let me know. I invite you to look for other blog posts I will be writing to review books related to personal development, so that you can develop the proper mindset to excel in productivity, goal achievement, entrepreneurship and the like. And if you have any interest in learning how to earn money in an online business, establishing a new job working from home, or developing a side hustle, please check out Entre Institute.