At whatever age, each of us is at, whatever stage of our life, one of the common factors is the need for success. Be it, as a student studying to pass exams, a working professional making it up the corporate ladder, or a housewife managing all the chores to make a livable home, or anyone else, we are all working towards a certain level of success, whether that level is defined by us or by someone else. (The latter is another issue.)
“Approximately 95% of our society settles for far less than they want in life, wishing they had more, living with regret and never understanding that they could be, do and have all they want.”
The Miracle Morning
The Miracle Morning by Hal Erol is about success, or rather how to create a ritual that would create the environment that would propel you towards the highest rungs of success. Routines as I have found out in the other books I have read (see book club), are very important to remain consistent and to create an environment that would induce us to work towards our goals. While many books talk about routines and how to implement them, this book delivers specifically on why one should have a morning routine, how it is beneficial and how to implement a successful morning routine. This book is unique in that it contains real-life examples from people from different walks of life who have implemented this miracle routine and have found first-hand success.
We all want to be successful in life, but “If we do not commit to thinking and living differently than people now, we are setting up ourselves to endure a life of mediocrity, struggle, failure, and regret, just like most people.”
“Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development because success is something you attract by the person you become.”
p.37 The Miracle Morning
We all want level 10 success in all areas of our life, but if our levels of personal development in any given area of our life is not a level 10, then life is always a struggle.
So how do we implement this routine?
A miracle morning routine consists of one hour without any distraction, to focus on you, on your goals, aspirations, and inspirations. A miracle morning routine makes you excited to get to bed and as excited, if not more to spring out of bed and start working on yourselves. This creates momentum so that you can keep going throughout the day (Click here to read about 5 reasons why morning routines are important)
The main takeaway from this book is the acronym – S. A. V. E. R. S.
S – Silence
Your normal day perhaps is a lazy, slow start to the day or a rushed and stressed one, but by taking advantage of the first hour before anyone is awake to stay silent and do some meditation, practice deep breathing or prayer is a good way to set off the day.
A – Affirmations
Talking to yourself is not crazy. You have many inner dialogues during the day, many of which may not be very kind towards yourself. During these inner dialogues, we often take a walk down memory lane, and not the one full of good memories. Most of the time, we tend to berate ourselves or talk down to ourselves, demotivating us. Hal defines this as the rearview mirror syndrome. We keep thinking about our past actions. We base our true potential on our self-limiting past, on the person we were and the mistakes we made, and we turn to those mistakes to take guidance.
If you do not consciously design and choose your affirmations, you will tend to recreate and relive your past fears, limitations, and insecurities.
The Miracle Morning
V – Visualization
Close your eyes and visualize what you really want, who you need to be, and what you need to do. This is easy for people who have concrete goals that they want to achieve, and not so easy for those who are still “finding themselves”.
Creating a vision board is easy to see what your goals are and then looking at it every day makes you take steps to make it happen every day. Hal suggests Christine Kane’s vision board for better visualization.
E – Exercise
Exercise is important to start the day with some form of exercise to get your heart rate rising and blood pumping. Many people have their own workout routines. They perhaps prefer to exercise at midday or in the afternoon according to their schedule. Nevertheless, Hal suggests doing a few jumping jacks at least just to warm up the body.
R – Read
Reading is a great way to get ideas, increase knowledge and empower you to achieve success. Reading just 10 pages would take you an average of 16.7 minutes. If you want to read a book of say 200 pages, it would take you about 20 days of reading for just 16.7 minutes to finish it, which means you will be able to read about 18 books in 365 days.
This is the power of the aggregation of marginal gains. This is supported by the example of a British cycling coach who began by making small adjustments to their bikes to improve their performance.
“if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.”
Marginal Gains: This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent (jamesclear.com)
S – Scribe
Writing or journaling helps you jot down feelings of gratitude, ideas, lessons learned as well as new commitments. The process of writing helps you reflect on the past and gain clarity.
Gain Clarity → capture ideas → review lessons → acknowledge your progress
After reading this book, I implemented this miracle morning routine using the main takeaways from this book. Today was my first day. I set the intention to wake up at 4, but I could not wake up at the set time. Instead, I woke up at 5 am and started with my 1 hour miracle morning routine. First, I brushed my teeth and drank a cup of water. I proceeded to meditate using headspace for the first 10 mins of silence. I then said my affirmation using the miracle morning journal. I then proceeded to visualize my goals. I skipped the exercise part as I had 30 minutes of a workout scheduled for 8 am. I then moved on to read a few pages from the book, The courage to be disliked. Finally, I reached the final step which is scribing. I wrote my reflections from the few pages that I had just read and wrote my goals for the day. I spent the next hour and a half, working on my day job, after which I had breakfast and then I went for a run.
My day was surprisingly calm and soothing. Given that I had woken up about 2 hours before my normal wake-up time, I thought that I would be tired and would want to nap in the afternoon, but that was not the case.
Today was just Day 1 of the program. I plan on continuing on this momentum. Do you dare take on this routine?
Click here to find how the co-founder of HuffPost implemented The Miracle Morning routine!
This book had many other gems of knowledge that I urge you to explore. Hopefully, you learn something from this book as I did.
Happy Monday!
Deepika Pydatalli 