I recently thought about starting a series of book reviews of the ones that I have read and would recommend. If you like the idea let me know and feel free to write your own favourites in the comments down below!
The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams
Oprah
The Miracle Morning is a book by Hal Elrod. I stated reading it about 5 months ago and I must say it has changed my start in the day immensely. I feel more motivated to start in the day than before and see more of a purpose in my life and actions which continues to excite me every day. I am sure you know that feeling when you get up in the morning, not particularly looking forward to the upcoming tasks, nothing to be excited for this day, just the usual going to work/to school. Then this is a book for you!
The idea is that a particular morning routine can turn your everyday into something completely different, by simply performing a few tasks in the morning that will set you up for the day, to be a more archiving, productive and happy person. In order to achieve that the author integrated several concepts of successful and popular people like Will Smith, Bill Gates and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the routine that he describes and that he carries out in the morning at 6 o´clock before he has to continue with his other tasks.
In the beginning I confess I was a bit sceptical… I found that some of the steps appeared to be a bit weird and I definitely wasn´t convinced that this is worth waking up 1 hour earlier that usual because I value my sleep a lot and I couln´t imagine how I would have a better day if I would be sleep deprived every night. Never the less I started reading the book and after a few chapters decided to give it a go but in a short more doable way for me at a time.
The author calls this the 6 minute Miracle Morning because you do all the 6 steps he does in a hour spending each 10 minutes on a different one, in 6 minutes instead. To be honest I never took a close look to the clock but just started and spent 1-3 minutes on each task and I must say that really appealed to me. That way I didn´t have the pressure of spending exactly 10 minutes on all of them but was able to do the timing myself and I found that these varied every day depending on my mood and stress levels.
The 6 steps to a miracle morning:
- silence – meaning whatever sort of silence you choose to start your day clam and balanced rather than stressed and hectic like we usually do. This can be a form of meditation, mindfulness practises or just sitting there in silence while listening to your thoughts
- affirmations – they allow you to design and develope your mindset through influencing you internal dialogue to more proactive and positive thoughts which focus on you end goal, because what we constantly think about ourselves has a massive influence on our self-confidence , health and happiness. The book explains how to come up with your personalised affirmations but there is also a merely endless source in the internet for example on the miracle morning website (linked below) and examples like Mohammad Ali have shown that tells yourself something over and over makes you more likely to achieve it in the end because you believe you can do it “I am the gratest”.
It´s the repetition of affirmations that leads to the belief. Once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
Muhammad Ali
- visualization – generating positive results in your outer world by creating mental pictures of specific behaviours in our imagination to help us overcome challenges by purposefully imagining what we need to be and act like in this situation, to do so . This is powerful technique used by many high-performance athletes and successful people like Bill Gates, Will Smith and Oprah
Ordinary people beliefe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not only what is possible, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible.
Cherie Carter-Scott
- exercise – this can also be any form of exercise that you like, weather this is yoga or 10 burpees but it might make sense to pick something that will bring your heartrate up to wake you up in the morning
- reading – some sort of motivating piece that will you motivate to archive something today, maybe the biography of your idol or any successful person that you find inspiring
- scribing – basically some form of writing like journaling where you can put your ideas and thoughts into words. By that you often gain valuable insights and a different perspective as if you were merely thinking them. But Journaling is also a way to document your successes, new knowledge and failures which will help you to deal with them and look back to them if you sometimes feel like and absolute failure because they will make you realize how far you have come
Ideas can come from anywhere at anytime. But the problem with making mental notes is that the ink fades very rapidly.
Rolf Smith
Make it your own
These are the intentional steps that will change your morning for ever. It doesn´t matter in which order you choose to do them or at what time but I must say I find it makes a lot of sense to use them to get ready for the day, instead of doing them at night or at a random time during your day because the intention is to create a more purposeful and productive day, which is set up in the morining.
For me the corona virus had one good side by giving me a lot more influence on the way I want to structure my day. Now I have the opportunity to plan my day all by myself and am able to make the time in the morning to extend the 6 minute miracle morning that I previously did. I still don´t spend an entire hour on the steps but the better part of 30 minutes whereat I don´t take the same amount of time for each part and I don´t need to do them at 6 in the morning, but relaxed around 8.
How can this benefit me?
As I am currently in the midst of my exam preperation and the Miracle Morning routine has definitely helped me to structure my day and to make it less stressful as a start my day way calmer and structured. Especially if you:
- struggle to plan your day and to get everything done
- can´t be bothered to get out of bed
- fail to keep yourself focused throughout the day
- feel like you would love to have some spare time to spend with your family or doing something you enjoy like sports
If you have any of these issues, I think building as routine like this would be really beneficial for you. It helps you to remind you of your goals and own capabilities which keeps your motivation high and also helps you to be more focused because you know what you want and what you are working for. Doing the same thing every morning also helps you to get out of bed every time because it just becomes a habit that you do without thinking, which is beneficial for other aspects of your life as well if you previously lost a lot of time in the morning procrastinating, which you could have spent with your family or getting some movement in.
Let me know if you like this sort of style for posts and comment your book recommendations down below ; )
The Miracle Morning Website:
My life as an Bunk üathlete 