The Beginning - Miracle Morning

My sister-in-law and I came across a video from The Awkward Mom centered around the book, The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. Inspired by her... well... inspiring words, we decided we would try the same game plan for a month. Would our lives be transformed due to our ambitious early morning routines? Or would we just come out more tired than we started? Only time will tell!

For some accountability, I asked her if she would mind doing a blog post every ten days over the course of the month, because the book actually divides the "30-Day Habit Strategy" into three phases: 

  • Phase 1: Unbearable (Days 1-10)
  • Phase 2: Uncomfortable (Days 11-20)
  • Phase 3: Unstoppable (Days 21-30)
It made sense to me that we could attempt to update with our thoughts/progress/motivation using those three separate phases. 

Before we get ahead of ourselves, I'll give you a little breakdown of the essence of the book. 

Hal asks us, "Have you ever felt like you were living on the wrong side of a gap between who you are and who you could become?" If so, he has a solution. He decided to research what the "single most effective personal development practice was", but found out that really, six separate practices were consistently associated with attaining nirvana... err... perfection... I mean, a better version of you. Always the salesman, he came up with a nifty acronym to help us remember them: SAVERS

Silence
Affirmations
Visualization
Exercise
Reading
Scribing

Even he admits that he had to use a thesaurus to make the acronym work. 

Silence is meditation, but he encourages you to use a version of meditation called "emotional optimization meditation". It's the "act of consciously choosing which mental and emotional state(s) you wish to experience, and then meditating while in those states to hardwire them into your nervous system."

Affirmations are a little different than what you might expect. He uses the term as more of a statement of purpose than the "I am a happy person who will be a millionaire!" The exact phrasing he recommends is this: "I am committed to _____ no matter what -- there is no other option!" You then list the reasons you're committed to it and the actions you'll take. 

Visualization is you visualizing what you're going to do that day (successfully, of course). 

Exercise is what it sounds like. 

Reading is meant to be specifically related to your goal. If you want to get richer, you would read books about how to get richer. If you want to be a better salesman, you'd read books about sales tactics or something. 

Scribing is journaling. He'd like you to write "with a structured, strategic process [that] allows you to direct your focus to what you did accomplish, what you're grateful for, and what you're committed to doing better tomorrow." 

Ideally, you'd get this all done in an hour before you normally wake up. It gives each action about 10 minutes, but he also really encourages you to make the routine your own. You can give as much or as little time to all six endeavors, and you don't have to do them in a particular order. I think he still wants you to do all six, though. 

Supposedly, you'll never go back to sleeping in again! 

My sister-in-law have very different lifestyles - she's a career woman with no children, while I am a stay-at-home mom. I think it'll be interesting to see if we both feel the same way at the end of this exercise. In my opinion, the book seems a little more geared toward career-oriented people, but obviously could be generalized to anyone with a particular goal. I'll try to annotate my particular blog entries with (SAHM) in the title. Check back periodically for some updates! 

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