Do you wish you had time in the morning to pray, exercise, or work on a goal like writing a book?
This blog is all about living intentional lives. Living with purpose includes making time to pursue your passions!
The problem is we live in the society of “busyness”. Finding time to pursue our passions and sticking to a routine to pursue those passions has to be intentional because there are so many other things that occupy our time.
I’ve always thought life is more full when I make time to do those things but have struggled finding and sticking to a routine that worked for me!
This is why I have loved the concept of The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.
(I’m going to be honest, I give the concept of The Miracle Morning 5 stars! The book probably 3 stars because the concept can be explained in a blog post or two, without all the filler that is inside the book. Some of it feels like an infomercial.)
The book begins by telling you that you can make the life you’ve wanted basically by applying the concept of waking up an hour earlier. I was really motivated by his Level 10 Life goal setting approach.
Elrod explains your miracle morning routine by using the S.A.V.E.R.S. acronym.
S- Silence. I use this for prayer time. Some use it for meditating. I would like to say I enjoy meditating but I hate it. I can’t turn my brain off long enough to focus on nothing and when that happens I find myself falling asleep. It’s something I’d like to work on but if it doesn’t work for me, I’m loving having extra scripture/prayer time in the morning. I usually do this for 5-10 minutes.
A- Affirmations. I’ll admit in the beginning I thought this was a little cheesy, as he wants you to say them out loud, but I actually have found that affirmations (when you believe them) work!
V- Visualization. I found Elrod’s description of visualizing to be interesting. His recommendation is to visualize the feeling that you will have when you reach your goals or get what you want. For example if it’s earning a new car, you could visualize how smooth the leather of the seat feels or that new car smell you find each time to slide in, instead of just visualizing a new car.
E- Exercise. This doesn’t have to be an hour of exercise. In his 6-minute savers idea, he recommends doing a minute of jumping jacks to get the heart pumping.
R- Reading. This is one area that I’ve enjoyed because I love personal development books. Once again, he recommends 10 minutes or even 10 pages if you are a slower reader. Just something to keep you moving!
S- Scribing (writing). Scribing is the time you can use to write in your journal, work on your book if you are trying to write one, or plan out your day’s goals.
That’s it! That’s the Miracle Morning! For most people it takes about an hour. I can get my Miracle Morning done in about 35 minutes (especially if I exercise later, after the kids go to school).
I chose to do the Miracle Morning as my May mini-challenge because I have some big goals on my list this month and I want to get a start on this before school is completely out. I’m very curious how much more I can do throughout the day because of a new routine!
If you’re looking to take hold of life and willing to wake up a little earlier to do that (I’m a night owl, too) then this book might be a great resource for you! The Kindle version is on sale for $1.99 for a limited time and if you find it’s life changing as I have, you will be very thankful you spent $1.99!
Here’s my Miracle Morning plan is to wake up at 6:00 A.M. and complete the S.A.V.E.R.S. I exercise after the kids go to school (with school getting out for the summer in 2 weeks I will be exercising after they wake up so I don’t wake them up). I will be tracking my Miracle Morning in my bullet journal (see above). You might notice I left off the last S (scribe). I did that intentionally because I write every day. Whether it’s working on goals, writing blog posts or working on a project this is something that is a habit I don’t need to track. (Although I do like crossing things off the list so maybe next month!)
Do you think a Miracle Morning would help you accomplish more of your goals?
Jenny, this book sounds interesting. He does offer some different ways to use your morning time. I usually get up early 5:00 am and just get started on my important projects. I am wondering how the silence and affirmations would work for me. Maybe I should give it a try.
I’ve heard interviews where this book is referenced. I’d love to read it – I’m putting it on my list!