In The Miracle Morning, best-selling author and speaker Hal Elrod argues that everyone is capable of achieving their dreams in every area of life, including relationships, finances, career, health, spirituality, and happiness.
The answer is committing yourself to personal development by getting up early and following a simple, daily routine of silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and writing, which can empower anyone to transform any area of life in a surprisingly short time.
Elrod developed this “Miracle Morning” routine in the process of overcoming two major setbacks in his life:
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.
So he committed to spending time each day 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. This book explains how you can use the Miracle Morning process to transform yourself and your life.
The first challenge to living the life you really want is overcoming a tendency toward mediocrity.
Most people passively accept the cards that life deals them. Even people who achieve success in one area, such as a career, often accept less than they want or are capable of achieving in other areas, such as relationships or health. Most people—95%—live mediocre lives, without realizing they have the ability to be who they want to be, do what they want to do, and have whatever they want.
If you take one hundred people at the start of their working life and follow them for forty years, you’ll find, according to the Social Security Administration, that:
The challenge is ensuring that you are among the successful minority rather than the struggling majority.
The most common reasons people settle for uninspired lives are:
Most of us view current choices through the filter of our past experiences—the rearview mirror syndrome. We measure new opportunities against our past experiences and capabilities—for instance, thinking: “I’ve never done anything like that before; I’ve never succeeded at that.” Thus, we limit our future development based on the limitations of our past. Even though we want to change, we’re stuck on the way things have always been.
You can overcome past limitations by repeating affirmations that inspire confidence that anything is possible and that you can make it happen. Focus on what you want, reprogram your beliefs about what’s possible, and move in the direction of your goals until they become reality.
We wrongly think our choices affect only the moment—for instance, that it’s no big deal to eat something unhealthy or to skip exercising today because we’ll get a “do-over” tomorrow.
However, your individual actions, as well as thoughts, have long-term consequences. Every thought, decision, and action determines who you’re becoming and, ultimately, the life you create. By keeping your commitments, you develop the discipline to achieve the results you want.
We emulate the people we spend the most time with—our circle of influence.
If you’re surrounded by negative, complaining, lazy, people, you’ll be like them. Likewise, if you spend time with positive, successful people, their attitudes will rub off and you’ll become more like them. This is true of every aspect of life, including happiness, health, and even income. Spend less time with people who pull you down (this can include family) and associate instead with those who believe in and encourage you.
There’s no reason to settle for less than extraordinary success in any area of your life—happiness, health, money, freedom, love, or success. Of course, no one consciously chooses to accept less in a given area. For instance, on a fulfillment scale of 1-10, we don’t decide we’re okay with a level 5 relationship, in which we’re unhappy half the time. Yet most people still end up accepting mediocrity in most areas.
However, you can achieve top-level success in every area of life by:
1) Devoting time each day to work on becoming the person you need to be to attract and achieve the success you want.
2) Changing the way you start your day. A morning routine focused on personal development leads to productive days, which create a successful life.
You can literally change your life by changing how and why you wake up.
If you’re like most people, you delay waking up for as long as possible. You hit the snooze button and, ultimately, only drag yourself out of bed because there’s somewhere you must be. However, what you’re doing when you hit the snooze button is resisting your life, your day, and creating the life you want.
The secret to waking up feeling energized and excited is to make each morning feel like Christmas morning felt as a kid. The Miracle Morning routine creates this experience by giving you purpose and excitement around developing into the person capable of creating the life of your dreams.
Starting your day with personal development creates energy and focus that carry over into the rest of your day. Also, when you do your routine immediately upon getting up, you face fewer temptations to skip it than you would later in the day—for instance, feeling tired or too pressed for time.
If you have trouble getting up, try these wake-up tips: Place your alarm clock across the room, so you have to get out of bed to turn it off. After you turn it off, brush your teeth, drink a glass of water to rehydrate, and dress in your workout clothes. Then move to another room for your morning routine so you aren’t tempted to go back to bed.
The Miracle Morning consists of these practices (the Life S.A.V.E.R.S.)
The Miracle Morning can be customized to fit everyone’s work schedule and lifestyle—for instance, you can spend ten minutes on each practice for a total of an hour or spend as little as a minute on each for a six-minute routine. You can spend less time on some practices and more on others and vary the sequence. Whether you’re a “morning person” or not, you’ll learn to wake up earlier, excited to start your day. Your Miracle Morning experience will become the key to unlocking your potential.
The Miracle Morning presents best-selling author and speaker Hal Elrod’s antidote to living a life of mediocrity.
Although we’re born with a desire to learn and grow, most of us ultimately fall short of our potential 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. The 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 promises that “The Miracle Morning” described in his book “can absolutely be the one thing that takes you where you want to be.”
The Miracle Morning method grew from lessons Elrod learned from two “rock bottom” experiences in his life.
When the first occurred, he was a successful 20-year-old salesman for a large marketing company and was climbing the corporate ladder. Suddenly, a devastating car accident changed his life.
As he drove home from a speech and dinner, his car was struck head on by a pickup truck and then struck again by the car behind him. He sustained serious head injuries and eleven broken bones, and his heart stopped beating for six minutes at the scene. Rescuers revived him, but he faced a long rehabilitation and the possibility he wouldn’t walk again.
He eventually recovered, returned to his sales job and set performance records. He later began speaking to high school and college students about overcoming adversity, became a life coach, and wrote a book, Taking Life Head On.
His message was that it’s pointless to wish things were different. The only thing to do when encountering adversity is to focus on having a fulfilling life going forward. He chose to be grateful for what he had and take responsibility for creating the life he wanted.
Elrod concluded that everything happens for a reason and it’s up to us to choose the most empowering reasons for our challenges and circumstances. Ultimately, he viewed his accident as a positive because it changed his life for the better.
After recovering from his accident, Elrod suffered a second rock-bottom experience six years later—this time, financial ruin during the 2008 recession. He pulled himself out of depression by developing a morning routine that motivated him to get out of bed. On a friend’s advice, he started his days with running, while listening on earphones to motivational speakers, in order to feel better and think more clearly.
His depression began to lift and he continued to develop his morning routine, experimenting with his sleep schedule and various personal development methods, such as affirmation and journaling. He came up with a daily sequence of six practices. The routine was so successful in helping him turn his life around that he began calling it his Miracle Morning and sharing it with coaching clients and friends, who also found it transformative.
To share it more widely, Elrod wrote The Miracle Morning, which became an Amazon best-seller and led to the creation of a website, Facebook community, and a series of additional books.
Elrod contends that his experience of overcoming two major setbacks and achieving success is evidence that others can do the same.
The first step is accepting full responsibility for every part of your life, rather than blaming someone else. Blaming is assigning fault for something, while taking responsibility means leaving the past behind and committing yourself to creating the life you want, starting immediately.
Wherever you are in your life, it’s temporary and it’s a place of opportunity—to learn what you need to know, to become a person capable of creating the life you desire. Right now, you’re writing your life story by what you do. You’re the hero or heroine, likely overcoming challenges (the more challenges, the better the story). You’re in charge of what the next page will say.
You can create and attract anything you want in your life by developing into a person capable of doing so. This book is about helping you become that person. Your potential is unlimited.
A baby’s birth is often described as a miracle of life, yet many of us lose sight of the miracle of our own lives. When we’re young, adults assure us we can do anything and be anything we aspire to. At some point, as adults, many of us settle for less than the life we dreamed of. The average American is at least twenty pounds overweight, $10,000 in debt, mildly depressed, dislikes her job and has few, if any, close friends. This book is for those ready to reject the norm and create the life of your dreams.
Most people passively accept the cards that life deals them. Even people who achieve success in one area, such as a career, accept less-than-optimum results in other areas, such as relationships or health.
However, there’s no reason to settle for less in any area—happiness, health, money, freedom, love, or success. Of course, no one consciously chooses to accept less in a given area. For instance, on a fulfillment scale of 1-10, we don’t decide we’re okay with a level 5 relationship, where we’re unhappy half the time. Yet, we still end up accepting less in most areas.
You can achieve level 10 success in every area of life by committing time daily to personal development or becoming a level 10 person. Success rests on accepting three principles:
1) You’re capable of achieving a life of happiness, success, wealth, love, and anything else you want.
2) You need to commit time each day to work on becoming a person capable of attracting and achieving the success you want.
3) How you start your day is crucial. A focused, productive morning routine leads to productive days, which create a successful life. Changing how you wake up can change any area of your life more quickly than you think.
The Miracle Morning method gives you regular time each day for personal development. It requires getting up thirty to sixty minutes earlier each day to devote time to six self-development practices proven to help people change their lives. (People with extremely limited time may have a Miracle Morning routine that’s as short as six minutes long.)
These practices—Life S.A.V.E.R.S.—are silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing (writing in a journal). Each will be detailed in an upcoming chapter. They’ll help you develop the mindset and habits to succeed.
The Miracle Morning process is something you’ll look forward to doing and it will quickly and seamlessly become part of your life. There are a host of benefits:
The Miracle Morning is compatible with everyone’s work schedule and lifestyle. Whether you’re a “morning person” or not, or whether you’ve had trouble waking up in the past, you’ll learn to wake up earlier, excited to start your day. Most people who implement it on weekdays no longer want to sleep in on weekends because they feel better and get more done when they keep doing the Life S.A.V.E.R.S.
You’ll find that your Miracle Morning experience will become key to unlocking your potential.
Here’s how Hal Elrod used the Miracle Morning to advance in less than a year from his lowest point—a failing business, debt, and depression—to renewed financial success, achieving his dream job, and even completing an ultra-marathon.
Although he’d recovered from a debilitating car accident, he found overcoming financial failure, debt, and depression to be more difficult. After his accident, he had family, friends, and medical professionals taking care of him and encouraging him. In contrast, when financial disaster struck, he didn’t have anyone feeling sorry for him—others had their own problems as a result of the recession.
It was a struggle to get out of bed until a friend suggested that running would lift his spirits and help him think more clearly about his problems. With nothing to lose, he went for a run, during which he listened to a personal development talk by Jim Rohn. He experienced a breakthrough when he heard the message: Your level of personal development determines your level of success; you attract success by who you become. This philosophy changed Elrod’s life.
It struck Elrod that he hadn’t been developing himself into the person he needed to be to create the life he desired. He’d wanted level 10 success, while his personal development remained at a level 3 or 4. Most of us are in this position. If we want level 10 success, while our personal development (knowledge, experience, mindset, beliefs, habits) isn’t a level 10, we’re going to struggle.
Our outer world reflects our inner world: our success level parallels our personal development level. To be successful we have to commit time to developing ourselves. Elrod reports that when he had this insight, he ran straight home, ready to change his life.
His first challenge was finding the time. He was so busy just keeping his head above water financially that finding additional time for personal development was daunting.
Evenings wouldn’t work because he was usually too tired to focus, and finding time consistently during the day didn’t seem feasible. The only feasible option was early morning. He hated waking up, but hoped committing himself to personal development in the morning would be positive and motivating and would carry over into the rest of his day. Also, in the morning, he’d be less distracted or tempted to skip the personal work.
He recalled a mentor telling him that if you want your life to be different, you have to be willing to do something different.
Next, he needed to determine how best to use the time he was setting aside. In the first hour of his day, he wanted to engage in activities that would have the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time.
He decided to use six tried-and-true development tools—meditation, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and journal writing. He assigned ten minutes to each one and planned to try all six the next morning, waking up an hour earlier than usual. He woke up feeling excited and motivated, the way he felt when waking up on Christmas morning as a child.
After starting with silent meditation, he read from the book Think and Grow Rich, picking up a few useful ideas for the day. (Shortform note: Read the Shortform summary of Think and Grow Rich here.)
Moving on to affirmations, he wrote and repeated affirmations based on what he wanted in life, the kind of person he was committed to becoming, and what he was committed to doing to change his life (see one of Elrod’s affirmations in Chapter 7). He then visualized success. In a journal, he wrote down things he was grateful for. As exercise, he did pushups, situps, and yoga. When he finished, he felt calm, motivated, and empowered.
Elrod continued to follow through on this routine. He started even earlier—at 4 a.m. instead of 5—and found to his surprise that waking up wasn’t difficult. With newfound clarity, he was able to conceive and implement a plan to save his business and income. In fact, less than two months after his first Miracle Morning, his income exceeded what it had been before the economy crashed.
He shared the powerful routine with his life coaching clients; they experienced the same benefits and shared it with friends and coworkers. As the idea spread, people started posting Miracle Morning videos on social media. A movement began to take shape, which continues to grow.
This book is an invitation to start now to change yourself and your life by committing to making consistent daily progress toward becoming the kind of person who can create the level 10 life you want.
You can achieve “level 10” success in every area of life—health, career, finances, spirituality, family/relationships, recreation, contributing to others—by establishing daily habits that create success.
On a scale of 1-10, how would you rank your current level of success/fulfillment in each of the above areas?
What would “level 10” success look like for you in each area?
Because your level of success in any area is usually a result of your habits, what habits can you develop now in each area that would create level 10 success?
Every day, we face the challenge of rejecting mediocrity and living up to our potential. Most people—95%—don’t succeed. They settle for the life they have and live with regret, without realizing they have the ability to be who they want to be, do what they want to do, and have whatever they want.
If you take one hundred people at the start of their working life and follow them for forty years, you’ll find, according to the Social Security Administration, that:
The challenge is ensuring that you are among the successful minority rather than the struggling majority.
Here are three steps to rise above mediocrity and join the top 5%.
If you don’t think and live differently than the mediocre majority, you’ll experience the same life of struggle, failure, and regret as most people, including your friends, family, and peers.
Every day, most people struggle physically, mentally, financially, and in relationships:
The most common reasons people struggle and accept mediocrity are:
It’s human nature to view current choices through the filter of our past experiences—the rearview mirror syndrome. If we failed at something in the past, we believe we’ll continue to fail in the future at anything remotely similar.
We measure every new opportunity against our past experiences and capabilities—for instance, thinking: “I’ve never done anything like that before; I’ve never succeeded at that.”
Thus, we limit our future development based on the limitations of our past. Even though we want to change, we’re stuck on the way things have always been.
Most people process up to 60,000 thoughts a day, but 95% are recurring thoughts, including fears and worries from yesterday. Instead, you must recognize these as limitations, move past them, and imagine a future without limits. Overcome limitations by repeating affirmations that inspire confidence that anything is possible and that you can make it happen. Focus on what you want, reprogram your beliefs about what’s possible, and move in the direction of your goals until they become reality.
Remember: your past doesn’t dictate your future. Your present is a result of who you were, but your future will be determined by who you are from now on.
The average person can’t tell you their life purpose, the reason they keep getting up every day. They just do what they have to do to survive; they take the easiest path, pursuing short-term gratification and staying in their comfort zone.
However, to escape mediocrity, you need to have a purpose. For example, Elrod realized he wasn’t living up to his potential as a sales representative and that when he moved on to a new job, his average performance would follow him unless he changed it.
So he decided that for the next year, his purpose would be to develop himself into someone capable of achieving the success he wanted. He added a second purpose: to “add value” to others’ lives. Each day, he focused his thoughts and actions on these goals—for instance, by holding regular coaching calls with his team to help them improve. He had his best sales year and more members of his team posted their best performances. Having a clear purpose made the difference.
A life purpose can be anything that’s meaningful to you, that inspires you and directs your daily actions and priorities. It isn’t something you “discover”—you decide what your purpose will be.
You can start with a small purpose—for instance, smiling more or being more helpful—and make it bigger as you grow and evolve. The point is to create a purpose now, and start living it. Use your Miracle Morning to come up with something. Write it down and keep it where you’ll see it.
When you commit yourself to a purpose bigger than your problems, they’ll shrink in comparison and you’ll find you can easily overcome them.
We wrongly think our choices affect only the moment—for instance, that it’s no big deal to eat something unhealthy or to skip exercising today because we’ll get a “do-over” tomorrow.
However, your individual actions, as well as thoughts, have long-term consequences. Every thought, decision, and action determines who you’re becoming and, ultimately, the life you create. In Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T Harv Eker, wrote: “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
For example, when the alarm goes off and you hit the snooze button, you tell your subconscious mind that it’s OK to not follow through on your intentions. Instead, when tempted to go back to sleep, tell yourself, “I’m not a person who lacks discipline. I’m getting up because I am committed to waking up early and working toward my goals.”
By keeping your commitments, you’re developing the discipline to achieve the results you want. Every action counts: what you do determines who you’re becoming.
Accomplishment and success require accountability, which means being responsible to someone else for our actions or outcomes. As children, we were accountable to parents, teachers, and coaches; as a result, we did homework and ate our vegetables—things we wouldn’t have done on our own.
As adults, however, we often resist accountability and, as a result, we’re prone to mediocre performance, short cuts, laziness, and ducking responsibility. To be successful, you need to create your own systems of accountability, using friends, family, mentors, and partners—for instance, having an exercise partner who expects you to show up at the gym. The most successful people use the power of accountability as motivation to act when they don’t feel like it and reach their goals.
For that reason, Elrod recommends finding an “accountability partner” for your Miracle Morning routine. To team up with someone else while reading this book, post an invitation in The Miracle Morning Facebook group. (Shortform note: Refer your partner to this summary or the “crash course” at www.miraclemorning.com.)
We emulate the people we spend the most time with—our circle of influence.
If you’re surrounded by negative, complaining, lazy, people, you’ll be like them. Likewise, if you spend time with positive, successful people, their attitudes will rub off and you’ll become more like them. This is true of every aspect of life, including happiness, health, and even income. If your friends are financially successful, you’ll think the way they do and adopt the habits that made them successful. However, if the majority of the people around you are struggling financially, they won’t inspire you to do better.
Spend less time with people who pull you down (this can include family) and associate instead with those who believe in and encourage you. Work actively to improve your circle of influence, through resources such as online networking, professional groups, and the Miracle Morning Facebook group.
Look for people who will add value to your life and strive to add value to others’ lives by contributing to their personal development, so they, in turn, can be a better influence on you.
The amount of success you achieve is determined by how much you develop yourself. The Miracle Morning provides structured daily personal development time to practice silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing (writing in a journal). These practices help you develop physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.
When you don’t commit time to personal development, you’ll spend it spinning your wheels on problems.
The greatest cause of mediocrity is lacking a sense of urgency to improve yourself and your life. Most people put off challenges, planning to tackle them “someday,” or they hope problems will work themselves out. This is the path of lost opportunity and regret. However, what you do now matters immensely because it shapes who you become and sets the course of your life.
In addition to realizing that most people accept mediocrity by default and understanding the causes, there’s a third step to overcoming mediocrity: drawing your personal line in the sand and committing yourself to being different.
It’s important to draw your line today because at the moment you reject mediocrity, your life changes going forward. Commit yourself to achieving an extraordinary level of personal development and success—to being, doing, and having what you want. The Miracle Morning is your key.
You can literally change your life by changing how and why you wake up.
If you’re like most people, you delay waking up for as long as possible. You hit the snooze button and, ultimately, only drag yourself out of bed because there’s somewhere you must be or someone you must answer to.
However, what you’re doing when you hit the snooze button is resisting your life, your day, and creating the life you want. By starting your day with resistance, you perpetuate a negative cycle:
You can change this, like many famous and successful early risers, such as Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Tony Robbins, Howard Schultz, Albert Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin. You can change your life by establishing the conscious intent to wake up each morning with a genuine desire to do so.
Experts say the amount of sleep needed varies by individual. How much you need depends on such factors as your age, health, and how much exercise you get. While you may function well on five hours of sleep, someone else may need more.
Some research suggests that getting too much sleep can actually be as detrimental as too little.
In one study, sleeping more than nine hours a night was associated with illness and mortality. A greater amount of sleep was also associated with depression.
While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, the advice that follows stems from Elrod’s experience, study, and experimentation with sleep.
How tired you feel when you wake up may have less to do with how much sleep you got than with how much sleep you believe you need. What you tell yourself when you go to bed significantly affects how you feel when you wake up. For example, if you believe you need eight hours, but will be getting only six on a given night, you’ll probably tell yourself that you’re going to feel tired in the morning—and you do.
Taking responsibility for every aspect of your life includes using the power of mind-body connection to wake up feeling good regardless of the amount of sleep you get. Elrod experimented with different amounts of sleep while telling himself he would feel either exhausted or energized. When he told himself he’d feel exhausted on four, five, or six hours of sleep, he felt exhausted on each of those amounts. The converse was true when he told himself he’d feel energized, using the affirmation: “I believe I create my experience of reality, and I choose to create the reality of waking up tomorrow feeling energized…”
The real secret to waking up feeling energized and excited is to make each morning feel like Christmas morning felt as a kid. The Miracle Morning routine creates this experience by giving you purpose and excitement around developing into the person capable of creating the life of your dreams.
On a scale of 1 to10, most people’s motivation level for waking up starts at a 1 or a 2. However, you can make waking up easier by gradually increasing your “wake-up motivation level” with a series of simple “snooze-proof” steps:
1) Establish your intentions before going to sleep: Your first thought when you wake usually is the last thought you had before falling asleep. For example, if you fall asleep excited about going on vacation the next day, you wake up excited about vacation. Before falling asleep, use affirmation to establish a positive mindset and expectation for the next morning, such as: “No matter how overwhelmed I am right now or how long it takes to fall asleep, I will spring out of bed with energy tomorrow at 5 a.m. to create the life I want and deserve.” You can find a more detailed bedtime affirmation on the Miracle Morning website. Download Elrod’s four bedtime affirmations here.
2) Move your alarm clock across the room: Move your alarm clock as far from your bed as possible, so you have to get up and move when it goes off. Movement requires energy, which helps you wake up. Further, getting up counters the temptation to simply reach for the snooze button and go back to sleep. Getting up to turn off your alarm clock will raise your motivation level a notch or two.
3) Brush your teeth: To keep moving, go to the bathroom sink and splash some water on your face and brush your teeth. This will raise your wake-up motivation level a bit more.
4) Drink a full glass of water: After six to eight hours without water overnight, you’ll be dehydrated—dehydration causes fatigue (when people feel tired, they’re often dehydrated), so rehydration should restore energy. Fill up your glass the night before, so it’s ready. Drink it as quickly as feels comfortable. This will boost your wake-up motivation level to at least a 5.
5) Get dressed in your workout clothes. Get dressed so you’re ready to leave your bedroom and start your Miracle Morning routine. While some people prefer to shower first, Elrod recommends saving your shower as a reward for completing the routine. Now, your motivation level should be a 6 or better. These five steps take only about five minutes.
Some people have found these additional steps to be helpful:
Do whatever works for you. The key is to have a simple, step-by-step strategy to get you started every morning.
Elrod argues that you can change your life by changing the way you wake up because how you wake up sets the stage for the rest of your day. Preparing the night before to wake up on a positive note and also having a morning routine can make waking up easier.
How do you usually feel when you wake up? What is your morning wake-up routine?
What changes could you make in your wake-up routine starting tomorrow that would get you awake and alert with less difficulty?
As you begin to fall asleep at night, what are you typically telling yourself about how you’ll feel the next morning? How can make the message more positive?
When you want to change, there’s a gap between where you are and where you want to be. You may feel frustrated with yourself for lacking the motivation and effort necessary to produce the results you want. You know what you need to do—and spend time thinking about it—but you don’t do it.
The size of the potential gap varies depending on the person. For some, the gap seems huge and almost insurmountable, while others feel close to reaching their potential. But whatever your distance from the life you want, it’s absolutely attainable.
The rest of this book will explain the Life S.A.V.E.R.S.—the six tools for bridging your potential gap by developing yourself into the person capable of achieving your dreams. They are: silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing (writing in a journal). These practices help you develop physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually so you can change your life situation.
Since the first step in Life S.A.V.E.R.S. is silence, don’t try to practice this step in bed or even in your bedroom, where it would be easy to slide back into sleep. Sit on a couch, a chair, or the floor in another room where you won’t be interrupted and where you’ve set up the things you’ll be using: a printout of your affirmations, the book you’ll read, a notebook or journal, and possibly an exercise DVD or app.
With everything ready, you’ll be able to jump into your Miracle Morning without delay.
To reduce your stress and begin each day with calm, clarity, and focus, do the opposite of what most people do—start with a period of silence.
For most 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 people choose meditation.
Basically, meditation is the practice of quieting and focusing your mind.
There are countless books and videos you can consult for step-by-step instructions. Meditation requires little time, yet offers numerous health benefits for just minutes a day—for instance, improving metabolism, blood pressure, and brain function; reducing stress and pain; and improving sleep and concentration. Many celebrities and high achievers—for instance, Oprah, Jerry Seinfeld, and Sting—attest to the benefits.
In general, there are two types of meditation: individual and guided. Individual meditation is done on your own, while the guided version is done by following audio instructions to focus your mind. If you need help getting started, here’s a simple process:
1) Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit: a couch, chair, pillow, or the floor.
2) Sit upright with your legs crossed; close your eyes or look down at the floor.
3) Quiet your mind by letting go of intrusive thoughts, worries, and anything preoccupying you. Focus on “just being” rather than on thinking or doing.
4) Focus on breathing: take slow, deep breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Breathe from your belly rather than your chest. Inhale and exhale for a count of three. When thoughts cross your mind, acknowledge them and let them go. Keep focusing on your breathing.
5) Be present in the moment. If you have trouble quieting your thoughts, focus on a word or phrase, repeating it to yourself as you inhale and exhale. (For example, “I breathe in peace… I breathe out love.”)
Think of your daily meditation as a mini-retreat from your problems. Although your problems won’t go away, you’ll be able to handle them more calmly and effectively.
At first, sitting in silence may be difficult, but you can master it with practice. Start with about five minutes. It won’t be long before you begin to experience the benefits. (Shortform note: For a deeper exploration, read the Shortform summary of Mindfulness in Plain English here.)
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, 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. For instance, around 80% of women have self-defeating thoughts daily; many men likely have negative thoughts as well.
However, getting control of this process by actively choosing positive, constructive thoughts is a powerful way to change your life. When you design affirmations that target your goals and repeat them frequently, they begin influencing your subconscious mind, transforming your thoughts and actions.
In his car accident, Elrod suffered brain damage that initially destroyed most of his short-term memory. At first, when people visited him in the hospital, took a break, and returned later, he’d greet them as though seeing them for the first time that day. He didn’t remember that they’d been there only an hour or so before.
Every incident reinforced his belief that he now had a poor memory. When someone asked him to remember or remind them of something later, he’d respond, “I wish I could, but I have a horrible memory.”
In reading the book Think and Grow Rich, he realized how this thinking was limiting him, so he created his first affirmation: “I let go of the limiting belief that I have a horrible memory. My brain is … capable of healing itself and my memory can improve …” He repeated it daily.
A few months later, a friend asked him to remember to call her, and he responded without hesitation, “Sure, no problem.” His affirmation had begun changing his mindset and his memory improved.
Here are five simple steps for creating affirmations. Affirmations need to be in writing so you can post and read them aloud frequently. You can download free Miracle Morning affirmations here.
1) Specify what you want. Spell out what you want your life to be like in every area (write an affirmation for each)—for instance, health, relationships, career, finances, contributions, and spirituality.
2) Explain why you want it. Everyone wants to be healthy, happy, and successful, but you need more than just desire to achieve success. Knowing why a goal is important motivates you to act.
3) Specify how you’ll change—who you’re committed to becoming—to achieve level 10 success in your life.
4) Explain what you’re committed to doing to attain success. List the specific actions you’ll take; include how often you’ll do them and your time frame (beginning and end). Start small so you don’t get discouraged; write down a daily or weekly goal you can increase. For instance, if you want to lose weight, this part of your affirmation might read: “I’m committed to going to the gym three days a week and using the treadmill for at least twenty minutes.”
5) Add inspirational quotes and philosophies. When you hear or read quotes and strategies that inspire you, incorporate them into your affirmations.
Here’s a condensed example of a Miracle Morning affirmation on overcoming adversity:
“I know that where I am in my life now is both temporary and exactly where I need to be to learn what I must learn, so that I can become the person I need to be to create the life I truly want. This moment is an opportunity for me to learn and become better than I've ever been before. I can turn my adversity into an advantage by accepting all that is out of my control so that I can give myself freedom from emotional pain, be at peace, and create the life I truly want.”
For your affirmations to work, be sure to repeat them daily. Also, you must repeat them with feeling rather than by rote to embed them in your subconscious. Continually update them as you grow and your goals evolve.
Affirmations are positive, constructive statements that you repeat to yourself as a tool for reprogramming negative thinking to help you change or accomplish something. An effective affirmation states what you want and why, how you’ll change, and what steps you’ll take.
Think of a negative belief you have about yourself—for instance, a belief that you’re not good at something or not capable of accomplishing something. How is this belief limiting you?
Write a positive statement that flips this belief around, starting with something like, “I’m fully capable of learning what I need to know in order to achieve…”
Add to the statement the ways in which you’ll change to achieve what you want and the steps you’ll take to do so. Start repeating the affirmation aloud several times a day.
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:
Immediately after reading your affirmations—where you focused on your goals and on changing yourself to achieve them—reinforce them by visualizing yourself achieving them.
Start with just five minutes of visualization, following three steps:
1) Set the stage: Some people play instrumental music during visualization (Bach is a good choice). Set the volume low, sit up straight, but comfortably. Breathe deeply, close your eyes and clear your mind.
2) Visualize the results you want and see yourself achieving them: Use your senses to see, hear, feel, touch, smell, taste every aspect of your dream. The more detailed and real you make the mental picture, the more motivated you’ll be to take action. Then, envision yourself achieving your goals (in the way Elrod visualized people enjoying and recommending his book). Imagine how good it will feel to have followed through and achieved your goals.
3) Visualize the person you need to be and what you need to do: With a clear mental image of what you want, imagine yourself changing, living, and acting in ways that enable you to achieve your vision. See yourself studying, writing, making calls, or doing whatever you’ll need to do to reach your goals. Picture yourself with a look of confidence or determination on your face.
You may also want to create a vision board as an additional visualization aid. A vision board is a poster board on which you post images of what you want to become, have, and do. You can use photos, magazine cut-outs, internet printouts, quotes and inspirations representing your purpose and ideal future.
This technique is described in the book and film, The Secret. Also, there are numerous videos and step-by-step instructions available online. Remember, though, that while looking at your vision board may be inspiring and help you focus on your goals, you have to take action in order to achieve them.
(Shortform note: Read the Shortform summary of The Secret here.)
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 Miracle Morning 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 incorporate a short period of exercise into your morning routine to increase your energy and focus for the day.
Elrod prefers yoga. It dovetails well with other aspects of the Miracle Morning method.
It’s a multipurpose activity: it can incorporate stretching, strength training, and cardio. It can be combined with focused breathing and serve as a form of meditation.
Yoga can take various forms. There are different practices to address the physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual aspects of life. Choosing the practice you need can help bring your life into balance.
While everyone knows it’s important to exercise consistently to maintain good health and increase your energy, it’s easy to make excuses for not exercising—for instance, feeling tired or not having time. However, the Miracle Morning routine provides a structure (a designated time when you’re not tired) that eliminates these excuses so you can make exercise a habit.
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.
Just a few examples of books by financially successful people are: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, and Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. Other books can help you transform relationships, increase self-confidence, improve communication skills, or exercise effectively.
Many Miracle Morning practitioners spend their morning reading time with the Bible, Torah, or another religious text.
Whatever you choose, commit to reading at least ten pages a day. While reading ten pages requires only ten to fifteen minutes a day, it adds up to 3,650 pages a year or about eighteen self-improvement books. Think of how much more knowledgeable you will be after reading eighteen books.
1) Articulate why you’re reading a particular book, including what you want to gain. Then, keep that in mind as you read.
2) Take notes and highlight useful passages to reinforce what you’re learning and so you can easily review the most important information later.
3) Re-read good self-improvement books. You can’t retain and apply everything of value after a single reading. You need repetition to embed the ideas in your subconscious.
It can be more useful to re-read a book that you know can help you than to start a new book before mastering the ideas of the first one. Elrod maintains a special shelf for books he wants to re-read. Try it with this book—commit to re-reading it to reinforce the Miracle Morning concepts and practices.
(Shortform note: We created Shortform in large part for this purpose—to bring you a book’s most important points for easy reference in the future.)
Hal Elrod recommends reading at least ten pages a day and thinking about what you want to learn from a particular book before you start reading. He advises re-reading books you’ve found helpful so the concepts really sink in.
Think of a book you’ve read in the past that had an impact on you. Why and how did it affect you? How might you benefit from reading it again?
What’s the name of a book you’ve wanted to read, but haven’t, which you can incorporate in a daily reading program? What’s kept you from reading it?
What ideas, strategies, inspiration, or other benefit might you get from reading this book?
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:
Here are three steps to get started:
1) Choose a format: You can use a digital or traditional paper format. It’s a matter of personal preference.
2) Get a journal: If you’re going the traditional route, you can use any lined notebook, although some people prefer hardbound volumes that are more durable. There are digital formats and apps you can use on an electronic device, as well as sample pages you can download and print out for traditional use. You can also download the Miracle Morning Journal template here.
3) Decide what to write: You can write about anything—for instance, your goals, family, plans, or commitments. Elrod sometimes takes a structured approach of listing what he’s grateful for, his accomplishments, and areas for improvement plus the steps he’ll take to improve. Other times, he just writes a synopsis of his day.
Many people who keep journals do their writing at night before going to bed, but it’s easy to skip writing when you’re tired. Some people buy pricey bound volumes to write in, hoping that the money expended will motivate them to use the book. They end up with a collection of blank books in which they’ve only written a few words.
However, making journal writing part of a Miracle Morning routine is more successful because the routine provides a consistent time and a structure for writing.
There can be a downside to reviewing your journal, especially if you’re a perfectionist or high achiever: focusing too much on how far you have to go (your potential gap). This can lead to minimizing your accomplishments and beating yourself up for not making enough progress. To avoid this, make a point of being grateful for what you’ve done, then tell yourself you’re doing the best you can in the moment and will continue to do better.
Writing in your journal should remind you that you do many more things right than you do wrong. Always record what you accomplished, what you’re grateful for, what you’re committed to doing better. This should keep things in perspective as well as motivate you.
You can customize the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. practices to fit your work schedule and lifestyle. Many people devote thirty to sixty minutes, but you can do a shorter routine on weekdays and a longer one on weekends. You may need to vary the time, for instance if you’re traveling.
Here’s an example of how to complete a Miracle Morning in an hour:
However, you can complete the steps in as little as six minutes by spending a minute on each activity. For instance:
You can also change the sequence of the practices—for instance, some people like to start with exercise to get their blood flowing and help them wake up, while others prefer to exercise at the end and then shower.
If there’s a Life S.A.V.E.R.S. practice that’s challenging for you, you might want to start with that one first. Getting the hardest thing out of the way first generates momentum and confidence that will make the rest of the routine and your day more productive.
Your start time is customizable as well, for instance if you work an evening or night shift. Just plan to wake up thirty to sixty minutes earlier than you normally would.
Digesting food takes energy—the more you eat, the less you feel like doing. Forgoing breakfast until after your Miracle Morning routine ensures that you’ll be alert and focused—your blood will be going to your brain instead of your digestive system.
But if you need to eat first thing in the morning, start with something light and easily digestible.
Many people choose what to eat based on taste, convenience, or dietary restrictions they may have. We get emotional enjoyment from the way foods taste—for example, fried chicken, fast food, ice cream, or soda. However, for more energy and better health, it’s better to choose foods based on those criteria. Food that’s healthy and gives you energy can still taste great—for instance, fresh fruits and vegetables.
Elrod created a Miracle Morning fruit smoothie to provide a healthy, energy-boosting breakfast. It includes protein, antioxidants, Omega 3 essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals.
Here’s the recipe:
Optional additions:
Whatever you choose to eat, make sure it’s good for you as well as great-tasting.
Once you become comfortable with the six personal development practices, look for ways to vary them to keep things fresh.
For instance, you might change your exercise routine every few months. You can search for different meditations online or download different meditation apps. You can change your vision board and continue to update your affirmations. Adjust the practices to what’s going on in your life—for instance, if you’ll be giving a speech, use your Miracle Morning time to focus your thoughts and rehearse.
It’s your responsibility to keep your routine fun and valuable for you.
The quality of your habits (the behaviors you repeat regularly and often subconsciously) determines the quality of your life. A person who’s successful has established the habits necessary for achieving and sustaining success. In contrast, someone who’s struggling in any area of life hasn’t committed themselves to the habits that generate success.
Because your habits dictate your life, it’s critical that you learn to control them. You need to identify, practice, and sustain the habits that will create the success you want while eliminating detrimental habits.
Most people fail at controlling or changing their habits. New Year’s resolutions are a prime example. A New Year’s resolution is typically a positive habit you want to establish (exercising) or a negative one you want to stop (smoking). But less than 5% of those who make resolutions stick with them.
Most people fail to change habits because they aren’t prepared to overcome the mental challenges that are part of the process. However, with the right strategy, you can change any habit in thirty days. The Miracle Morning 30-Day Habit Mastery Strategy will enable you to stick to the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. routine or to establish any other habit you want to.
Mastering a new habit involves three 10-day phases:
Whether you’re implementing a new habit or dumping an unproductive one, the first ten days are the most difficult—in fact, during this phase, change seems unbearable or impossible.
The key to getting through it is realizing this only temporary, rather than the way the new habit will always feel. Knowing that the worst is temporary—you only have to endure it for ten days—and the benefit is long-term gives you the willpower to get through this phase.
Example: When Elrod first started running, the first 10 days were physically painful and all he wanted to do was quit. He hated it. Mentally, he had to force himself to keep going.
Having survived the first phase will generate confidence, but you still need commitment and discipline to get through Phase 2. You’ll be tempted to backslide into your old behaviors—for instance, sleeping in instead of getting up early to exercise. However, you can overcome the temptation by focusing on and looking forward to the next phase, in which change will prevail.
Example: Elrod’s second phase of running was a bit less painful, he hated it less, and getting up and running every morning started to feel normal.
In the first two phases, you’ve formed and established a new habit, but you’re not done yet. (Many people think they’re done after twenty days.) Phase 3 is important because it sets you up to sustain the new habit. Completely replace the pain of first twenty days with positive reinforcement and enjoyment of the new habit, and it will become part of your identity. You’ll move from trying to living the habit.
Example: In this phase, Elrod forgot that he had hated running and began to enjoy it. Instead of battling mentally to keep going, he occupied his mind with affirmations and listening to self-help books and lectures. He went from believing he couldn’t run (a self-imposed limitation) to becoming a runner in thirty days. Soon, he even joined friends and ran a 52-mile ultra-marathon, which previously would have been unthinkable.
Similarly, you can make the Miracle Morning routine a habit. For encouragement, read some of the success stories at the front of the book, on the website, or in the Facebook community. For instance, one practitioner wrote: “I am on day 79 … and have not missed a single day. Honestly, this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever set out to do something and have actually stuck with it … I now look forward to waking up every day. The Miracle Morning has completely changed my life.”
Here are four steps for starting your Miracle Morning:
1) Download the Thirty-Day Life Transformation Challenge Kit here, which includes exercises, affirmations, checklists, and a tracking sheet.
2) Plan your first miracle morning for tomorrow. Decide where you’ll do the routine.
3) In preparation, read page one of the kit and do the exercises. This should take no more than an hour. This includes:
4) Get an accountability partner, but start your Miracle Morning tomorrow whether you find a partner immediately or not.
Regardless of your past, you can change your future by doing something different in the present. Your results will depend on who you choose to be from now on.
It takes about thirty days to establish a new habit or eliminate an old one. Many people fail but it’s doable if you understand the three phases of the process (unbearable, uncomfortable, and unstoppable) and have a mental strategy for getting through them.
Think of a habit you failed at changing in the past. What actions or steps did you take and for how long?
What was the reason or reasons you either succeeded or failed? What did you learn from the experience?
What current habit would you like to change and what could you do during each phase to succeed?