There are a few things that happen in life that leave you with that feeling of “I wish I had known that or done that sooner”. Let me share with you the most recent version of this that I’ve experienced.
A year or so ago, I was in a train and got talking with a couple of people sitting near me. When I shared about being a coach and my interest in self-development and leadership, one of my new acquaintances recommended that I pick up a copy of “Miracle Morning” saying that I would find it really interesting. I ordered a copy later that week and, of course, it sat on my bookshelf for months!
Bad Habits
I had got out of the habit of reading. I’d allowed other excuses such as tiredness, box sets, and general TV viewing to eat my time. So only when I was organising myself to go away on a recent business trip, did I decide to pick this book from my bookshelf. I planned to start reading it in the plane and continue while I was staying at a hotel for the week.
As I promised myself, I started reading “Miracle Morning” on the plane. By the end of the 2-hour flight, I was over half way through the book. It was insightful, interesting and thought-provoking. An easy read as well as a simple concept to understand: spend an hour a day on 6 different activities and you can drastically change your life. Sounds simple and manageable, right?!
Life-Changing Habits
After facing some personal challenges in his life, Hal Elrod developed a method to help himself and others who wanted to make big changes in their lives. It comprised 6 different activities to complete daily:
Silence
Affirmations
Visualisation
Exercise
Reading
Scribing
Let’s take a look at each of these to understand what’s involved in each:
Silence: Sit in silence for 5 mins. Notice your thoughts and let them go. This will take practice. Focus on your breathing. Enjoy the stillness.
Affirmations: Spend 5 mins affirming yourself and your life. Use the time initially to develop your affirmations. Then transition to repeating them. Watch how they will evolve over time as you get used to being positive about yourself. Keep saying it until you believe it.
Visualisation: Develop a vision for yourself and your life. Draw it, collage it, imagine it. Do what you need to do to feel connected to your bright future for 5 mins each day.
Exercise: Spend 20 mins exercising your body. Tabata, yoga, a workout video, a run. It doesn’t matter. Just move your body for 20 mins. It’s amazing what a difference 20 mins each day can make!
Read: Self-help, personal development, autobiography, biography. It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s something you can learn from. Take 20 mins per day to read something that allows you to learn and grow.
Scribing: Take the last 5 mins of your hour to write something down. It might be a reflection on what you’ve read, or a learning from yesterday, or an intention for today. Anything goes as long as it keeps you moving forward in your discovery of yourself.
An Hour a Day…
So that’s it! According to Hal Elrod, an hour a day (ideally first thing in the morning) can help you change your life. There’s online courses, forums and communities of people who have put this all into action and have drastically changed their lives. Elrod addresses the sleep issue in his book, so if that’s blocking you, make sure to read that section.
I’ve only recently started with my miracle morning hour. I feel more energised and find it a fulfilling time of my day. I’m still working on my affirmations and visualisation. I also want to buy a specific notebook to capture my “scribing” efforts. In the meantime I’ve been using random bits of paper!
So will you be joining me? Are you also willing to give yourself an hour to get everything you’ve ever dreamed of?
Here are the links to some resources so you can find out more.
https://www.miraclemorning.com/
https://halelrod.clickfunnels.com/access-tmm-fast-start
https://www.miraclemorning.com/start-here/
I’d love to hear how you get on.
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