Per my post on my newfound love for my Kindle I have been reading a lot more lately. In the last month I’ve burned through all of the Harry Potter series, All the Light we Cannot See, and the life-changing The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.
You’ve probably heard most top-performers {People like Oprah, Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss} swear by their morning routines. Obviously this sh*t works.
There are tons of books on the importance and specifics of morning routines, but “The Miracle Morning” is probably the most well-known.
To be honest, I didn’t LOVE the book overall. I read a lot of self-development books but I shut down pretty quickly if something feels forced, sales-y or cliche. This book veered into that territory at times, but I’m glad I powered through because despite this, the book has a ton of value.
With any self-development book some things will resonate with you and others won’t- take all the value you can from it regardless. Even re-reading my notes to write this post has me super motivated to wake up early and crush it, living my absolute best life.
10 Things I Took from The Miracle Morning
+ Take responsibility for your life : Don’t put energy into wishing your life was different/easier or complaining about what should be. Focus your energy on making the best of what you have. We must accept responsibility for every aspect of our life and refuse to blame anyone or anything else. “The degree to which you accept responsibility for everything in your life is precisely the degree of personal power you have to change or create anything in your life.” By learning from our challenges we can use them to add values to the lives of others and turn adversity into advantage.
+ Choose your story wisely: We cannot control everything that happens in our lives but we do have the choice of what meaning to assign those events. It is our responsibility to choose the most empowering reasons for the events and challenges of our lives.
+ Have faith in yourself and your worth: When you see others accomplishing what you want to accomplish, use that to motivate you rather than discourage you. “Embrace the perspective that anything another person has overcome or accomplished is simply evidence that anything we need to overcome or want to accomplish is possible for us, no matter what our past or circumstances.” Also remember, “You are just as worthy, deserving and capable of creating and sustaining extraordinary health, wealth, happiness, love and success in your life as any other person on earth.”
+ Trust in your life: “Know that wherever you are in your life right now is both temporary, and exactly where you are supposed to be… You have arrived at this moment to learn what you must learn, so you can become the person you need to be to create the life you truly want.”
+ Success cones through becoming a person who can be successful: You must develop yourself into the person you need to be to consistently attract, create and sustain the level of success you want. This is why your morning routine is so important, to dedicate time each day to becoming the person you need to be to create and sustain success. Until we dedicate this time to ourselves each day success will always be a struggle to attain because “success is something you attract by the person by the person you become.”
+ We all struggle against mediocrity: We all know what to do to be happier, and yet we all struggle to do those things. You have to make a choice of what matters most to you: the life you want to live, or your excuses. “Every day you and I wake up, we face the same universal challenge: to overcome mediocrity and live to our full potential. It’s the greatest challenge in human history – to rise above our excuses and create the life we truly want that so few people ever get to live…I want to truly love my life. I want to love my work, and I want to love the people I get to share my life and work with. That’s my definition of success. That kind of life doesn’t just happen, it must be designed. If you you want to live an extraordinary life… then you must identify the fundamental causes of mediocrity so you can prevent them from robbing you of the life you want.”
+ Your mornings become your days and your days become your life: “How you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life… Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive successful days- which inevitably create a successful life- in the same way that unfocused, unproductive and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive and mediocre days and, ultimately, a mediocre quality of life.”
+ Our past is not our future: “We mistakenly believe that who we were is who we are, thus limiting our true potential in the present based on the limitations of our past. We filter every choice we make- from what time we will wake up in the morning, to which goals we will set… through the limitations of our past experiences… When presented with opportunities, we quickly check our rearview mirror to asses our past capabilities.” We think, “No, I’ve never done anything like that before. I’ve never achieved at that level. In fact, I’ve failed time and time again” keeping ourselves where we’ve always been. “Where you are is a result of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be from this moment on.”
+ Choose what’s right versus what’s easy: “Every time you choose to do the easy thing instead of the right thing, you are shaping your identity, becoming the type of person who does what’s easy rather than what’s right…when the alarm goes off and we hit the snooze button (the easy thing), most people mistakenly assume that this action is only affecting this moment. The reality is that this type of action is programming our subconscious mind with instructions that it is okay for us to not follow through with the things we intended to do.” Today is the most important day of your life. Now matters more than any other time because the decisions you are making and actions you are taking determines who you are going to be for the rest of your life.
+ The way you wake up determines the life you will have: “When you delay waking up until you have to- meaning you wait until the last possible moment to get out of bed and start your day- consider that what you’re actually doing is resisting your life. Every time you hit the snooze button, you’re in a state of resistance to your day, to your life, and to waking up and creating the life you say you want… Everyone wants to be happy, healthy and successful, but wanting is rarely an effective strategy for getting”
If you’re snoozing until the last possible moment, heading off to work/school etc, then coming home and zoning out watching Netflix until you go to sleep- when exactly are you going to develop yourself into the person you need to be to create the life you want to live? Instead of numbly going through life looking for every possible distraction to escape your reality, why not create a life and self you love and can’t wait to be awake for?
I hope reading these was as motivating for you as it was for me to revisit them! Despite saying I didn’t love the book, I clearly got a lot of value from it. Again, all insights are from “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod. Have you read the book? What were your thoughts? Do you have a morning routine?
Xx,
