‘The Miracle Morning’ by Hal Elrod: My Ten Takeaways
A few months ago, a client of mine spoke about The Miracle Morning and the transformative impact it had had on her life. I was intrigued to find out more. I started reading The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod and immediately I felt the same feelings of excitement I experienced when I first read Marie Kondo’s ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’, Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ and Kim John Payne’s ‘Simplicity Parenting’. These three books have changed my life for the better; so you can understand my growing enthusiasm towards The Miracle morning!
In a nutshell, Elrod provides his incredible life story (he died for 6 minutes following a car accident, was told he would never walk again - which he did, and went on to become the best version of himself by studying the art of personal development). The Miracle Morning is all about using a block of time in the morning to work on ourselves. Every day. Many of us may struggle to find the time to grow, learn and develop into the people we wish to become. Using Elrod’s Miracle Morning (which, just for clarity, is meant to take place in the morning, ideally before the rest of our household wakes up), we can set a time every day for personal development and growth, and feel genuine excitement to get up every day, rather than hit the snooze button a dozen times (which is an act of resisting our life, according to Elrod).
‘I’m not a morning person!’ I hear you cry… well, I wasn’t either. I don’t think I fully am yet but I’m working on it. For the past month I’ve been getting up earlier and earlier. My normal I-will-hit-the-snooze-button-alarm was set for 6.20am, but incrementally I’ve set it back to 6am, 5:45am and now I’ve settled on 5.30am. My children don’t get up until 6.30am every day, so that provides me with one hour uninterrupted time every morning. So far, it’s working extremely well. What do I do during that hour? Here is my breakdown:
5.30am - Alarm goes off, I get up, wash my face with cold water and head into the living room. The kettle goes on!
5.35-5.40am - Tea made, I practice stillness (meditating, focusing on my breathing for a couple of minutes)
5.40am-5.45am - I read out my list of positive affirmations (I keep them on a note on my phone)
5.45am-6.05am - I write in my diary (main headings are ‘things I learnt yesterday’ where I list the things I’d like to remember that helped me grow and learn, along with things I’m grateful for, and ‘coming up today’ in which I list the key things I’m dong that day along with the mindset required to do them)
6.05am-6.30am - Reading
You’ve got to wake up each morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.
George Lorimer
If you’re intrigued to find out more, here are my 10 takeaways from the book (the 10 ideas I want you to know - those that I find informative and potentially transformative)…
1. This book speaks to a certain type of person - If you’re not into self help books, then this one may not be for you. Elrod talks a lot about overcoming mediocrity, and how a lot of people ‘don’t do this’. I find that kind of writing motivating because I don’t want to fall into the category of people who ‘don’t do this’ - personally, content of this nature prompts me into action. Would it do the same for you? Elrod calls us to join the top 5% of successful people in the world who devote themselves to fully becoming the best version of themselves, and in his words ‘a Level 10 person’.
2. Key message = The level of our success is parallel to our level of our personal development: The central theme of the book is that you must dedicate time each day to personal development:
The essence of The Miracle Morning remains that you simply wake up earlier than you normally would (typically 30-60 minutes), so that you can dedicate time every day to improving yourself, so you can transform your life.
Hal Elrod, pg.133
When Hal discusses why he chose the morning over other times of the day to work on himself, it made me reflect on my own daily schedule and how the morning is similarly the most suitable time for carrying out my personal development work. Although paradoxically the Miracle Morning doesn’t actually have to take place in the morning, there are several benefits for making this a strictly morning practice…
3. Why should I complete this in the morning? In the morning, you’re fresh, alert (well, I certainly am following my first sip of tea) and we don’t yet have the array of excuses that inevitably present themselves throughout the day. I thought I would struggle to get up when I first started being inspired by the book, but true to what Hal says, in the first few days of trying out The Miracle Morning I actually felt excited to get up knowing I had a set of self development rituals to focus on. If I didn’t have a set list of personal development activities to make up my Miracle Hour, then I think I would struggle to find the motivation to avoid the snooze button. Having a structure to follow is a key motivator for me.
If you want your life to be different, you have to be willing to do something different first.
Unknown
4. Rear-View Mirror Syndrome: Hal talks about RMS (Rear-View Mirror Syndrome) and I’d never heard about this concept before, although it makes perfect sense to me. It means that we’re always looking back at our past, which affects how we behave in the present, limiting our potential and acting as filter to every decision we make. Hal encourages us to start imaging a life of limitless possibilities. Once we change our thoughts, we can start to change our actions.
Research shows that on any given day, the average person thinks somewhere between 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts. The problem is that 95 percent of our thoughts are the same as the ones we thought the day before.
Hal Elrod, pg. 33
5. We must ask ourselves, ‘what’s our life purpose?’: When this question was posed in the book, it took me a while to come up with my answer. Hal tells us that this is often the case for most people; ask them what their life purpose is and you will often be met with a shrug or an ‘I don’t know…’. What about you? Do you have a clear life purpose? Hal argues that if we don’t have clear life purpose, we are unable to clearly define our affirmations, intentions and goals around trying to achieve our purpose. Knowing our life’s purpose provides clarity and a basis for starting to work on ourselves, and therefore, knowing how to make the best out of your Miracle Morning. After pondering on this question for a day, I wrote my life purpose in the back of the book:
Grow. Every day. Follow the mantra: ‘every day a school day’.
Become the best version of myself.
Inspire others to do the same, by sharing what I learn.
After a day, that’s what I came up with and I feel it’s still a bit too generic. However, I’m reassured by Hal that our purpose will change over time and as we grow. I’d love to hear what you come up with as your life’s purpose. Let me know in the comments if you have a clear view and are keen to share!
6. Don’t hit the snooze button!: According to Hal, hitting the snooze button means that you’re resisting your life. This was a very powerful (and ironically a) wake-up for me. This statement hit hard. Why am I resisting life by hitting the snooze button? Why have I been unable to get up, and get up with purpose, for years? It made me a bit sad to come to this realisation. But that sadness turned to motivation and excitement when I knew that I was fully in control of stopping the snoozefest in the future. And so far, I’ve stuck to it. And it feels good.
7. How much sleep do we really need?: This is a topic that really interests me. I have yet to read Matthew Walker’s ‘Why We Sleep’ - it’s been on my to-read list for years but I once tried to read it in the evening but Matthew uses the word ‘sleep’ so often that it actually made me sleepy! - so I want to fully investigate Matthew’s book before I turn myself over to Hal Elrod’s view on sleep. He doesn’t actually give a definitive answer of exactly how much sleep we need; instead he tells us to go to bed with positive thinking, to convince ourselves that we will get enough sleep despite how many hours we have. I’m a bit dubious about this. If I only have 4 hours of sleep in a night due to Hermione waking up several times because her teddy fell out of the bed (true story), I will probably still fall asleep during my meditation in my Miracle Morning, even after going to bed with a positive mindset. This actually happened on Day Four of my Miracle Morning challenge. I’d love to hear your opinions about this one friends.
8. Life S.A.V.E.R.S.: I really enjoyed Hal’s guidance on what to do in your Miracle Morning to satisfy different elements of your self development strategy. Hal has come up with the acronym S.A.V.E.R.S. that stands for:
Silence
Affirmations
Visualisation
Exercise
Reading
Scribing (writing)
Hal recommends assigning time during your Miracle Morning to focus on all six of the above areas of personal development, because they are all well respected and scientifically-proven, successful means that lead to personal growth. I am still trying to incorporate exercise and visualisation into my Miracle Morning but I can safely say that the four other areas I have successfully implemented so far. One of the key areas out of the above that I am benefiting from enormously is the focus on reading. Previously I struggled to read every day, but now it’s part of my Miracle Morning routine, I am finally getting round to reading the books that have been on my extensively long list of books to-read for a long time, and it’s a very joyful experience knowing that this is now a non-negotiable part of my day. Start your day well, and the rest of the day will follow suit. That’s the theory.
9. Gap Focus: This is another term that I hadn’t heard before reading The Miracle Morning. Hal tells us that many people have ‘gap focus’ which is a tendency to focus on what we haven’t done, instead of celebrating what we have done.
If you had ten things on your to-do list for the day - even if you had completed six of them - your ‘gap focus’ causes you to feel you didn’t get everything done that you wanted.
Hal Elrod, pg. 118-19
Hal wrote about ‘gap focus’ in the scribing section of his book, where he describes the benefits of writing thoughts down in a journal every day. It allows us to direct our focus on what we have achieved, and grants us the opportunity to offload items from our mind that we have yet to do. If they’re written down on a page, they’re effectively out of our minds and we can narrow our ‘gap focus’. According to Hal, the highest achievers in the world are at peace with what they’re accomplished every day, acknowledging ‘I am doing the best that I can do in this moment, and at the same time, I can and will do better’. I have to ask; without the opportunity to reflect and develop ourselves every day in a Miracle Morning format, when we would get a chance to consistently come to this realisation?
10. You can form a habit in 21 days, but it takes 30 days to fully sustain it: As you all know, I’m very interested in theories and research devoted to the study of habit change. I loved Hal’s section on this subject, outlining his take on habit change. Hal writes that it takes us 30 days on average to successfully implement a new habit and I found his breakdown of this time-frame incredibly insightful, especially as I’m currently in the midst of forming and sustaining the habit of waking up every day at 5.30am! Hal breaks down the implementation of a new habit into the following phases:
(Days 1-10) Phase 1: Unbearable - Although the first few days of trying out a new habit may be exciting, this soon wears off and a feeling of dread at your new undertaking may set in. But rest assured, the seemingly unbearable first 10 days are only temporary.
(Days 11-20) Phase 2: Uncomfortable - This phase is a bit easier than phase 1 as you’re now getting used to your new habit. However, it will require discipline and commitment to keep going at this stage.
(Days 21-30) Phase 3: Unstoppable - It takes the first two phases to form your habit, phase 3 is important for sustaining your habit. Phase 3 is all about positively reinforcing and associating pleasure with your new habit to enable it to become naturally embedded in your lifestyle. If you can reach the point where the habit is automatic, you’re on to a win.
I really appreciated this insight into habit change and I could relate to each stage as I got used to waking up at 5.30am throughout October.
My Verdict: 5 Stars
This is the first book I’ve read on the topic of morning productivity so I am aware that I may be assigning my initial enthusiasm towards the subject as a whole to Hal’s book, as it was the first I’ve read to support me in growing in this area. However, I was engaged throughout reading The Miracle Morning, and Hal’s story, insights and guidance have already had a profound impact on my life. There is a real power about rising before the day wakes up. There is a real sense of peace in the house when I’m the only one awake. I’m really enjoying my new commitment to working on my personal development and I will continue to explore books on morning productivity, especially as I try to incorporate the other two missing Life S.A.V.E.R.S. (visualisation and exercise) into my Miracle Morning routine.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Have you read The Miracle Morning? What were your thoughts?