I celebrated the 4th anniversary of my Miracle Morning (MM) practice last month. It took me a while to join up with the MM community on Facebook, which was a mistake in hindsight. I am ambivalent at best about the book of faces and social media in general. I did a quick post to share my achievement with this special group of people. The response was delightful, and as ever with this group, supportive and inquisitive. Most of the inquiries were something like, “what difference / changes have you made?” I promised to take some time to consider it properly and here is the result, this blog post. Before I dive into that, some of you will have no idea of what the MM is, so here is a brief summary.
I first encountered it as a book 4 years ago. I will pop some links at the end to make it easy for you to find it and even take a free ‘crash’ course / taster. Anyone who knows Hal Elrod’s story, the author of the MM, will appreciate why crash is in inverted commas. I think the MM is best described as a morning routine or recipe or framework designed to enhance your quality of life. The key ingredients in Hal’s recipe are;
Silence
Affirmations
Visualisations
Exercise
Reading
Scribing
I can tell you that SAVERS work, that is why I have given away more than a hundred copies now.
Win the morning, win the day
My morning routine has changed many times over the last 4 years. I am sure Hal would be the first to say that you should find what works for you. In the first instance though just follow the recipe in the book. Not a “morning person”? Don’t worry I was not either, Hal covers that for you.
My current MM routine starts around 6am. Whilst my coffee is brewing, I like to do 5-10 minutes of Chi-Gong (although anything that gets the blood pumping a little works). I sit down with my coffee and start writing. I like to start with something like, “Right now I am feeling…” Once the coffee or inspiration to write has run out, I like to meditate for 30 minutes. I then do 10 to 30 minutes of exercise; currently, a spin class, yoga, weights and circuit training app are on a cycle. Nearly all of this has been done in silence, except for greeting my wife or fussing my dog.
I prefer to do my reading in the evenings, I focus and sleep better this way. Visualisation and Affirmations are not currently part of my routine, I am future-focussed and goal-oriented. Most of the pictures and chatter in my head are about this or various scenarios of what I might do. I like to think of SAVERS as more of a set of dials or graphic equaliser, you choose what level suits your ear. As you can see the order does not need to be fixed. I do not practice this routine every day, usually 6 days per week. If it is only 5 days, I don’t worry about it. Sometimes extra sleep is what I want and need. However, the motivation for keeping up my routine is simple, the sense of wellbeing I have from doing my MM routine massively outweighs the discipline required to do it.
What did the Miracle Morning ever do for me?
So far, I have mentioned a sense of wellbeing and improving your quality of life. To measure how the MM has changed me, I need to introduce you to 3 Pauls;
Paul before the MM (bMM-Paul) 4 years ago
Paul after the MM (aMM-Paul) today
Paul without the MM (NoMM-Paul) today without any MM routine. You and I will never meet this Paul, but he is interesting from a change perspective (and possibly exists if you subscribe to the multiverse theory).
Fortunately, I have an annual goal setting regime which begins by asking myself, “On a scale from 1 to 10 how perfect is/are my XXX?” XXX being one of the following;
Family Relationships; Finances; Career; Mental and Emotional Health; Physical Health; Personal Development; Social Life; Spiritual Wellbeing; Environment; Nutrition; Sleep; Contribution
Either immediately or just after scoring I know the things I would like to improve in the next year. I don’t always achieve them, but I know what I want to get done. However, that is not the point for this post. We now have some data (numbers) to measure where I felt (scored by myself, subjectively of course) against these various dimensions of my life. If you would like the raw data please get in touch, the details are below.
Disappointment
My initial response was a huge sense of disappointment looking at how little had changed. This post almost did not get written at this point. Several of the areas of my life had either not changed or gotten slightly worse. This was not what I expected. I dug a little bit deeper, pulling out goals I had set in some of those areas. This was far more positive. I had achieved a lot. I simply had not given myself any credit for it. Or perhaps better put, like a new shiny car or piece of furniture my achievements felt great at the time (and I am still very proud of them) but they had quickly become who I was, the new normal, part of the furniture. I considered rescoring but this felt somehow like cheating. I felt the way I felt, I did what I did. It occurred to me that for many areas I was already doing very well 4 years ago.
Instead, I focussed in on the few areas that had scored better. These were;
Mental and Emotional Health
Spiritual Wellbeing
Sleep.
On average each had improved by 2 or 3 points over the 4 years. Then it occurred to me. If NoMM-Paul existed and he travelled back in time to bMM-Paul they would both agree to prioritise these areas for improvement. I think it is no coincidence that my MM routine focusses on Silence (generally and through meditation) and Exercise, both contribute significantly to the areas of improvement. To be clear, I exercised and meditated before my MM routine. However, the regular discipline and overall sense of wellbeing derived from it has made all the difference.
To sum up, it gave me a routine or framework to increase my wellbeing and quality of life by improving my sleep, plus my mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Much has happened in the last 4 years of my life, many challenges and difficulties. The MM has made me a little lighter and easier to carry through tough times. Sometimes I have carried myself, sometimes I have been carried. I am eternally grateful for those that carried me when I needed it.
What is your morning routine?
Be happy, healthy and helpful
Paul
How to get in touch
Useful Resources
Miracle Morning Community FB Link
Hal’s MM ‘crash’ course Link
The best meditation app I have found Calm. Use the free version to check if it works for you.
The circuit training app I have found 7minuteworkout. Try the free version and you can always do more than one circuit 😉
I use my own wheel of life I made in excel. If you want it, drop me a line and I will send it to you. A friend recommended this app LifeWheel. Only works on apple though…
P.S. Feel free to share on your social media, just click below
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