Why is it that when a baby is born, we often refer to him or her as “the miracle of life,” but then go on to accept mediocrity for our own lives? When along the way did we lose sight of the miracle that we are living?

 

When you were born, everyone assured you that you could do, have, and be anything you wanted when you grew up. So, now that you’ve grown up, are you doing, having, and being anything and everything you’ve ever wanted? Or somewhere along the way, did you redefine “anything and everything” to include settling for less than you truly want?

 

1. You are just as worth, deserving, and capable of creating and sustaining extraordinary health, wealth, happiness, love and success in your life, as any other person on earth. It is absolutely crucial—not only for the quality of your life, but for the impact you make on on your family, friends, clients, co-workers, children, community, and anyone whose life you touch—that you start living in alignment with that truth.
2. In order for you to stop settling for less than you deserve—in any area of your life—and to create the levels of personal, professional, and financial success you desire, you must first dedicate time each day to becoming the person you need to be, one who is qualified and capable of consistently attracting, creating, and sustaining the levels of success you want.
3. 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. By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any are of your life, faster than you ever thought possible.

 

“Your level of success, will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.”   —Jim Rohn

Step #1: Acknowledge The 95% Reality Check

 

First, we must understand and acknowledge the reality that 95% of our society will never create and live the life they really want. We must embrace the fact that if we don’t commit to thinking and living differently than most people now, we are setting ourselves up to endure a life of mediocrity, struggle, failure and regret—just like most people. Realize that this will include our own friends, family, and peers if we don’t do something about it now and set an example of what’s possible when we commit to fulfilling our potential.

 

Step #2: Identify The Causes Of Mediocrity

 

Rearview Mirror Syndrome

 

We mistakenly believe that who we were is who we are, this limiting our true potential in the present, based on the limitations of our past. As a result, we filter every choice we make—from what time we will wake up in the morning to which goals we will set to what we allow ourselves to consider possible for our lives—through the limitations of our past experiences. We want to create a better life, but sometimes we don’t know how to see it any other way than how it’s always been.

 

Talk to yourself in a way that inspires confidence that not only is anything possible, but that you are capable and committed to making it so. It’s not even necessary to believe it at first. In fact, you probably won’t believe it. You might find it uncomfortable and that you resist doing it. That’s okay. Repeat it to yourself anyway, and your subconscious mind will begin to absorb the positive self-affirmations.

 

Don’t place unnecessary limitations on what you want for your life. Think bigger than you’ve allowed yourself to think up until this point. There is nothing to fear, because you cannot fail—only learn, grow, and become better than you’ve ever been before.

 

Always remember that 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.

 

Lack Of Purpose

 

The average person can’t articulate their life purpose—the compelling “why” that drives them to wake up every day and do whatever it takes to fulfill their mission in life. Rather, the average person takes life one day at a time, and has no higher purpose beyond merely surviving.

 

To defeat this cause of mediocrity, you need a life purpose, which can be any purpose you want. It can be anything that resonates with and inspires you to wake up every day and live in alignment with your purpose. Just remember that you get to make it up, and this first one can be something simple, even small. It will be your first step towards a bigger life purpose. Keep in mind that you can change your life purpose at any time. As you grow and evolve, so will your purpose. What’s important is that you choose a purpose—any purpose—and start living by it, now.

 

Keep in mind that you’re not supposed to “figure out” what your purpose is, you get to make it up, create it, decide what you want it to be.

 

Isolating Incidents

 

One of the most prevalent, yet not-so-obvious causes of mediocrity is isolating incidents. We do this when we mistakenly assume that each choice we make, and each individual action we take, is only affecting that particular moment, or circumstance. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

 

We must realize that the real impact and consequence of each of our choices and actions—and even our thoughts—is monumental, because every single thought, choice, and action is determining who we are becoming, which will ultimately determine the quality of our lives.

 

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”   —Harv Ever

 

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. On the other hand, when you do choose to do the right thing and follow through with your commitments—especially when you don’t feel like it—you are developing the extraordinary discipline (which most people never develop) necessary for creating extraordinary results in your life.

 

Lack Of Accountability

 

Very little happens in this world, or in your life, without some form of accountability. Virtually every positive result you and I produced from birth to age eighteen was thanks to the accountability provided for us by the adults in our lives. If it weren’t for the accountability provided for us by our parents and teachers, we would have been uneducated, malnourished, sleep-deprived, dirty little kids!

 

Accountability has brought order to our lives and allowed us to progress, improve and achieve results we wouldn’t have otherwise. Here’s the problem: accountability was never something you and I asked for, but rather something that we endured as children, teens, and young adults. As it was forced upon us by adults, most of us unconsciously grew to resist and resent accountability altogether. Now that we are all grown up and striving to achieve worthy levels of success and fulfillment, we must take responsibility for initiating our own systems for accountability. Your accountability system could be a professional coach, mentor, even a good friend or family member.

 

Mediocre Circle Of Influence

 

Research has shown that we virtually becomes like the average of the five people we spend the most time with. If you are surrounded with lazy, weak-minded, excuse-making people, you’ll inevitably become like them. Spend time with positive, successful achievers and inevitably their attitudes and successful habits will reflect on you.

 

Unfortunately, there will be a lot of people who are trying to get ahead in life but keep getting pulled down by the people around them. This can especially difficult when those people are your family. You must be strong and make sure you spend less time with people who don’t encourage and challenge you to become the best you can be.

 

Seek out people who believe in you, admire you, and can help you get where you want to go in life. You must actively week out such people to improve your circle of influence—they rarely just show up by chance.

 

It is often said that “misery loves company”, but so does mediocrity. Don’t let the fears, insecurities, and limiting beliefs of others limit what’s possible for you.

 

Lack Of Personal Development

 

“Your level of success, will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.”   —Jim Rohn

 

Lack Of Urgency

 

Human nature is to live with a “someday” mindset and think life will work itself out. How’s that working out for everybody? The someday mindset is perpetual, and it leads to a life of procrastination, unfulfilled potential and regret.

 

Remember this truth: now matters more than any other time in your life, because it’s what you are doing today that is determining who you’re becoming, and who you’re becoming will always determine the quality and direction of your life.

 

Step #3: Draw Your Line In The Sand

 

Not tomorrow, not next week, or next month. You’ve got to make a decision today that you’re ready to make the necessary changes to guarantee that you will be able to create the life you really want. Your entire life changes the day that you decide you will no longer accept mediocrity for yourself.

 

Mediocrity has nothing to do with how you compare to other people; it’s simply a result of not making the commitment to continuously learn, grow, and improve yourself. Whereas being extraordinary—which leads to extraordinary levels of success—is a result of choosing to learn, grow, and be a little bit better each day than you’ve been in the past.

You Snooze, You Lose: The Truth About Waking Up

 

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.

 

According to Robert S. Rosenberg, medical director of the Sleep Disorders Centers of Prescott Valley and Flagstaff, Arizona, “When you hit the snooze button repeatedly, you’re doing two negative things to yourself. First, you’re fragmenting what little extra sleep you’re getting so it is of poor quality. Second, you’re starting to put yourself through a new sleep cycle that you aren’t giving yourself enough time to finish. This can result in persistent grogginess throughout the day.”

 

The tone of our morning has a powerful impact on the tone of the rest of our day. It becomes a cycle: waking up with despair, spending the day continuing to feel that way, going to sleep feeling anxious or depressed, then repeat the cycle of melancholy the next day.

 

Not only are people missing out on the abundance of clarity, energy, motivation, and personal power that comes from waking up each day on purpose, but their resistance to this inevitable daily act is a defiant statement to the universe that they would rather lie in bed, unconscious, than to create and live the life they desire.

 

How To Wake Up With More Energy (On Less Sleep)

 

How our sleep affects our biology is largely affected by our own person belief about how much sleep we need.

 

If you tell yourself you’re going to feel tired in the morning, then you are absolutely going to feel tired. If you believe that you need 8 hours to feel rested, then you’re not going to feel rested on anything less. But what if you changed your beliefs?

 

Think back to a time in your life when you were genuinely excited to wake up in the morning. Personally, I can’t think of any time in my life when I was more excited to wake up in the morning—regardless of how much sleep I got—than when I was a kid, every year on Christmas morning. Maybe you can relate?

 

Whatever the occasions have been that have had you excited to walk up in the morning, how did you feel when those mornings arrived? Did you have to drag yourself out of bed? Doubtful. On mornings like these, we can’t wait to wake up! We do so feeling energized and genuinely excited. We quickly have the covers off and spring to our feet, ready to take on the day! Imagine if this is what every day of your life was like. Shouldn’t it be? It can.

Nobody actually likes waking up early, but everyone loves the feeling of having woken up early. Kind of like exercising—many of us struggle to get ourselves to the gym, but all of us love the feeling of having gone to the gym.

 

Step #1: Set Your Intentions Before Bed

 

Your first thought in the morning is usually the last thought you had before you went to bed.

 

The key is to consciously decide every night to actively and mindfully create a positive expectation for the next morning.

 

Step #2: Move Your Alarm Clock Across The Room

 

Movement creates energy.

 

Step #3: Brush Your Teeth

 

The point is that you’re doing mindless activities for the first few minutes and simply giving your body time to wake up.

 

Use Listerine for extra umph!

 

Step #4: Drink A Full Glass Of Water

 

Often when people feel tired—at any time of the day—what they really need is more water, not more sleep.

 

Step #5: Get Dressed In Your Workout Clothes

 

Some people prefer to start their day by jumping into the shower, but I believe we should earn our morning shower by breaking a sweat, first!

 

Morning exercise is crucial to maximizing your potential, because it puts you into a peak mental, physical, and emotional state so that you can win the day.

 

Miracle Morning Bonus Wake Up Tips

 

• Set a timer for your bedroom lights. It’s a lot easier to fall back asleep when it’s dark, so having the lights come on tells your mind and body that it’s time to wake up.

• Set a timer for your bedroom heater. To avoid crawling back into bed for warmth.

Most of us are so busy trying to manage, maintain, or even just survive our life “situation” that we don’t make the time to focus on what’s most important—our life. What’s the difference? Our life situation is the set of external circumstances, events, people, and places that surround us.

 

Your life is who you are at the deepest level. Your life is made up of the internal components, attitudes, and mindsets that can give you the power to alter, enhance, or change your life situation at any given moment.

 

Your life is where your ability to create new feelings, perspectives, beliefs, and attitudes in your “inner” world lies, so that you can create or alter the circumstances, relationships, results, and anything else in the “external” realm of your life situation. As many sages have taught us: our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. By focusing time and effort each day on developing your P.I.E.S. (Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual), and consistently becoming a better version of yourself, your life situation will inevitably—almost automatically—improve.

Purposeful silence. “Purposeful” simply means that you are engaging in a period of Silence with a highly beneficial purpose in mind—not just for the heck of it.

 

The life-enhancing benefits of Silence have been well documented throughout the ages. From the power of prayer, to the magic of meditation, some of the greatest minds in history have used purposeful Silence to transcend their limitations and create extraordinary results.

 

Mornings, for most of us, are typically pretty hectic and rushed. We’re usually running around trying to get ready for the day, and our minds are often plagued with internal chatter about what we have to do, where we have to go, who we have to see, what we forgot to do, the fact that we’re running late, a recent argument with our significant other or family member.

 

For other, we have trouble just getting going on most mornings. We feel sluggish, lazy, and unproductive. So, for the great majority of us, the mornings are either stressful and rushed, or slow and unproductive. Neither of these represents the optimum way to start your day.

 

Silence is one of the best ways to immediately reduce stress, while increasing your self-awareness and gaining the clarity that will allow you to maintain your focus on your goals, priorities, and what’s most important for your life, each and every day.

 

• Meditation
• Prayer
• Reflection
• Deep Breathing
• Gratitude

 

Some mornings I do just one of these activities, and other mornings I combine them.

 

It is very important you don’t stay in bed for this, and preferably that you leave your bedroom altogether. The problem with staying in bed—or even your bedroom, where your comfy bed is within your line of sight—is that it’s too easy to go from sitting in Silence, to slouching, to falling back to sleep.

 

Meditation

 

The essence of meditation is simply silencing or focusing the mind for a period of time. You may or may not be aware of all the extraordinary health benefits of meditating. Study after study shows that meditation can be more effective than medication. Studies link regular mediation to improvement in metabolism, blood pressure, brain activity, and other bodily functions. It can alleviate stress and pain, promote sleep, enhance focus and concentration, and even increase lifespan. Meditation also requires very little time. You can take advantage of the benefits of meditation in just a few minutes a day.

 

Remember, this is a time for you to let go of your compulsive need to constantly be thinking about something. This is a time to let go of your stress and take a break from worrying about your problems. This is the time to be fully present in this moment. This is ofter referred to as just being. Not thinking, not doing, just being. Continue to follow your breaths, and imagine inhaling positive, loving, peaceful energy, and exhaling all of your worries and stress. Enjoy the quite. Enjoy the moment. Just breath… Just be.

Affirmations are one of the most effective tools for quickly becoming the person you need to be to achieve everything you want in your life. Affirmations allow you to design and then develop the mindset (thoughts, beliefs, focus) that you need to take any area of your life to the next level.

 

Every single one of us has an internal dialogue that runs through our heads, almost non-stop. Most of it is unconscious, that is, we don’t consciously choose the dialogue. Instead, we allow our past experiences—both good and bad—to replay over and over again. Not only is this completely normal, it is one of the most important processes for each of us to learn about and master. Yet, very few people take responsibility for actively choosing to think positive, proactive thoughts that will add value to their lives.

 

Your self-talk has a dramatic influence on your level of success in every aspect of your life—confidence, health, happiness, wealth, relationships, etc. Your affirmations are either working for or against you, depending on how you are using them. If you don’t consciously design and choose your affirmations you are susceptible to repeating and reliving the fears, insecurities, and limitations of your past.

 

However, when you actively design and write out your affirmations to be in alignment with what you want to accomplish and who you need to be to accomplish it—and commit to repeating them daily (ideally out loud)—they immediately make an impression on your subconscious mind. Your affirmations go to work to transform they way you think and feel so you can overcome your limiting beliefs and behaviors and replace them with those you need to succeed.

 

Step 1: What You Really Want

 

The purpose of a written affirmation is to program your mind with the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors/habits that are vital to your being able to attract, create, and to sustain your ideal levels of success in every area of your life. So, your affirmation must first clearly articulate exactly what you want your ideal life to be like, in each area.

 

Step 2: Why You Want It

 

Everyone wants to be happy, healthy, and successful, but wanting is rarely an effective strategy for getting. Those who overcome the temptations of mediocrity and achieve everything they want in life have an extraordinary compelling why that drives them.

 

Include why, at the deepest level, all of the things you want are important to you. Being crystal clear on your deepest why’s will give you an unstoppable purpose.

 

Step 3: Whom You Are Committed To Being To Create It

 

Your life gets better only after you get better. Your outer world improves only after you’ve invested countless hours improving yourself. Being (who you need to be) and doing (what you need to do) are prerequisites for having what you want to have. Get clear on who you need to be, are committed to being, in order to take your life, business, health, marriage, etc. to the next level and beyond.

 

Step 4: What You’re Committed To Doing To Attain It

 

Which actions will you need to take on a consistent basis to make your vision for your ideal life a reality? The more specific your actions are, the better. Be sure to include frequency (how often), quantity (how many), and precise time frames (what times you’ll being and end your activities).

 

It’s important to take manageable steps. Feel small successes along the way so you feel good and don’t get discouraged by setting expectations too high to be able to maintain. You can build up to your ideal goal. Start by writing down a daily or weekly goal and decided when you will increase it.

 

Step 5: Add Inspirational Quotes And Philosophies

 

Final Thoughts On Affirmations

 

• In order for your affirmations to be effective, it is important that you tap into your emotions while reading them. Mindlessly repeating a phrase over and over again, without feeling its truth, will have a minimal impact on you. You must take responsibility for generating authentic emotions and powerfully infusing those emotions into every affirmation you repeat to yourself. Have fun with it.

• It can also be beneficial to incorporate a purposeful physiology such as reciting your affirmations while standing tall, taking deep breaths, making a fist, or exercising. Combing physical activity with affirmations is a great way to harness the power of the mind-body connection.

• Keep in mind that your affirmations will never really be a “final” draft, because you should always be updating them. As you continue to learn, grow, and evolve, so should your affirmations. When you come up with a new goal, dream, habit, or philosophy you want to integrate into your life, add it to your affirmations. When you accomplish a goal or completely integrate a new habit into your life, you might find it’s no longer necessary to focus on it every day, and thus choose to remove it from your affirmations.

• You must be consistent with reading your daily affirmations. Saying an occasional affirmation is as effective as getting an occasional workout. You won’t see any measurable results until you make them a part of your daily routine.

• Reading this book—or any book—is an affirmation to yourself. Anything you read influences your thoughts. When you consistently read positive self-improvement books and articles, you are programming your mind with the thoughts and beliefs that will support you in creating success.

 

 

Visualization, also known as creative visualization or mental rehearsal, refers to the practice of seeking to generate positive results in your outer world by using your imagination to create mental pictures of specific behaviors and outcomes occurring in your life. Visualization is the process of imagining exactly what you want to achieve or attain, and then mentally rehearsing what you’ll need to do to achieve or attain it.

 

Most people are limited by visions of their past, replaying previous failures and heartbreaks. Creative Visualizations enables you to design the vision that will occupy your mind, ensuring that the greater pull on you is your future—a compelling, exciting, and limitless future.

 

Directly after reading your affirmations—where you took the time to articulate and focus on your goals and who you need to be to take your life to the next level—is the prime time to visualize yourself living in alignment with your affirmations.

 

Step 1: Get Ready

 

If you’d like to experiment with playing music, put it on with the volume relatively low.

 

Sit up tall, in a comfortable position. Breathe deeply. Close your eyes. Clear your mind.

 

Step 2: Visualize What You Really Want

 

Most people don’t feel comfortable visualizing success and are even scared to succeed. Some may even feel guilty that they will leave the other 95% behind when they become successful.

 

The greatest gift we can give to the people we love is to live to our full potntial. What does that look like to you? What do you really want? Forget about logic, limits, and being practical. If you could have anything you wanted, do anything you wanted, and be anything you wanted—what would you have? What would you do? What would you be?

 

Visualize your major goals, deepest desires, and most exciting, would-totally-change-my-life-if-I-achieved-them dreams. See, feel, hear, touch, taste, and smell every details of your vision. Involve all of your sense to maximize the effectiveness of your visualization. The more vivid you make your vision, the more compelled you’ll be to take the necessary actions to make it a reality.

 

Now, fast forward into the future to see yourself achieving your ideal outcomes and results. You want to see yourself accomplishing what you set out to accomplish, and you want to experience how good it will feel to have followed through and achieved your goals.

 

Step 3: Visualize Who You Need To Be & What You Need To Do

 

Once you’ve created a clear mental picture of what you want, begin to visualize yourself living in total alignment with the person you need to be to achieve your vision. See yourself engaged in the positive actions you’ll need to do each day (exercising, studying, working, writing, making calls, sending emails, etc.) and make sure you see yourself enjoying the process. Visualize your co-workers, customers, family, friends, and spouse responding to your positive demeanor and optimistic outlook.

 

Final Thoughts On Visualization

 

In addition to reading your affirmations every morning, doing this simple visualization process every day will turbo-charge the programming of your subconscious mind for success. You will begin to live in alignment with your ideal vision and make it a reality.

 

Whether or not you believe in the Law Of Attraction, there are practical applications for visualization. When you visualize what you want, you stir up emotions that lift your spirits and pull you towards your vision. The more vividly you see what you want, and the more intensely you allow yourself to experience now the feelings you will feel once you’ve achieved your goal, the more you make the possibility of achieving it feel real.

 

When you visualize daily, you align your thoughts and feelings with your vision. This makes it easier to maintain the motivation you need to continue taking the necessary actions. Visualization can be a powerful aid to overcoming self-limiting habits such as procrastination, and to taking the actions necessary to achieve your goals.

 

[Optional] Create Your Vision Board

Morning exercise should be a staple in your daily rituals. When you exercise for even a few minutes every morning it significantly boosts your energy, enhances your health, improves self-confidence and emotional well-being, and enables you to think better and concentrate longer.

 

“Every morning, you’ve got to get your heart rate up and get your blood flowing and fill your lungs with oxygen.”

 

Yoga

 

“Yoga is a multi-faceted science that has applications for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of life… The important thing to remember is that yoga can take place in many forms. Whether it is sitting in silent meditation, breathing to expand your lung capacity or back bending to open your heart – there are practices that can help every aspect of your life. The key is to learn which techniques to practice when you need a remedy and use it to your advantage to bring yourself into balance. A well-rounded yoga practice can enhance your life in so many ways. It can heal what is out of harmony and can move stuck or blocked energy though your body, creating space for new fluid movement, blood flow and energy to circulate. I encourage you to listen to your body and try some new sequences as you feel ready.”

 

Final Thoughts On Exercise

 

There is no limit to the excuses that you can think of. That’s the beauty of incorporating exercise into your Miracle Morning; it happens before your day wears you out, before you have a chance to get too tired, before you have an entire day to come up with new excuses for avoiding exercise.

The fastest way to achieve everything you want is to model successful people who have already achieved it. With an almost infinite amount of books available on every topic, there are no limits to the knowledge you can gain through daily reading.

 

I recommend making a commitment to read a minimum of 10 pages per day. Reading 10 pages per day is not going to break you, but it will make you. We’re only talking 10-15 minutes of reading, or 15-30 minutes if you read more slowly.

 

Reading 10 pager a day will average 3,650 pages a year, which equates to approximately 18 200-page personal development/self-improvement books! If you read 18 personal development books in the next 12 months, do you think you will be more knowledgable, capable and confident?

 

Final Thoughts On Reading

 

Begin with the end in mind. Before you being reading each day, ask yourself why you are reading that book—what do you want to gain from it—and keep that outcome in mind.

 

To get the most out of any book I read and make it easy for me to revisit the content again in the future, I underline or circle anything that I may way to re-visit, and make notes in the margins to remind me why I underlined that particular section. This process of marking books as I read allows me to come back at any time and recapture all of the key lessons, ideas, and benefits without needing to read the book again, cover to cover.

 

I highly recommend re-reading good personal development books. Rarely can we read a book once and internalize all of the value from that book. Achieving mastery in any area requires repetition—being expose to certain ideas, strategies, or techniques over and over again, until they become engrained in your subconscious mind… Whenever I’m reading a book that I see can really make an impact on an area of my life, I commit to re-reading that book (or at least re-reading the parts I’ve underlines, circles and highlighted) as soon as I’m finished going through it the first time. I actually keep a special pace on my bookshelf for books that I want to re-read… Repetition can be boring or tedious (which is why so few people ever “master” anything), but that’s even more reason why we should do it—to develop a higher level of self-discipline.

Journaling

 

My favorite form of Scribing is journaling, which I do 5-10 minutes during my Miracle Morning. By getting your thoughts out of your head and putting them in writing, you gain valuable insights you’d otherwise never see. The Scribing element of your Miracle Morning enables you to document your insights, ideas, breakthroughs, realizations, successes, and lessons learned, as well as any areas of opportunity, personal growth, or improvement.

 

From day one, The Miracle Morning gave me the time and structure to write in my journal every day, and it quickly became one of my favorite habits… Not only do I derive the daily benefits of consciously directing my thoughts and putting them in writing, but even more powerful are those I have gained from reviewing my journals, from cover to cover, afterwards—especially, at the end of the year.

 

• Gratitude
• Gain Clarity
• Capture Ideas
• Review Lessons
• Acknowledge Your Progress
• Accelerated Growth

 

I pulled out a sheet of blank paper, drew a line down the middle, and wrote two headings at the top: Lessons Learned and New Commitments. As I read through hundreds of my journal entries, I found myself recapturing dozens of valuable lessons. This process of recapturing Lessons Learned and making New Commitments to implement those lessons aided my personal growth and development more than almost anything else.

 

Do You Want To Write A Book?

 

According to a survey done by USA Today, 82% of Americans want to write a book, but the #1 obstacle preventing them? You guessed it—they can’t find the time. If you have ever wanted to write a book, you can use your Miracle Morning time to do just that.

Your current morning routine might only allow you to fit in a 20 or 30-minute Miracle Morning, or you might choose to do a longer version on the weekends.

 

Here is an example of a fairly common, 60-minute Miracle Morning schedule, using the Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

 

• Silence (5 minutes)
• Affirmations (5 minutes)
• Visualization (5 minutes)
• Exercise (20 minutes)
• Reading (20 minutes)
• Scribing (5 minutes)

 

Total Time: 60 minutes

 

The sequence in which you do the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. can also be customized to your preferences.

 

Everything is difficult before it’s easy. Every new experience is uncomfortable before it’s comfortable. The more you practice the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. the more natural and normal each of them will feel.

The Miracle Morning is 100% customizable. Everything from your wake-up time to the total duration and order of each activity—there is no limit to how your Miracle Morning can be personalized to fit your lifestyle and help you achieve your most significant goals, faster than ever before.

 

When, Why, And What To Eat (In The Morning)

 

Digesting food is one of the most energy-draining processes the body goes through each day. The bigger the meal, the more food you give your body to digest, the more drained you will feel. With that in mind, I recommend eating after your Miracle Morning.

 

What criteria do you use to determine which foods you are going to put into your body? Are your choices based purely on taste? Texture? Convenience? Are they based on health? Energy? Dietary restrictions?

 

Most people eat the foods they do based mainly on the taste, and at a deeper level, based on our emotional attachment to the foods we like the taste of.

 

If we want to have more energy (which we all do) and if we want our lives to be healthy and disease-free (which we all do) then it’s crucial that we reexamine why we eat the foods that we do, and—this is important—start valuing the health benefits and energy consequences of the foods we eat as much as or more than the taste. In no way am I saying that we should eat foods that don’t taste good in exchange for the health and energy benefits. I’m saying that we can have both. I’m saying that if we want to live every day with an abundance of energy so we can perform at our best and live a long, healthy life, we must choose to eat more foods that are good for our health and give us sustained energy, as well as tasting great.

 

As for what to eat, it has been proven that a diet rich in living foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables will greatly increase your energy levels, improve your mental focus and emotional well being, keep you healthy, and protect you from disease.

 

Overcoming Procrastination: Do The Worst, First

 

One of the most effective strategies for overcoming habitual procrastination and maximizing your productivity is to start working on your most important—or least enjoyable—tasks, first thing in the morning.

 

The purpose of The Miracle Morning is more about waking up with purpose—combining the benefits of early rising and personal development—and isn’t so much concerned with which activities you do, as long as the activities you choose are proactive and help you improve your inner world (yourself) and your outer world (your life).

 

The Miracle Morning On The Weekends

 

When I first created The Miracle Morning I only did it Monday through Friday, and I took the weekends off. It didn’t take long for me to realize that every day I did The Miracle Morning I felt better, more fulfilled and more productive, but every day that I slept in, I woke up feeling lethargic, unfocused, and unproductive.

 

Experiment for yourself. You may start, as I did, by doing The Miracle Morning during the week and try taking the weekends off. See how you feel on those Saturday and Sunday mornings, sleeping in. If you feel, like many people do, that every day is better when you begin it with The Miracle Morning, you might just find that weekends are actually your favorite time to do it.

 

Keeping Your Miracle Morning Fresh, Fun, And Exciting!

 

You might change up your morning exercise routine every 90 days, or even monthly. You could try different meditations, either through a simple Google search or by downloading various Meditation apps on your phone. You could create a vision board and update it regularly. As I mentioned during the section on Affirmations: you should always be updating your affirmations to stimulate your senses and to be in alignment with your always-evolving vision for who you can and want to be.

 

I also adjust my Miracle Morning on the fly, based on my changing schedule, circumstances, and projects I’m working on…For example, if I’m scheduled to give a late night keynote or workshop at a conference, I will move my wake up and start time a little late.

 

Humans need variety. It’s important that you keep your Miracle Morning feeling fresh and new. As one of my first mentors once told me whenever I complained about my work as a sales rep getting boring, “Whose fault is it that it’s boring? And whose responsibility is it to make it fun again?”…Whether it’s our routines or our relationships, it’s our responsibility to actively and continuously make them the way we want them to be.

 

Remember, the moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life.

It’s been said that our quality of life is created by the quality of our habits. If a person is living a successful life, then that person simply has the habits in place that are creating and sustaining their levels of success. On the other hand—no matter what the area—they simply haven’t committed to putting the necessary habits in place which will create the results they want.

 

Considering that our habits create our life, there is arguably no single skill that is more important for you to learn and master than controlling your habits. You must identify, implement, and maintain the habits necessary for creating the results you want in your life, while learning how to let go of any negative habits which are holding you back from achieving your true potential.

 

Habits are behaviors that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously. Whether you realize it or not, your life has been, and will continue to be, created by your habits. If you don’t control your habits, your habits will control you.

 

The Miracle Morning 30-Day “Habit Mastery” Strategy

 

One of the biggest obstacles preventing most people from implementing and sustaining positive habits is that they don’t have the right strategy. They don’t know what to expect and aren’t prepared to overcome the mental and emotional challenges that are part of the process of implementing any new habit.

 

[Days 1-10] Phase One: Unbearable

 

Although the first few days can be easy, and even exciting—because it’s something new—as soon as the newness wears off, reality sets in. You hate it. It’s painful. It’s not fun anymore. Every fiber of your being tends to resist and reject the change. Your mind rejects it and you think: I hate this. Your body resists it and tells you: I don’t like how this feels.

 

The problem for most people is that they don’t realize that this seemingly unbearable first 10 days is only “temporary.” Instead they think it’s the way the new habit feels, and will always feel, telling themselves: If the new habit is this painful, forget it—it’s not worth it.

 

When you are prepared for the first 10 days, when you know that it is the price you pay for success, that the first 10 days will be challenging but they’re also temporary, you can beat the odds and succeed! If the benefits are great enough, we can do anything for 10 days, right?

 

[Days 11-20] Phase Two: Uncomfortable

 

After you get through the first 10 days—the most difficult 10 days—you begin the 2nd 10-day phase, which is considerably easier. You will be getting used to your new habit. You will also have developed some confidence and positive associations to the benefits of your habit.

 

While days 11-20 are not unbearable, they are still uncomfortable and will require discipline and commitment on your part. At this stage it will still be tempting to fall back to your old behaviors. Stay committed.

 

[Days 21-30] Phase Three: Unstoppable

 

When you enter the final 10 days—the home stretch—the few people that make it this far almost always make a detrimental mistake: adhering to the popular advice from the many experts who claim it only takes 21 days to form a new habit.

 

Those experts are partly correct. It does take 21 days—the first two phases—to form a new habit. But the third 10-day phase is crucial to sustaining your new habit, long term. The final 10 days is where you positively reinforce and associate pleasure with your new habit. You’ve been primarily associating pain and discomfort with it during the first 20 days. Instead of hating and resisting your new habit, you start feeling proud of yourself for making it this far.

 

 

Problem:

 

Feedback avoidance. Most people don’t enjoy negative feedback, so they completely avoid asking for feedback. This prevents them from gaining invaluable data about their strengths and weaknesses, thus preventing them from capitalizing on the former and significantly improving the latter.

 

Solution:

 

Actively seeking and learning from the honest feedback of people who know you (in various capacities) is one of the most effective and fastest ways to gain a new perspective and accelerate your personal development and success.

 

Instructions:

 

Type the following text into an email (feel free to edit and personalize the email so that is sounds like you.) Send it to 5-30 people (the more the better) who know you well enough to give you an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. This may include friends, family, colleagues, mentors, teachers, former employers or managers, customers, your significant other, and if you’re brave enough… wait for it—your ex-significant others. (Seriously.)

 

Subject Line: This Means A Lot… Or Would Love To Get Your Opinion…

 

Thank you so much for reading this email. This isn’t an easy one for me to send, but it is extremely important to me, so I sincerely appreciate you investing your valuable time reading (and hopefully responding to) it.

 

This email is going out to only a select group of people. Each of you knows me well, and I’m hoping will give me honest feedback about my strengths and most importantly, me weaknesses (aka “areas of improvement.”)

 

I’ve never done anything like this before, but I feel that for me to grow and improve as a person, I need to get a more accurate picture of how I’m showing up to the people that matter most to me. In order to become the person I need to be to create the life and contribute to others at the levels that I want, I need your feedback.

 

So, all I’m asking is that you take just a few minutes to email me back with what you honestly think are my top 2-3 “areas of improvement.” If it will make you feel better to also list my top 2-3 “strengths” (I’m sure it will make me feel better), you are definitely welcome to. That’s it. And please don’t sugarcoat it or hold back anything. I will not be offended by anything that you share. In fact, the more “brutally” honest you are, the more leverage it will give me to make positive changes in my life.

 

Thank you again, and if there is anything else I can do to add value to your life, please let me know.

 

With sincere gratitude,

 

Your Name

“Love the life you have while you create the life of your dreams.”

 

“Where you are is a result of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be.”

 

“Replace your judgements with empathy, upgrade your complaining to gratitude, and trade in your fear for love.”

 

“Life isn’t about wishing you were somewhere or someone that you’re not. Life is about enjoying where you are, loving who you are, and consistently improving both.”

 

“They say misery loves company, but so does mediocrity. Don’t let the limiting beliefs of others limit what’s possible for you.”

 

“Don’t worry about trying to impress people. Just focus on how you can add value to their lives.”

 

“The moment you accept responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you tap into your power to change anything in your life.”

 

“There is nothing to fear, because you cannot fail. Only learn, grow, and become better than you’ve ever been before.”

 

“Who you’re becoming is far more important than what you’re doing. And yet, it is what you’re doing that is determining who you’re becoming.”

 

“The average person lets their emotions dictate their actions, while achievers let their commitments dictate their actions.”