Create a morning routine inspired by Hal Elrod’s The Miracle Morning. How you wake up each day dramatically affects your success in every single area of your life.
What is the Miracle Morning?
The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod is a self-development book written to motivate and improve your morning routine and, ultimately, your life.
At the age of 20, Elrod was hit by a car, declared dead for 6 minutes, spent 6 days in a coma and was told he would never walk again.
Elrod decided to take fate into his own hands. During his stay in the hospital, he realized he couldn’t change the past. But he did realize that by accepting what had happened to him, he could take full responsibility for his future. It fueled a triumphant comeback in his corporate career – which during the recession, ended in what he would call his biggest mental downfall. That’s when his miracle morning came to life.
A miracle morning is waking up early and going through an intentional routine- providing productivity and relaxation before the day even begins.
The Miracle Morning is based on the concept of habit stacking which means you simply pick a few tasks/actions you want to create into a habit, make a sequence out of them and then the sequence itself becomes the new habit. With habit stacking you adopt multiple good habits at once and automate your behavior to do the entire sequence, which is more doable mentally than practicing multiple individual habits.
For many of us, finding time for personal development is a challenge. The Miracle Morning message is clear: how you wake up each day dramatically affects your success in every single area of your life. And, by starting your day just an hour earlier you make the time to consistently and constructively improve yourself on a personal level in key areas of your life.
Hal advises to use the hour of time you created by implementing what he calls the Life S.A.V.E.R.S.
These six elements can make your Miracle Morning a success. Feel free to do them in any order you like, and for how long you’d like within your designated hour.
The Life S.A.V.E.R.S.
Silence
Clear your mind and start your day in peace- meditation, prayer, reflection, deep breathing, gratitude.
Affirmations
Affirmations are positive statements, which you repeat to yourself in a way to support your success. The repetition of affirmations leads to belief.
Visualization
Close your eyes, or look at a vision board of inspiring images, and use your imagination to create mental pictures of what you want in your life, who you need to be to create what you want, and what you need to do to get there.
Exercise
When you exercise in the morning it significantly boosts your energy, enhances your health, and improves self confidence and emotional wellbeing.
Reading
Mirror the people and the stories, which you admire. Read something which inspires you and which will enhance an area of your life.
Scribe
Journaling enables you to document your insights, ideas, breakthroughs, realizations, successes and lessons learned.
Miracle Morning Takeaways
- The morning is the most powerful time of day. It sets the tone for the entire day without the excuses that can accumulate throughout the day.
- Miracle Morning helps you create who you want to be. To become who you want to be you need time for personal development.
- Your level of success follows your level of personal development. Dedicate the time each day to develop into person you want to be to create the life you want.
- Get up an hour earlier for personal development and becoming the best version of you. Not to just work more.
- When the alarm goes off you’re excited to get up.
- Success is something we attract by who we become.
- Have a clear picture in your mind of who you want to be. Start becoming that person right now and act from that place everyday.
- Trust that voice and your intuition.
- The actions you take now dictate the person you are becoming.
- Customize your Miracle Morning and use that time to align yourself with your goals and dreams.
What My Miracle Morning Looks Like
I wake up by 4:00 A.M., drink an 8 ounce glass of water with lemon and start my essential oil diffuser.
The exact minutes may vary.
Silence [10-20 minutes] Meditation first thing in the morning is a gentle way to wake up and allows me time to embrace a quiet moment and clear my mind before the busyness of the day begins.
Affirmations [5 minutes] Affirmations written and then repeated daily to align with what I want to accomplish and the person I want to be.
Visualization [3-5 minutes] Visualize what I want, the kind of person I want to be and what I need to do. Visualization is aligned with my affirmations and is sometimes done with my vision board or an added 3-5 minutes of meditation.
Scribe [10 minutes] Putting my thoughts into writing and getting them out of my head gives me a different perspective and insight that I might have otherwise missed.
Read [5-10 minutes] I love to read. With reading consistently just 10 minutes, or so, daily, I’ve been able to read more books this year than I could find time to before starting my Miracle Morning.
Exercise [30-40 minutes] How I exercise varies, but the exercising itself is a non-negotiable. Lately I’ve been enjoying morning yoga if I’m not teaching a class that day and running on the days I teach.
I’m mentally and physically ready for the day. I shower, do whatever I need to do in my home office, grab the superfood green smoothie (it’s the one meal during my day when I’m guaranteed a super boost of nutrients) I prepped the night before and head out the door to work. Or, if it’s the weekend, I head out the door to teach my morning yoga classes.
Miracle Morning Inspiration
- Love the life you have while you create the life of your dreams. Don’t think you have to choose one over the other.
- Give up being perfect for being authentic.
- Why is it that when a baby is born we often refer to him or her as ‘the miracle of life’ but then we go on to accept mediocrity for our own lives. When did we lose sight of the Miracle that WE are living?
- Strive to make everyday the best day of your life, because there is no good reason not to.
- The moment you accept responsibility for EVERYTHING in your life is the moment you can change ANYTHING in your life.
- Every goal we have is preceded by a process. The secret to success is to be committed to the daily process, without being emotionally attached to your results. You should absolutely be emotionally engaged in your goals, but not emotionally attached. What’s the difference? When you are emotionally engaged, you create excitement & enthusiasm for the possibility of achieving your goals, but when you are emotionally attached you create fear & pain that you might not.
- If you want more energy, put yourself in situations where energy is required. Your body will naturally responde and always produce the energy you need, but not if you’re just sitting around complaining about not having enough energy.
- Those who only do what they feel like… don’t do much. To be successful at anything you must take action even when you don’t feel like it, knowing that the action itself will produce the motivation you need to follow through.
- You are always exactly where you are supposed to be, experiencing what you need to experience, to learn what you must learn, in order to become the person you need to be to create the life you truly want. Always.
It’s called a MIRACLE morning for a reason. The Miracle Morning can help you start your day on a positive and productive note. Practitioners of the Miracle Morning have described improving their careers, achieving their goals, and losing weight. Some have even report looking forward to waking up every morning.
Want to know more about creating a miracle morning?
- How To Journal and the Inspiration To Start
- Beautiful Affirmations for Your Miracle Morning
- The Miracle Morning Toolkit
- Sample of the Miracle Morning Journal
- 6 Minute Miracle Morning
I would love to chat!
Have you heard of or read The Miracle Morning? What do you think of the idea of 1 hour every morning for personal development? What would you have to change in your life to create a Miracle Morning?
I love the idea of a Miracle Morning! I know I feel better when I’ve gotten a lot of important stuff out of the way early in the day, and this is a great way of taking that to the next level and making it “official!”
I’ve never heard of the miracle morning, but WOW. It sounds like such an inspirational book. Many of the things I do on this list in the morning and I’ve noticed such a change since I started 1 year ago.
I loved reading this! I’ve heard so much about that book and it’s one I’d like to read soon!
I firmly believe in the power of a morning routine. I would love to read The Miracle Morning for more iips and advice!
Beth || http://www.TheStyleBouquet.com
I just love everything about this! Mornings are so hard for me (mainly because I work until well into the morning), but I really need to establish a better routine. I’d love to be able to wake up bright and early and feel motivated & ready for the day. I’m definitely going to be putting this into action!
Its amazing how your morning can have such an effect on your whole day and even life. These are great tips!
I love starting my mornings off with meditation and positive affirmations.
I definitely need to try miracle morning. I like the entire concept and realize I don’t do affirmation often enough,
I think I need more of this kind of mind set in my life especially when my depression kicks in. It’s really going to help me overcome a lot of things throughout the day.
Being alive every morning is a miracle and it so blessed. When I woke up I always thank Heavenly Father that I’m still alive.
I’ve been in search of this very idea. Thanks for sharing your routine as well. I am going to try to make a copy of this. A printable would be awesome!
Good morning Terri. I’m happy to create a printable. I’ll let you know when it’s added to the post.
Have a beautiful day!
Hi, Jill! I wanted to reach out and let you know that I started my Miracle Morning routine three days ago and I am already in love. I do jump out of bed, ready to start my routine. I am enjoying every minute of it. I bookmarked this post when you wrote it back in January. I knew I wanted to come back to it! Here I am! Thank you!
Hi Terri,
I’m so happy to hear you’re enjoying your MM! Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know xoxo <3
this is very inspirational! I try so hard to have this mindset but sometimes I get derailed.
This sounds really lovely! I think it’s awesome and it’s definitely a great way to start your day. It’s all about being positive!
Elrod’s story is so inspirational! It’s a testament to the will of a person. This sounds like an awesome book!
This is an interesting idea. I’ve always made vision boards, but I don’t often take the time to really look them over, study them, and BELIEVE them. I’m going to work on that!
I love the idea behind this. I would love to start my day much differently. Sadly, I have littles that love to wake me up very early needing so many things. Maybe it’s time for all of us to change our ways.
I love the idea of a miracle morning! I had getting up and sitting quietly, sipping my coffee, with the sun shining through the window, reading my devotional. I’ve slacked off…and we are barely into January! Picking back up immediately.
This sounds like a good book to add to my line up. I do wake up early and get a start on myself and reflect before I get my daughter ready. Less distractions definitely help with focus.
I have actually never heard of this before, but it does sound like a great way to start the day. I am going to have to find this and get it. Thank you for sharing.
Wow! This is really a wonderful post!The quotes are really inspiring to start a new day morning.
This is really a great post! Getting into a routine with miracle mornings is a great goal for the upcoming new year.
Wow this is a great post! I literally have adopted so many winning routines for the morning and this article sums them all up!
awesome tips and as our lives begin again after the holidays your tips will be useful thanks for sharing
These are all great tips! I love the quotes too, especially the first one by the Dalai Lama
Ahh I really need to get into this morning routine! A healthy morning routine is key for a great day 🙂
This post absolutely blew my mind. What a beautiful thing. I will be implementing this into my life asap! Thank you so much for giving me the perfect way to start my year off!! XOXO doll!
This sounds absolutely fantastic! What a great way to start the new year off too. Will have to look into the book!
I have never heard of life s.a.v.e.r.s I will have to start adding this to my morning routine. Very inspirational.
Such an incredibly motivation post and it seriously wants me to work towards it right away. Definitely going to incorporate this into my mornings to come. Have a happy new year!!!
I think a need to look into this very well to see how i can fuse this in my life in the coming years because i want every moment of my life to be a miracle moment and its going too start with a miracle morning. very insightful post.
These are some great ideas, especially as we start the new year. I like the concept of habit stacking and will try to implement it in the new year!
I have been waking up all wrong. I need to start meditating when I wake up to calm my chronic pain. I can see how that would help me change my way of thinking. Usually, I’m grumpy because of it.
As hard as I think some of these could be, its quite obvious why theyre helpful and that really motivates me! I practice the moments of silents in the morning and I really love the idea of visualizing my goals with my eyes closed!
This sounds like such a good way to start the day. Right now my morning routine involves playing tetris in bed until the very last minute possible
I love this! Right now, with three small children, my mornings are the exact opposite of the miracle mornings.
Though I’ve never heard of SAVERS until today, I think I really like that as a concept. Though I have not done these actions as that schedule or in that order, I have done each task in my mornings before, and it really sets a great mood for my day when I do. Thank you so much for sharing this with us!
I loved this book. I still need to figure out a good way to put it into practice though since my son gets up really early. I’m not sure I could set aside a whole hour, but I probably could modify this to 20 minutes beforehand.
What an incredible story! I love that he uses that as his fuel/motivation to inspire others. What a great way to get out there. His story is incredibly touching. I love the idea of a miracle morning and setting your intentions for the day. It’s the perfect time to pause and reflect.
This was so inspirational with the new year approaching it is great to have new goals and ideas. I have a sense of accomplishment but there are always more barriers to cross.
I really need to do this! I definitely did a lot better with energy when I exercised first thing in the morning–I’m still working on convincing myself to get up extra early to do that though. x_x Slowly but surely!
I love how amazingly positive this post is. The quotes are awesome. I also loved the “MIRACLE MORNING TAKEAWAYS” section, because I love the mornings. I’ve been getting up super early for the past month and having the morning to myself & my boyfriend really sets the tone for a good day.
I really Need to focus on miracle mornings. Coffee, silence, and exercise are a must!
This is beautiful. Every time we wake up it’s a blessing and so often we take that breath for granted. I have been doing that purpose exercise for the past month, every morning, I wake, I put it a post it, Blessed, learn, and give and try to live the day by these 3 words.
This is such a helpful post! My mornings are so hectic and so often I feel like I am flying by the seat of my pants.I really need to implement your steps and I think my day would be much smoother overall.
Wow! Love this! Sounds like a wonderful book. And I love the idea/naming of miracle morning.
I usually have a good routine of miracle mornings but have been off track with family visiting. I can’t wait to get back on track.
I got the morning miracles at my Favorite things party, obviously, it was someone else’s favorite thing! Looking forward to the New Year and all it brings!
Sounds like a great way to start each day.
I love love “you are where you are because of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be” such a perfect quote. Also S.A.V.E.R.S is not something I’ve heard of before but it’s brilliant.
I definitely need to try miracle morning. Thanks for sharing with us
I’ve never heard of the Miracle Morning, but I recommend a morning routine to all my clients and 52 Healthy Habits Tribe. I look forward to my daily morning routine every day!
Love! I’d like a miracle morning 🙂
I love this concept! Sounds like the perfect way to start the morning off right. The only one I wouldn’t do is the reading because I do that every night before bed as my way to wind down.