Am I capable of a Miracle Morning mindset?

If Tiny Steps: 18 Months of Better is going to be remotely successful over the next year and a half, it's going to be because I dragged my ass out of bed by 6am. What I then do with my time at this early hour is building the entire foundation to my day, week, month, year, life, being. All of the habit experts say that the first two to three hours after waking up are the best for your brain. I'm finally ready to test out this research.

Small, smart choices + consistency + time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE #TheCompoundEffect

Up until recently, my mornings have been anything but a miracle. Since I've gone from professional college student to professional job shifter, I haven't had enough long-term consistency in schedule to create an ideal morning routine. Ok, even as I was writing that I was hearing EXCUSE, EXCUSE, EXCUSE. I haven't had enough long-term consistency in schedule to create an ideal morning routine because none of my responsibilities required me to be ready until 8:30/9:00am. So, I took advantage of this late start by going to bed late, waking up late, and rushing out the door with a buttered bagel and a Diet Coke to scarf down in the car.

Fortunately, this has changed a little bit as I'm now an old lady who struggles to stay up past 10:30pm and I gave up Diet Coke a few years ago (hello sparking water addiction). The (vegan) buttered bagel is still a breakfast staple because have you had Bagels Forever?!

While setting my alarm the night before, I'd give myself an hour and 10 minutes of morning prep time, with the 10 minutes being for travel. Then, no matter what, I'd set my alarm to go off one hour and 10 minutes before I needed to arrive at my destination. If I had to be there by 9, I was setting my alarm for 7:50am. If I needed to be there by 8:30am, I was rolling out of bed at 7:20am. Unless something terrible happened that required me to be somewhere earlier than 8:00am, you wouldn't see alarm times on my phone that started with a 6 (unless it was pm because I also enjoy post-work napping).

When you give yourself 70 total minutes to wake up, eat breakfast, ease into the new day, shower, get ready, check email, and drive to work, you're always going to feel like a rushed mess. I was convinced that my options were having more sleep, but a chaotic morning, or an earlier, more relaxed morning, but being too tired to get through the rest of the day with any grace. Neither option sounded very peaceful or productive.

Watch the video below if you're looking for a few entertaining minutes of two women swapping morning routines for three days. My favorite line: "And now the scariest part is coming up, which is doing my makeup on the train, like a psycho."

The book that kicked off this whole self-improvement, personal development obsession was Hal Elrod's, The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed To Transform Your Life Before 8am. If you're frugal like me, read it for free from your library or with a trial of Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.

After years of hectic, 70 minute mornings, I was ready to introduce a little miracle into my day, even if it did require me to create a new alarm time that started with a 6...AM. If anything, I could just test it out for a bit and go back to wiping bagel butter off my car's front seat in a few weeks. I wanted to feel less anxious and more energized and productive in the morning, but instead I felt behind and scattered...and I'd just woken up!

As a member of the Miracle Morning Facebook group, it's clear that this book has helped change millions of lives all over the world. I think the reason it's been successful for so many people is because the book provides a specific plan of action to follow. I've read dozens of personal development books this year, many that offer vague suggestions on how to improve your life, but don't feel very tangible or actionable. You finish the book saying, "But what do I DOOOOOOOOO to get there? TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOOOOO."

Hal breaks it down and tells us what we should do to wake up with more energy, motivation, and focus in order to live that extraordinary life we've been choosing to snooze through. It starts with waking up at least an hour earlier than normal and then going through the Life SAVERS.

The Life SAVERS:

S: Silence (meditation, prayer, quiet breathing, calm time)

A: Affirmations (encouraging words)

V: Visualization (detailed, step-by-step mental pictures of how to get from point A to point B and how you'll look and feel while doing it)

E: Exercise (move your body)

R: Reading (knowledge is power)

S: Scribing (writing/journaling toward reflective self-awareness)

While the recommended time to spend on SAVERS is around 60 minutes, the nice thing about this program is that you can modify it to work best for you and your routine. It could even be just six minutes if that's all you have the time for, with one minute to focus on each area.

After several months of trying out my own version, I now spend more time on silence, reading, and writing than I do affirmations and visualization. I used to read or write positive affirmations that resonated with me or listen to them through apps like Headspace, Insight Timer, or Calm, but I didn't feel it was benefitting me as much as the other components. I still like to incorporate a few minutes of visualization every now and then to help reaffirm why I'm on this particular path and where I see it taking me if I'm dedicated and consistent in my goals.

With winter marathon training starting next month, adding the E into my SAVERS routine will be critical if I want to run outside with a drop of sunlight. I've been exercising after work or during my lunch break because I find it challenging to get into a reading or writing rhythm and then interrupt it with a visit to the gym, or get all amped up on cardio and then try to follow it by sitting at a computer to write.

It's a good reminder that SAVERS is a tool to help you prioritize your time and energy. Some days exercise is a few minutes of jogging in place or stretching so that you can journal your heart out. Others are running for an hour with just a few minutes of visualization and notes on gratitude. It's about becoming more aware of what you need to feel good that morning so that you'll be set up for the rest of the day. There's no perfect science to it, but some of the most successful humans seem to have gotten awfully close.

I recently read Darren Hardy's book, The Compound Effect. In it, he gave some great tips about building habits off of other habits that work together to positively compound. I'll be summing up some of his gems in another post soon, but here I'd like to comment on his very specific, very timed morning set-up. After working with successful folks for 25+ years, Darren has created what he calls "the 'great daily advantage,' allowing him to achieve more before breakfast than most will all week."

Darren is a firm believer that your morning and evening routines are the important "bookends"of a great life. You should end your night doing things that will best prepare you for an early morning and you should start your morning doing things that will best prepare you for a successful afternoon.

As I found out, exercising at 8pm, eating dinner at 9pm, and watching a 10pm movie on a bright screen probably isn't going to prep my mind, body, or spirit for a 6am miracle morning. Instead it prepped me for 70 rushed minutes, which carried an "off" feeling into the rest of my day. I suppose I had a routine, it was just an incredibly shitty one (although I did at least manage to moisturize at home and not while on a commuter train).

In the book, Darren breaks down his morning routine to the minute, even setting timers to keep him on track with each task. He's very intentional about planning out his day, even suggesting that you dedicate at least the first three hours of your morning to your daily great advantage. On top of his minute-by-minute tracker, he is also sure to drink a glass of water, down a protein shake, and exercise.

I often fall into the trap of trying to do too much too soon, especially after reading so many great books with useful advice. I want to be my best me with Mel Robbins and the 5 Second Rule, compound my habits with Darren Hardy, meditate, exercise, and write with Hal, and stack my best behaviors into Atomic Habits with James Clear. My self-awareness soon reminds me that it's better to focus on small, subtle changes at first that can be built upon over time so that I have a steady base from which to grow.

I don't need to wake up at 4:30am, run the most technical of trails, make a gourmet vegan breakfast, write a book, and launch a new line of bulletproof coffee all by 8am on Wednesday.

That's why I like following Matt D'Avella, a filmmaker and minimalist who adds a new video every week on YouTube.

Matt is the subject of his various 30 day challenges, including trying out intermittent fasting, saying no, taking cold showers, counting calories, and quitting caffeine and sugar (not at the same time). He focuses on modifying one element of his life at a time, documenting it and summarizing the experience in a reflective 10 minute video. By the end of the 30 days, he's not always singing praises about how he feels or how it impacted his life, but I appreciate that he's actively testing out different lifestyle modifications that could enhance his life. He also has an adorably comedic Australian wife who makes video appearances and they're just the best.

It's easy to be told exactly how to start your day. Be like Bill Gates and spend an hour on the treadmill to get your mind and body jiving together. Be like Tony Robbins and wake up between 7am-9am, have a vitamin cocktail, meditate, do deep breathing exercises, practice gratitude, and do 15 minutes of an intense workout. Be like Darren Hardy and schedule every single minute of your day. Or, be like you, and do what makes the most sense for your schedule, routine, and goals, not like some rando down the street who has an entirely different life than you.

My goal is to be up by 5:45am for a run off of the marathon training plan, shower/get ready, 30 minutes of reading and coffee, an hour of writing and podcasts, have a dairy-free breakfast, and easily be out the door to work by 8:30am.

It won't be as entertaining as a professionally made video from Matt D'Avella, but I'll let you know how my Miracle Morning mindset shifts over the coming months. I'd love to hear what your Miracle Morning looks like over in your world, too. Have you noticed a difference in your daily mindset with a consistent morning routine?