The Miracle Morning – Hal Elrod

Introduction: The Miracle Morning – Hal Elrod

In the last two blog posts, I discussed the importance of a morning routine. Further, I mentioned Hal Elrod, one of the most famous proponents of a morning routine. He invented something called The Miracle Morning. In this week’s blog post, I want to tell you about Hal Elrod and his Miracle Morning.

Who is Hal Elrod? – First tragedy

43-year-old Hal Elrod is an international keynote speaker, podcast host and author who was involved in a tragic car accident at the age of 20:

‘Hal actually died at age 20. His car was hit head on by a drunk driver at over 70 miles per hour, he died for 6 minutes, broke 11 bones, suffered permanent brain damage and was told by doctors that he would never walk again.’ (The Childcare Success Summit)

While in the hospital, the doctors told him he might never walk again. To their surprise, he wasn’t upset but told the doctors that he could be miserable and not walk again or be the happiest he could be in a wheelchair. Only six days later, he took his first steps going on to run the 52-mile ultra-marathon.

“Give yourself permission to be happy. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around you, what matters is what’s going on inside you.” (Hal Elrod)

Hal Elrod’s – second tragedy

Then in 2007, Hal experienced the second tragedy in his life. As the U.S. economy crashed, so did his personal wealth:

In 2007, the United States economy crashed, and like millions of Americans, I crashed with it. I lost over half of my income, racked up $52,000 in credit card debt, and my home was foreclosed on by the bank. 

I felt hopeless.

I got depressed.

I was desperate.

(Hal Elrod)

Who is Hal Elrod? – Third tragedy

Hal went on to have a third tragedy when, at age thirty-seven, he was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of cancer that gave him a 30% chance of survival, but that’s irrelevant to our story.

Desperation turned into inspiration, and a series of events led me to the idea that I needed to develop and commit to a daily personal development ritual, so that I could start becoming the person I needed to be, in order to turn my life around. I woke up the next morning and started my day with six of the most timeless personal growth practices (Silence, Affirmations, Visualisation, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing), and within two months, I had more than doubled my income, began training for a 52-mile ultra-marathon and decided to start writing a book to share my experience with others.  (Hal Elrod)

His book The Miracle Morning has been translated into 37 languages and sold over 2.5 million copies.

The Miracle Morning Book Introduction

I will use the remainder of this article outlining the content of Hal Elrod’s bestselling book, The Miracle Morning.

The first thing to do when practising the Miracle Morning is to wake up early so you can ease gently into your day and get some time for yourself before everyone else wakes up. What is early depends on your lifestyle. For some people, it is 5 am. For others, it is 6 am, and for yet others, seven represents an early start. This won’t be easy to start with, but Elrod has devised a five-step wake-up strategy to prevent you from hitting the snooze button on your alarm. Helpfully Appvizer has listed them for us:

1. Set your intentions before bed

2. Keep your alarm clock across the room

3. Brush your teeth

4. Hydrate yourself

5. Get dressed (OR) shower

The important thing is to do them all!

Following the above five steps, it should be easy for you to get out of bed bright and early.

Once you are dressed, Elrod suggests the following routine that, cleverly abbreviates as S.A.V.E.R.S., which should be easy to remember. SAVERS stands for Silence, Affirmation, Visualisation, Exercise, Reading and Scribing. Below, I will outline each in a bit more detail below.

Silence

Silence might be a strange way of starting your morning; after all, you’ve just been silent for eight or more hours of sleep, but morning silence reduces stress and enhances your ability to react to the day’s challenges.

We all know about the benefits of meditation. Hence, I use Headspace to help me in my meditation practice, but other apps are out there. But, of course, meditation isn’t for everyone, so if you don’t like it, why not sit quietly sipping your favourite cuppa? Perhaps silent prayer is your thing.

Affirmations

Next on Elrod’s morning routine is affirmations. Locke Hughes from N.B.C. news defines affirmation as a sentence or two in alignment with what you want to accomplish:

An affirmation is a sentence or two in alignment with what you want to accomplish and who you need to be to accomplish it. Elrod suggests repeating your affirmation daily, ideally out loud. “They immediately make an impression on your subconscious mind,” he explains. “They transform how you think and feel so you can overcome your limiting beliefs and behaviours and replace them with those you need to succeed.”

Moreover, the idea behind affirmations is to remove negative thoughts and that the more we repeat positive things to ourselves, the more it impacts our well-being and success. So we write positive statements about ourselves and read them aloud every morning.

Below are some examples of Miracle Morning affirmations, courtesy of Appvizer

Negative thought	Affirmation: reprogrammed thought
I am not good enough to do this	I can train myself step by step
I will fail my driving test again	Mistakes happen. I will pass it next time.
I’ve always failed English at school.	I got through it! Now that I’m an adult, I’ll be able to pass the T.O.E.I.C.!
Some tasks at work are boring.	I am doing what I love, and I enjoy all of the other tasks. Think about how great I’ll feel once I am done with them.
I want to exercise, but I am too lazy.	I will start with a light 15-minute jog, then I’ll slightly increase speed and time during the next few weeks. I will feel in shape once I get used to a routine.

Visualisation

Meanwhile, next in Elrod’s morning routine is Visualisation, a strategy tried and tested by athletes the world over to improve performance:

Via Visualisation, you train your brain to see things as you would like them to be instead of as they are. Elrod says that for five minutes, you should “visualise living your ideal day, performing all tasks with ease, confidence and enjoyment.”

(N.B.C. news)

Exercise

Exercise speaks for itself. Furthermore, it can be anything from gentle yoga, a stroll in the park or a power run on the treadmill. Exercise enhances mental clarity, improves sleep and health and helps you wake up.

Reading

Next in the Miracle Morning comes reading. Elrod suggests reading ten pages in a book for pleasure and to broaden your horizon. For this purpose of this, I read a daily poem. In contrast to literature, some people might read the bible or perhaps the newspaper.

This practice fast tracks transformation in any part of your life, Elrod says. “Don’t reinvent the wheel,” he reminds us. “The fastest way to achieve everything you want is to model successful people who have already achieved it.” He recommends a minimum of 10 pages per day, and suggests choosing a personal development book or a religious text.

(N.B.C. News)

Scribing

Scribing is also another word for writing, but writing would ruin the acronym that comes last in his morning routine. So instead, Elrod suggests keeping a journal where you clear your head of everything that swirls around in your brain. Similarly, you could write a few pages for a book or a blog post.

Conclusion: The Miracle Morning – Hal Elrod

As can be seen from the above, a solid morning routine is a positive thing. Feel inspired by Elrod’s miracle morning? Why not try it out for yourself and let me know how you got on?