I write this in a rather hot flat despite the weather cooling down a bit outside. It’s a Sunday (after I actually had a quiet Saturday night!) and I have just completed my morning routine, which like every day, fuels me for the rest of today.
I have talked about morning routine in a previous blog but this one is really an update on the more beneficial routines I have picked up. In fact, I have been combining top tips from two of the amazing books that I’ve read recently: ‘The Miracle Morning’ by Hal Elrod and ‘Unstoppable’ by Ben Angel, into my morning routine. I have also included various of Shannon Kaiser’s tools into my morning routine.
So today I am going to discuss why a morning routine is so beneficial, what the ‘Miracle Morning’ book mentioned and what my particular morning routine includes.
Why an early morning routine?
Having a good morning routine as opposed to rushing into the day, really helps me to take a positive step into the day. It helps me toto energise and to focus on some important tasks before I begin the rest of the day. I want to get the most productivity and enjoyment out of each day, and this really starts with a good morning routine.
Some benefits include:
- Less distractions e.g e-mails, texts or social media.
- Tackling the most important things first
- Good momentum of productivity to carry through the day
- Taking early positive action
Note a couple of other things to bear in mind: levels of sleep and turning the phone off. If you get up early to perform an early morning routine make sure you get enough sleep the night before or else, you will not mentally or physically get the benefits. The amount of sleep we need is different per person and lifestyle but personally, I have found that I need somewhere between 7 – 8 hours.
Also, I tend to keep my phone notifications switched off and won’t look at messages or social media until midday. This allows less distractions. If someone wanted to contact me, they would just phone me or otherwise I can contact them later in the day.
My routine inspired by the Miracle Morning
As mentioned, my ‘Miracle Morning’ routine is inspired by Hal Elrod, but I include tips from Ben Angel’s book ‘Unstoppable’ in my routine.
The idea behind the Miracle Morning is to tackle different needs and bring energy into your body before you take on your goals. He uses an acronym called SAVERS in his book, to go through these. These are:
Silence – the act of gratitude or meditation.
Affirmation – positive sayings that you can repeat to prime your mindset.
Visualisation – able to visualise your goals, day/ week / month / future ahead.
Exercise – getting a physical workout into your day, whether light or more intense.
Reading – reading and learning something to begin your day.
Scribing – sitting down and writing something, such as journaling.
The idea is that you can do this routine anywhere and for anytime between six minutes and an hour. Depending how much time you want to allocate to each area, it could be six minute each or ten minutes or something in between. Also, you don’t have to do it in the order above.
I have outlined my chosen order below and how it benefits me:
Scribing (5 minutes)
I find writing my thoughts down straightaway in my journal, helps me to gain clarity on my day. I look at what my goals are, what I am grateful for and pick a mantra from Shannon Kaiser’s book: ‘Find your happy daily mantras’.
It helps to clarify my thoughts in what is a busy mind.
Affirmations (10 minutes)
I then listen to some affirmations that I have recorded myself saying. These include:
‘I am not perfect, but I love and accept who I am’
‘I am balanced when I take care of myself’
These are affirmations that particularly help me in trying to overcome over- perfectionism and in looking after myself better. You can find any affirmations that can help you, though. This process lasts roughly three minutes on repeat, and I make sure that I say the quotes out loud.
The second part of my affirmation routine is to listen to a pre recorded Shannon Kaiser meditation / affirmation, which help to reduce any fears and worries for the day. This lasts roughly seven minutes.
The affirmation process helps my brain to focus on the positives and get that correct mind-set for the day.
Visualisation (5 minutes)
I then look at my whiteboard on which I have written my dream goals. My big dreams. Note, I aim to be happy in the present, but these are the big dreams. I do not base my happiness on achieving these but base my happiness on enjoying where I am now and on the journey towards achieving my ambitions and dreams.
Allowing myself to look at my dream goals and the reasoning behind them, helps me to clarify exactly why I am carrying out certain tasks or goals throughout the day. It brings me an excitement of my aspirations and why I do what I do in life.
For example:
Writing – To be a top 100 best-selling Amazon author. Why: I love creating content for a story with a theme and a message to share with people, from which they will hopefully benefit.
Exercise (10 minutes)
Mine is more on the lighter side in the morning as I do my workouts at lunchtime or play football at weekends. I do a bit of stretching, as my muscles are quite tight anyway and I like to loosen up in order to be more relaxed for the day ahead.
Reading (5 minutes)
Instead of reading from a particular book (which I tend to do on my commute to my job), I review the top ten key points which I have recorded from each of my favourite personal development books. This gives me a constant reminder of those. These are subject to change but currently my notes are from the books:
‘Power of now’, ‘The self-love experiment’ and ‘High Status’.
Allowing myself time to read in the morning gives me a sense of achievement and a sense of growth that I am learning to apply to my life. When I feel that I am growing, I feel happy.
Silence (meditation) (20 minutes)
This is my longest and perhaps most significant part of my routine. I listen to two lots of ten-minute meditations:
- Using my Muse 2 Device, I practise my breathing inhalations and exhalations. By monitoring my brain activity, this device can then give me feedback on how I got on. Getting your breathing right is essential as it helps you to remain calm and enables your mind to be more focused. This is an expensive device but worth the investment. It helps you to understand when you are more focused in meditations than other times.
- Ben Angel’s meditation ‘Focused and Fired Up’. This is a guided visualisation helping you to picture an upcoming challenge or fear. It then helps to bring feelings from positive experiences in order to reduce your fear and to prepare and fire you up for the forthcoming day. This really helps me identify my exact feelings and to make them more positive.
There are so many options for meditation these days, but I feel the above work for me. I also use ‘Muse’ to meditate in the afternoon and before bed.
Goals
When my hour or so of my ‘Miracle morning’ routine has been completed, I spend time on my main goal or goals for the day. If it’s a week day, before I go to work, I tend to spend about an hour on them, but at the weekend, I spend perhaps two – three hours on my goals. I work on goals in my lunchtime and in the afternoon, but these are ones which are less mentally draining. So, something like a big word count for my book would be done straight after my miracle morning routine, whilst doing a bit of speaking practice or checking e-mails would be done later in the day. At the weekend, particularly in the afternoon and evening, I try to make sure that I don’t overdo this process, so that I am able to relax and to socialise.
In summary
When I follow a morning routine, it really benefits me for the rest of the day. I would highly recommend that you do so and make time for it. The ‘Miracle Morning’ is an amazing book, enabling you to create a positive routine before tackling your daily goals and giving you a good start to the day. I have outlined my routine to guide you but obviously, tailor it to your needs. Bigger and trickier goals are easier to tackle earlier in the day therefore giving you a greater chance of achieving them.
Jonny Pardoe
Jonny Pardoe © August 2019
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