[Book Review] The Miracle Morning: The Not-so-obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life Before 8AM - Hal Elrod

My Rating

3.5 stars on 5

Book Summary

The philosophy Hal Elrod preaches in this book The Miracle Morning, is how to build a level-10 life and how not to settle for mediocrity. Hal emphasizes on practicing personal development to achieve our greatest potential by developing an early morning routine, which he calls Miracle morning. He introduces the concept of Miracle morning life S.A.V.E.R.S - Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing - life changing practices to develop physical, intellectual, spiritual and emotional aspects of your life, and to create the life you envision for yourself.   

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Detailed Review

The author starts with explaining his life story on how he had hit the rock bottom twice in his life. He proclaims that these words of Jim Rohn changed his attitude -

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

Throughout the book, Hal advises to rise above mediocrity and work mindfully to achieve a level 10 happiness in all aspects of life such as personal development, career, spirituality, relationship etc. Let me summaries some points from the book. 

How to rise above mediocrity ? How not to settle ? 

• Acknowledge 95% reality check. Only 5% of people will create a life of freedom, rest 95% will struggle. The aim is to get into the 5%, but first we should understand it is easy to fail if we don’t put effort.
• Draw your line in the sand: Make your decision as to what you are going to do differently today.
• Identify the cause of mediocrity.

The cause of mediocrity can be following reasons

• Rearview mirror syndrome - Our subconscious mind has a rearview mirror  through which we continuously relive and recreate the past. Life should be limitless.
• Lack of purpose - live everyday in alignment to the purpose of your life. 
• Isolating incidents - Don’t break the chain of working on personal development even for a day by making up excuses.
• Lack of accountability
• Mediocre circle of influence - choose the people you are with carefully. They lower or raise your bar.
• Lack of personal development
• Lack of urgency - Now matters more than any other day.

The Life S.A.V.E.R.S - Miracle morning routine

Hal recommends the following miracle morning routine. - S.A.V.E.R.S. There are 6 steps for this miracle morning routine. And according to Hal, you can take 6 minutes or 60 minutes or more to keep this routine daily.  

Silence

Hal urges us to practice purposeful silence as the first step of miracle morning routine. The activities that can be practiced during this step are meditation, prayer, reflection, deep breathing or gratitude. Whichever combination suits you the best. 

Affirmations

Affirmations can be used to program your brain actively to perceive that you are strong enough to do something you think is impossible. You can write your own affirmations and read it to yourself, mindfully, each day. 

Reflect on these questions to write your own affirmations.

• What do you really want ?
• Why do you want it ?
• Who you need to be ?
• What are you committed to achieving?
• Add inspirational quotes and philosophies

Visualization

This is the process of imagining exactly what you want to achieve or attain, then mentally rehearsing what you’ll need to do to achieve or attain it. Creating a vision board might help. 

Exercise

Enough Said!

Reading

I don’t think ReadersDelightClub members need a particular reason to implement this step ;)

Scribing

Hal urges the reader to keep a journal. 

What to write?

• What am I grateful for ?
• Acknowledging my accomplishments
• What areas to improve?
• Actions to be taken to improve
• Synopsis of the day. You know, regular  “dear diary“ stuff.

Bottomline

This is not a very nicely written book. Lot of promises and testimonials. It almost felt like an advertisement to this miracle morning. Very light read. 

However, I liked the idea of a miracle morning routine. Unless the person really commits to implementing this miracle morning routine, this book The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life - Before 8AM will absolutely be of no use.