Last week I promised to tell you about 6 morning rituals that will increase productivity and help you be less depressed and anxious, more productive and feeling overall better? Well, I don’t want to make you wait any longer, so let’s dive right into it!

Do you know about this guy Hal Elrod? If you do, feel free to skim through this part, however if you don’t sit back, relax and let me tell you a bit about him. I promise, this part is important. 

Hal Elrod is an interesting guy who survived some things a lot of people wouldn’t. When he was 20 years old he died in a car accident. Legally, he was dead for 6 minutes. His legs were paralized, spent a week in a coma, doctors told him and his family that there’s barely any chance he’d be able to walk ever again. 

Hal accepted his faith and set a mindset that he’d be the happiest person in a wheelchair.. He was able to walk within 3 months of the car accident. 

You can find more about his full story online. 

Fast Forward a bit to when the financial crisis hit in 2007. Hal lost pretty much everything- job was gone, he couldn’t pay for the house and got more depressed than ever in his life, which is understandable in the circumstance, a lot of people were during those times. 

In the midst of his depression his friend recommended to go on a morning run and listen to a self-help motivational book. Hal laughed, not being a runner or having any interest in running, but did it anyways, and during the first run he went to listening to Jim Rohn’s book and heard a quote: 

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

That was the quote that changed his life moving forward. He came home from the run and began his research on personal improvement techniques. 

He discovered 6 practices that most successful people do each day. However similar to what we saw in the CEOs mornings, some of them did the same things, and some did other things. In the end of it all it was these 6 that were the most consistent showing up in his research. The trick was that some did 2-3-4 out of six but no person did all 6 of them each day..

The question came up- what would happen, if one would do ALL of them EVERY day?

Hal abbreviated them into: 

SAVERS

silence   –   affirmations   –   visualisation   –   exercise   –   read   –   scribe

SAVERS

Silence– more commonly known as meditation, being present in the moment and focusing on breathing, calming the mind and relaxing the body to cleanse the negative energy. That’s what meditation is. 

Affirmations– yes, affirmations. You’re probably thinking-it started good, but now we’re moving to some silly motivational phrases that are so hard to believe in. Hear me out! I myself find affirmations as silly as every other person out there, but the truth is that they DO work! I’m not talking about getting into a power stance and saying something like “I attract money, I am a magnet for money, money gravitates towards me!” followed by sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing waiting for the mentioned money to appear out of thin air. What i’m talking about is writing down reminders of how capable you are, how far you’ve come and the goals ahead as well as steps to achieve them and why they matter. Using affirmation to keep yourself on track, add drive and motivation and re-energize yourself to achieve your potential!

Visualisation– whether you create a vision board, write what you desire in a journal or simply close your eyes and imagine it, visualisation is a powerful tool. If you imagine the way your day is going to go in your head all you need to do is just stick to what your brain created for you-positive, productive, good day with the family you love, work you enjoy doing and activities that make you happy.  I do understand that things can come up and throw the initial plan off but it is up to you to decide what kind of day to have. External events will happen every single day but it is up to us to either let it affect a good day ahead or adjust and keep on going! 

Exercise– or simply moving your body. So many of us have desk jobs and our bodies were created to move. It doesn’t matter if it’s a walk, time in the gym, some crunches on the floor next to your bed. Every little bit counts and every little bit is better than none. 

Read– that one is pretty straight forward. Grab a book, read a little bit. It can be for fun, educational, it really doesn’t matter. A few pages every day will add up fairly quickly though and next thing you know you read about 20 books in a year. 

Scribe–  fancy word for writing, aka journaling. You can spend some time with your thoughts or simply list a few things you’re grateful for. This can help you feel empowered, in tune with your thoughts and feelings, inspired  and grounded. 

Before you come in saying that that’s a lot of things to do in the morning, let me jump in for a second. Yes, it is a lot! You don’t have to spend hours on each one thought- that would take the whole day. You can designate an hour, 30 min, even do a 6 minute routine with only spending one minute doing each thing. If getting out of bed early seems just impossible you can also start doing good four rituals out of six while still in bed. 

The community that Hal built is absolutely amazing and so many people have experienced their life changed for the better since implementing the miracle morning. 

If all this is something that you want to pursue learning more about Miracle morning there are books that he wrote as well as a movie that came out in December of 2020. In writing of this blog post I did give it a watch and it’s a good summary of the book with interviews of successful people using this practice. I will have it all linked down below if that is something you’re interested in!

Now what? You might ask. That all is great, but how do I implement those practices into my life? 

You’ll find out more in Part 3!

By Co-Author (Primary): Karina Movsesova

Editor: Amanda (Meixner) Rocchio