Some you may have seen me on social media talk about my 30 day miracle morning challenge (31 days in my case as I am aiming for every day in October). So what is this 30 day Miracle Morning challenge that I keep going on about?

The Miracle Morning Book

The one benefit to my 45minute commute every day is that I have the opportunity to listen to multiple audiobooks and podcasts. These are generally based on personal development or specifically around physiotherapy/rehabilitation based topics.

Whilst listening to these each day, several different people have mentioned and discussed the book ‘The Miracle Morning‘ by Hal Elrod. Each person who has mentioned the book has talked about how they have incorporated the routine that Hal introduces. They go on to talk about the dramatic impact that doing so has had on increasing their productivity.

Around a month ago, 2 of my patients both bought up ‘The Miracle Morning’ in conversation during a session. Both of them have continued to practice their morning routine for years and haven’t looked back. This prompted me to look into it further.

Given that I’m always looking for a way of being more productive and that I had a spare Audible credit to use, I thought it was about time that I downloaded the book ready to listen.

I listened to book during my commutes in September and vowed to take on the 30 day challenge, discussed within the book, during October.

I haven’t gone into too much detail within the social post as to what the challenge actually entails. So I wanted to expand on it here and hopefully inspire some of you to commit to the 30 day challenge yourself.

The premise of the Book

Hal has developed a strict morning routine that he practices each morning for an hour. The morning was the only time that he could realistically find during the day that he could stick to consistently.

Not being a morning person he thought he would struggle. But he soon realise that if you start the day off in a productive way it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

He admits that nothing within his routine is new, but it is the packaging of 6 separate elements together that makes up ‘The Miracle Morning’.

The 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

The challenge that I am undertaking throughout October is to set my alarm 1 hour earlier than I would normally. In that hour I then go through the miracle morning routine described below.

The Life SAVERS

The routine consists of what Hal refers to as the life SAVERS:

• Silence
• Affirmations
• Visualisations
• Exercise
• Reading
• Scribing

You are given the option of adding to this list. I choose to add in the 2 following tasks that I have always wanted to make a habit but never managed to create the time.

• Brain Training Games
• French Learning using an app

Silence

Silence refers to any form of meditation. He gives some diferent options and I have chosen to use the Headspace app on my phone.

I have been recommending Headspace to many of my patients for years now as a more relaxed mindset can help reduce the intensity that we experience pain.

At first, it can feel a bit awkward but now I’m finding it is a great start to the routine as I feel in the right frame of mind for the rest of what’s to come.

Affirmations

This was the part I was most dubious about, as thought I’d feel awkward in doing so.

In the book Hal gives a link to a PDF containing a worksheet. This includes a step by step process to imagining all the different elements of your ideal life. You are then guided on breaking down what changes you could make to move towards that life.

I have found that process a lot more valuable than I was expecting. From that process, I have created affirmations that I repeat to myself each morning. It acts as a form of accountability to myself to ensure that I am staying true to my word.

Visualisations

This is similar to the affirmations above. Hal encourages you to visualise your ideal life and what it would take to get there. He suggests that I should spend a few minutes imagining not only living my ideal life but also to visualise going through the process of what it would take to acheive my ideal life.

He uses the example of runners being encouraged to visualise a race itself, ie actually running the course rather than just what it would feel like to finish in 1st place. Those who just visualised winning a race without the process of getting there tended to get complacent and didn’t achieve the same results.

Exercise

Hal suggests doing at least 10 minutes of exercise each morning. This could be any form of exercise; going for a run, pilates, yoga, circuits etc.

I have decided to set a timer for 10 minutes and to complete as many sets or rounds as I can of 20 repetitions of the following exercises:

• Squats
• Press-ups
• Lunges
• Sit-ups
• Burpees

Already I have seen my numbers improve, initially not managing a full 2 rounds (getting as far as 5 burpees on the second round) and now managing 2 full rounds plus 20 squats. Seeing the numbers increase has been very motivating and I look forward to the next morning to see if I can beat my record. Although the exercises are still hard work, 10 minutes seems very achievable and doesn’t put me off.

Reading

I am not someone who creates time for reading physical books and rely heavily on Audible for my learning. The only time I tend to read is on holiday. There are a few books I have that do not have an audio version. I have been saying for years that I’ll get round to reading these books and never have done.

Hal suggests that if you can read 10 pages per day then in a year you will have read 3650 pages. That is multiple books in a year. Given I struggle to read just one book, doing it this way seems very manageable to me.

If your interested in what I’m reading, I have gone for one of those books where there is no audio version available. Aches and Pains by Louis Gifford.

It is a series of 3 books aimed at physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals that treat people with persistent pain. Given it’s aimed at professionals it goes in-depth into the physiology of the body and brain.

If that interests you, or you suffer from chronic pain and you don’t mind going into some more in-depth theory, I can highly recommend it. It is a fantastic book and it helps to simplify a very complex topic. (If you are reading this and you are a physiotherapist, oseteopath, sports therapist etc, in my opinion, this is a must-read book and should definitely be on your wish list).

Scribing

When Hal says scribing, he simply means writing or journaling, but a W or J wouldn’t have worked within ‘SAVERS’.

Hal talks about how most of us overload our daily to-do list with more tasks than it is possible to achieve in a day. This can be demoralising due to the fact that we tend to focus on all the things that didn’t get done. We forget about what we did actually achieve. This is definitely true for me.

I simply write down 5 things that I am grateful for from the day before. Focusing on the positives rather than the things that I didn’t get round to doing has definitely been a good experience for me.

Brain Training

I am using the Peak Brain Training app. I have used this sporadically in the past and always thought it would be a good idea to do daily. Already my score for some of the games has increased.

Learning French

Just like with Brain Training, I have sporadically used the Mosa Lingua app for learning some French. It is designed to be used daily by testing you on multiple ‘cards’ which are presented to you less frequently the more you answer them correctly. As expected, sporadic use didn’t work and I’m already seeing the benefit of more regular use.

10 days in!

As of today, I have done 10 days of the 30-day Miracle Morning Challenge.

I have never been someone who can get up on the first alarm, needing at lest 1 snooze. So far I have managed every morning since starting. (Tips on how to improve the process of waking up are contained within the book).

It has felt great to start using my mornings productively and as predicted by Hal, I then go on to be more productive for the rest of the day.

I will definitely keep this up for October and plan to continue after that. Most who continue beyond the 30 days, suggest treating it like a diet, allowing yourself sporadic ‘cheat days’ where you allow yourself to lie in.

Some of the apps give me an update of how many days in a row that I’ve completed the task. This has been very motivating as I don’t want to break the streak. Especially as with these apps I couldn’t lie if I wanted to, you have to go through the process of doing each of the tasks in order to continue that streak.

Go and read ‘The Miracle Morning‘ now.

If you haven’t read ‘The Miracle Morning‘ I highly suggest that you get yourself a copy and start the 30 day challenge straight away. Click the image below to find The Miracle Morning on Amazon.

Remember if you’re like me and prefer the audio version, you can find it on Audible.

If you haven’t already signed up to Audible, they offer a 30-day trial where you are given a credit to use to download any book.

Why not use that credit on The Miracle Morning so you can get it for free.

Click the image below to find out more about the Audible 30-day trial.

Have you already read The Miracle Morning? What did you think about it?

What other tasks have you added to your morning routine?

Have you got any other good book recommendations?

Comment below and let me know.

Other Books That I Recommend

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Head over to the recommended products page to have a look at the other books that I recommend.

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This post was written by myself, Chris Tiley, a physiotherapist based out of Movement Therapy Clinics in Harborne, Birmingham. For more information on how I can help you visit christileyphysiotherapy.com