Miracle Morning - Realisitic Habit Or Overkill?

[doucey24]

Hey guys,

A while ago I read the self-help book 'Miracle Morning' by Hal Elrod.

In a nutshell, the book is about the life-changing power of installing one particular habit - i.e. the Miracle Morning habit.

The habit is as follows:

1. Wake up at 5 or 6am (ensuring that the last thoughts you have the night before are positive - e.g. 'I am so lucky to have X hours of sleep tonight, this is the perfect amount I need for a deep and refreshing sleep' - in other words, programming your subconscious mind to be more willing to wake up early especially on nights when you've had to stay up later/had less sleep - ideally the aim is to go to bed at 10ish to get a full 8 hours though).
2. Spend the next hour doing a routine called S-A-V-E-R-S which involves:
   • Meditation, Affirmations, Visualisation, Journaling, Reading (self-help/educational books), Exercising (light yoga/stretching/jogging etc.)
   • Each activity you split up into 5-10min intervals and order them how you wish.
3. Also - you can choose to either do this 7days a week or for only 5 days during the working week depending on your situation.

So by 6am/7am you've completed the hour of activities and go on with your day. I was able to keep it up for 43 days and noticed an incredible difference in my mood, productivity and general sense of fulfillment. I also scrapped the reading activity as I found it was low-yield and I instead lengthened my meditation time. 

However, the habit eventually crumpled during my final month-long exam period of my undergrad degree (as by that point I resented being at uni and felt like a slave to the study and essentially became too disenchanted by the workload, regressing back to smoking weed etc. and thus the habit eventually died out).

Now that my horizons are free and I'm restarting the slow implementation of my LP/self-actualization habits, I was wondering if the Miracle Morning is a realistic habit to install (given that it consists of 5-6 activities which can be viewed as separate habits in and of themselves). I'm not sure if the habit is too extreme/unrealistic (at least during the early phases of the self-actualizing journey) and if I am setting myself up for a big ego-backlash. Another part of me thinks that my previous failure was due to an isolated incident - i.e. finishing off my uni commitments as I felt forced to see my degree through to the end (although I admit I was fundamentally free to quit studying if I wanted to but that is now neither here nor there).

Would like to know what you think about the habit @Leo Gura but would appreciate opinions of others.

Thanks everyone!

Edited November 20, 2017 by doucey24

[aurum]

@doucey24

It is realistic, but maybe not for you at this current stage.

One of the things you realize in this work is that you can only move up so fast.

Everyone has a subconscious / energetic “baseline” they feel most comfortable at. And when you push outside that baseline too hard, too fast, there’s a snapback effect.

That’s what you’re experiencing right now.

This is progress though.The only thing to do is just to get back on your habits as soon as possible.

Eventually you’ll get to a point where managing that morning routine is no struggle.

[Lorcan]

 Skip to 3:11. He tells you story of how he brute forced himself through running 100 miles. He was not an endurance runner, he was overweight at the time and all he did was heavy lifting.

 

 

 

Brute Force = Requires a lot of willpower. (The less will-power you have, the more you will suffer). Faster Results

Gradual = Requires significantly less willpower. Slower Results.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Lorcan

[vizual]

Every routine is a crutch, and crutches have to be let go of if you want to become a good walker. This does not mean that crutches should be avoided when trying to learn to walk. On the contrary, crutches can be very helpful in your journey towards becoming a good walker. The problem is that some people become so convinced that they can't walk without that crutch, that their crutch becomes the sole religion that everyone needs to submit to. They start to believe that their crutch is the only way, that it is the 'truth'. But actually, your crutch might not be ideal for me, and my crutch may not be ideal for you. Find your own crutch and I will find mine. And I will not tell you that my crutch is superior to any other, but I can tell you why my crutch works for me specifically. From thereout you can decide for yourself if you like to try my crutch or not.

I think the best way to find your ideal crutch is to try out a lot of different ones. Just makes sure you choose a safe crutch, a crutch which does not harm you, nor the people in your environment.

[Leo Gura]

@doucey24 Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

What I personally find though, is that I enjoy having more flexibility in my life than following strict routines like that.

But as you're starting off in this work, something like that strict habit could really super-charge your results. Later you will want to learn to be more flexible, so that your day doesn't hinge on you completing a mechanical routine.

[Pallero]

I tried Miracle Morning too, but I could never stop reading or journaling after 10 minutes. 

For me, it's the other way around. I need to release myself from strict routine. I'm way more productive when I follow my intuition.

What does your intuition tell you?

[Pallero]

7 hours ago, ZX_man said:

@Pallero

man, I can tell you that i just stopped sleeping 

What do you mean by that? ?

[dustylocks]

Quote

Later you will want to learn to be more flexible, so that your day doesn't hinge on you completing a mechanical routine.

@Leo Gura Do you think the same way about meditation? 

Edited November 30, 2017 by dustylocks

[Dan Arnautu]

@dustylocks Well, with meditation it's a little tricky. One trap on the spiritual path may be confining your moments of awareness to a formal practice. The idea is to carry the awareness that meditation gives you into day to day life. You shouldn't just be aware when you meditate, and when the formal practice is over go straight back into chimp behavior.

What I'm trying to say is that it's harder to set meditation into blocks of time and thus in time become a routine compared to other stuff. For a serious practitioner, meditation can be on all of the time, with different objects of focus.

[dustylocks]

@Dan Arnautu Yes, that could be a trap for someone deeply neurotic. And no, you should never confine being present and aware to a formal practice..and one should never go into 'chimp behavior' full stop!