Book SummaryThe Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Miracle Morning

In The Miracle Morning, best-selling author and speaker Hal Elrod argues that everyone is capable of achieving their dreams in every area of life, including relationships, finances, career, health, spirituality, and happiness.

The answer is committing yourself to personal development by getting up early and following a simple, daily routine of silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and writing, which can empower anyone to transform any area of life in a surprisingly short time.

Elrod developed this “Miracle Morning” routine in the process of overcoming two major setbacks in his life:

• A devastating car accident that left him with brain damage and eleven broken bones at age 20.
• The financial collapse of his business plus a deep depression in the recession of 2008.

These experiences taught him that he needed to take responsibility for creating the life he wanted. He realized that if he wanted a life of extraordinary success, he had to develop himself into the kind of person capable of achieving success.

So he committed to spending time each day improving himself through silence (typically meditation or prayer), affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing (writing in a journal). His “Life S.A.V.E.R.S.” routine energized and motivated him. This book explains how you can use the Miracle Morning process to transform yourself and your life.

Overcoming Mediocrity

The first challenge to living the life you really want is overcoming a tendency toward mediocrity.

Most people passively accept the cards that life deals them. Even people who achieve success in one area, such as a career, often accept less than they want or are capable of achieving in other areas, such as relationships or health. Most people—95%—live mediocre lives, without realizing they have the ability to be who they want to be, do what they want to do, and have whatever they want.

If you take one hundred people at the start of their working life and follow them for forty years, you’ll find, according to the Social Security Administration, that:

• One will be wealthy.
• Four will be financially secure.
• Five will continue working because they have to.
• Thirty-six will be dead.
• Fifty-four will be broke and dependent on friends, family, and the government.

The challenge is ensuring that you are among the successful minority rather than the struggling majority.

The most common reasons people settle for uninspired lives are:

1) Rearview Mirror Thinking

Most of us view current choices through the filter of our past experiences—the rearview mirror syndrome. We measure new opportunities against our past experiences and capabilities—for instance, thinking: “I’ve never done anything like that before; I’ve never succeeded at that.” Thus, we limit our future development based on the limitations of our past. Even though we want to change, we’re stuck on the way things have always been.

You can overcome past limitations by repeating affirmations that inspire confidence that anything is possible and that you can make it happen. Focus on what you want, reprogram your beliefs about what’s possible, and move in the direction of your goals until they become reality.

2) Viewing Small Actions in Isolation

We wrongly think our choices affect only the moment—for instance, that it’s no big deal to eat something unhealthy or to skip exercising today because we’ll get a “do-over” tomorrow.

However, your individual actions, as well as thoughts, have...

The Miracle Morning Summary Introduction

The Miracle Morning presents best-selling author and speaker Hal Elrod’s antidote to living a life of mediocrity.

Although we’re born with a desire to learn and grow, most of us ultimately fall short of our potential and “settle” for less than what we want in life. Each day is much the same as the day before.

However, Elrod argues that everyone deserves to get and is capable of getting what they want in every area of life, including relationships, finances, career, health, spirituality, happiness, and more. The answer is implementing a simple daily personal development routine, which he says can empower anyone to surmount challenges, turn circumstances around, and transform any area of life, in a surprisingly short time.

Elrod promises that “The Miracle Morning” described in his book “can absolutely be the one thing that takes you where you want to be.”

Elrod’s story

The Miracle Morning method grew from lessons Elrod learned from two “rock bottom” experiences in his life.

When the first occurred, he was a successful 20-year-old salesman for a large marketing company and was climbing the corporate ladder. Suddenly, **a devastating car accident changed his...

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 1: Introducing the Miracle Morning

The Miracle Morning method gives you regular time each day for personal development. It requires getting up thirty to sixty minutes earlier each day to devote time to six self-development practices proven to help people change their lives. (People with extremely limited time may have a Miracle Morning routine that’s as short as six minutes long.)

These practices—Life S.A.V.E.R.S.—are silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing (writing in a journal). Each will be detailed in an upcoming chapter. They’ll help you develop the mindset and habits to succeed.

The Miracle Morning process is something you’ll look forward to doing and it will quickly and seamlessly become part of your life. There are a host of benefits:

• You’ll wake up feeling energized, with a strategy to take your life to the next level.
• You’ll feel less stressed.
• You’ll have clarity and focus, enabling you to solve problems and overcome beliefs that have held you back.
• You can get in shape, improve your health, and lose weight if you want to.
• You’ll be more productive and focused on your priorities
• You’ll worry less and be more grateful.
• You’ll increase...

Shortform Exercise: Assess Your Life

You can achieve “level 10” success in every area of life—health, career, finances, spirituality, family/relationships, recreation, contributing to others—by establishing daily habits that create success.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rank your current level of success/fulfillment in each of the above areas?

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 2: Reject Mediocrity

Every day, we face the challenge of rejecting mediocrity and living up to our potential. Most people—95%—don’t succeed. They settle for the life they have and live with regret, without realizing they have the ability to be who they want to be, do what they want to do, and have whatever they want.

If you take one hundred people at the start of their working life and follow them for forty years, you’ll find, according to the Social Security Administration, that:

• One will be wealthy.
• Four will be financially secure.
• Five will continue working because they have to.
• Thirty-six will be dead.
• Fifty-four will be broke and dependent on friends, family, and the government.

The challenge is ensuring that you are among the successful minority rather than the struggling majority.

Here are three steps to rise above mediocrity and join the top 5%.

Step 1: Realize that Mediocrity is the Norm

If you don’t think and live differently than the mediocre majority, you’ll experience the same life of struggle, failure, and regret as most people, including your friends, family, and peers.

Every day, most people struggle physically, mentally, financially, and in...

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 3: Waking Up to Your Life

You can literally change your life by changing how and why you wake up.

If you’re like most people, you delay waking up for as long as possible. You hit the snooze button and, ultimately, only drag yourself out of bed because there’s somewhere you must be or someone you must answer to.

However, what you’re doing when you hit the snooze button is resisting your life, your day, and creating the life you want. By starting your day with resistance, you perpetuate a negative cycle:

• You wake up discouraged and depressed.
• You spend your day feeling the same way.
• You go to sleep again feeling anxious and depressed.
• The cycle repeats itself the next day.

You can change this, like many famous and successful early risers, such as Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Tony Robbins, Howard Schultz, Albert Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin. You can change your life by establishing the conscious intent to wake up each morning with a genuine desire to do so.

How Much Sleep is Really Enough?

Experts say the amount of sleep needed varies by individual. How much you need depends on such factors as your age, health, and how much exercise you get. While you may function well...

Shortform Exercise: Your Wake-Up Routine

Elrod argues that you can change your life by changing the way you wake up because how you wake up sets the stage for the rest of your day. Preparing the night before to wake up on a positive note and also having a morning routine can make waking up easier.

How do you usually feel when you wake up? What is your morning wake-up routine?

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 4: Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

When you want to change, there’s a gap between where you are and where you want to be. You may feel frustrated with yourself for lacking the motivation and effort necessary to produce the results you want. You know what you need to do—and spend time thinking about it—but you don’t do it.

The size of the potential gap varies depending on the person. For some, the gap seems huge and almost insurmountable, while others feel close to reaching their potential. But whatever your...

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 5: S—Silence

To reduce your stress and begin each day with calm, clarity, and focus, do the opposite of what most people do—start with a period of silence.

For most people, early mornings are either: 1) hectic—you have a million things on your mind, or 2) slow—you feel lethargic, lazy, and have trouble getting started. Neither is a productive way to start your day. In contrast, starting with purposeful silence will allow you to focus on what’s most important in your life.

There are at least five ways to practice silence: meditation, prayer, reflection, deep breathing, gratitude. You can start your Miracle Morning with just one of them or combine them. Many people choose meditation.

Meditation

Basically, meditation is the practice of quieting and focusing your mind.

There are countless books and videos you can consult for step-by-step instructions. Meditation requires little time, yet offers numerous health...

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 6: A—Affirmations

Affirmations are positive, constructive statements that you repeat to yourself as a tool for reprogramming negative thinking to help you change or accomplish something. They’re one of the most effective tools for becoming the person you want to be and achieving your goals. For instance, Muhammad Ali repeated a simple affirmation—“I am the greatest”—over and over and he became the greatest boxer of his time.

Besides Ali, positive thinking and the use of affirmations have helped people like Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Suze Orman, Oprah, and many others achieve success and wealth. Affirmations allow you to develop the mindset (thoughts, beliefs, focus) that you need to increase your level of achievement in any area of your life.

We all talk to ourselves already—we have an unconscious, internal dialogue running through our minds, replaying and interpreting past experiences. Unfortunately, for many people, it works against them. For instance, around 80% of women have self-defeating thoughts daily; many men likely have negative thoughts as well.

However, getting control of this process by actively choosing positive, constructive thoughts is a powerful way to change your life....

Shortform Exercise: Write an Affirmation

Affirmations are positive, constructive statements that you repeat to yourself as a tool for reprogramming negative thinking to help you change or accomplish something. An effective affirmation states what you want and why, how you’ll change, and what steps you’ll take.

Think of a negative belief you have about yourself—for instance, a belief that you’re not good at something or not capable of accomplishing something. How is this belief limiting you?

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 7: V—Visualization

Through visualization, you increase your chances of success by imagining yourself achieving the results you want.

Athletes, musicians, and others often mentally rehearse a competition or a performance. For instance, golfer Tiger Woods mentally rehearses performing a perfect swing on each hole. Others who say visualization has contributed to their success include Bill Gates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey, Oprah, and Will Smith.

Elrod used visualization to help him complete this book. He visualized himself writing easily, without stress or writer’s block, and enjoying the creative process. He also visualized people reading his book and enthusiastically sharing it with friends. His positive visualization of the process provided the motivation to overcome procrastination.

Combined with reading your affirmations, visualization programs your subconscious mind for success. Some self-help writers believe visualizing your goals actually attracts these outcomes to your life. But whether or not you believe in the “law of attraction,” there are benefits:

• Visualizing what you want generates positive emotions that...

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 8: E—Exercise

Besides being good for your health, exercising for a few minutes each morning boosts your energy and mood and increases your mental clarity and focus.

Your Miracle Morning routine should include aerobic exercise such as jumping jacks, pushups, and situps. Alternatively, you could follow along with a yoga video. You can do additional exercise with a longer duration, such as running or working out at the gym, at other times during the day, but you still...

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 9: R—Reading

Reading gives you the ideas, strategies, techniques, and knowledge you need to achieve your goals and dreams. Learning from and emulating people who have already done what you aspire to do saves you the time and struggle of reinventing the wheel.

With an infinite number of books available on every topic, there’s no limit to the knowledge and life-changing ideas you can gain through daily reading. It would be foolish to pass all this up by not reading.

Just a few examples of books by financially successful people are: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, and Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. Other books can help you transform...

Shortform Exercise: Reading to Learn

Hal Elrod recommends reading at least ten pages a day and thinking about what you want to learn from a particular book before you start reading. He advises re-reading books you’ve found helpful so the concepts really sink in.

Think of a book you’ve read in the past that had an impact on you. Why and how did it affect you? How might you benefit from reading it again?

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 10: S—Scribing

Scribing or writing in a journal allows you to record insights, ideas, successes, lessons, and opportunities for future development.

Benefits include clarifying your thoughts, reinforcing what you’re learning, and setting a direction for the future. But you get even more benefit from reviewing your journal at regular intervals. For example:

• You gain an appreciation for what you’ve accomplished in a month or a year.
• You feel gratitude for your accomplishments.
• By looking back, you can identify lessons learned and commit to the steps you’ll take to implement those lessons.

Starting Your Journal

Here are three steps to get started:

1) Choose a format: You can use a digital or traditional paper format. It’s a matter of personal preference.

2) Get a journal: If you’re going the traditional route, you can use any lined notebook, although some people prefer hardbound volumes...

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 11: Implementing Your Miracle Morning

You can customize the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. practices to fit your work schedule and lifestyle. Many people devote thirty to sixty minutes, but you can do a shorter routine on weekdays and a longer one on weekends. You may need to vary the time, for instance if you’re traveling.

Here’s an example of how to complete a Miracle Morning in an hour:

• Silence: Five minutes
• Affirmation: Five minutes
• Visualization: Five minutes
• Exercise: Twenty minutes
• Reading: Twenty minutes
• Scribing: Five minutes

However, you can complete the steps in as little as six minutes by spending a minute on each activity. For instance:

• Minute 1: Sit in purposeful silence and breathe deeply.
• Minute 2: Read your affirmations out loud.
• Minute 3: Visualize accomplishing your goals for the day and how it will feel.
• Minute 4: Write down something you're grateful for, something your proud of, and your goal for the day.
• Minute 5: Read a page or two from a self-help book, looking for an idea you can use immediately.
• Minute 6: Move your body for sixty seconds by running in place, or doing jumping jacks, pushups or situps.

You can also change the sequence of the...

The Miracle Morning Summary Chapter 12: Getting into the Habit

The quality of your habits (the behaviors you repeat regularly and often subconsciously) determines the quality of your life. A person who’s successful has established the habits necessary for achieving and sustaining success. In contrast, someone who’s struggling in any area of life hasn’t committed themselves to the habits that generate success.

Because your habits dictate your life, it’s critical that you learn to control them. You need to identify, practice, and sustain the habits that will create the success you want while eliminating detrimental habits.

Most people fail at controlling or changing their habits. New Year’s resolutions are a prime example. A New Year’s resolution is typically a positive habit you want to establish (exercising) or a negative one you want to stop (smoking). But less than 5% of those who make resolutions stick with them.

Most people fail to change habits because they aren’t prepared to overcome the mental challenges that are part of the process. However, with the right strategy, you can change any habit in thirty days. The Miracle Morning 30-Day Habit Mastery Strategy will enable you to stick to the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. routine or to...

Shortform Exercise: Changing a Habit

It takes about thirty days to establish a new habit or eliminate an old one. Many people fail but it’s doable if you understand the three phases of the process (unbearable, uncomfortable, and unstoppable) and have a mental strategy for getting through them.

Think of a habit you failed at changing in the past. What actions or steps did you take and for how long?