6 Habits That Will Transform Your Life
“Success is something you attract by the person you become.”
—Jim Rohn
“An extraordinary life is all about daily, continuous improvements in the areas that matter most.”
—Robin Sharma
Stressed. Worried. Overwhelmed. Frustrated. Unfulfilled. Blah. These are a few unpleasant words that provide a rather unfortunate but fairly accurate description of how the average person far too often feels about his or her life.
Of course, life can be difficult. Our circumstances can feel unfair. Most of us have endured our share of challenges, and not everyone is fortunate enough to be born into a supportive environment. We haven’t all had the same opportunities. However, every single one of us was born with the unlimited potential to become the best version of ourselves. What that looks like for you is different from what it looks like for me or for anyone else, but who we are becoming is the one thing we have control over and where we should invest our time and energy.
Although we can’t go back in time and change the past (so there’s no point wasting time and energy wishing we could), we can absolutely begin making meaningful changes to fulfill our potential, starting now.
The Potential Gap
Have you ever felt like you were living on the wrong side of a gap between who you are and who you could become? Like the life you want to live and the person you need to be to create that life are just beyond your grasp? When you see people who are achieving levels of success that you’re not, do you ever feel like they’ve got it all figured out—like they must know something that you don’t, because if you knew it too, then you’d be enjoying the same levels of success?
Most of us live on the wrong side of a gap that separates who we are from the person we could become. We are often frustrated with our lack of consistent motivation, effort, and results. We spend too much time thinking about the actions we should be taking to create the results that we want, but then we don’t take those actions. Most of us know what we need to do; we just don’t consistently do what we know. Can you relate?
This potential gap varies in size from person to person. You may feel like you’re doing almost everything in your power to maximize your abilities and that a few tweaks could make all the difference. Or you might feel the opposite—like you’ve been living so far below your potential that you don’t even know where to start. Whatever the case is for you—whether you are sitting on the wrong side of the Grand Canyon of your potential and wondering how you’re going to get to the other side, or you’ve been working your way across the canyon but are stuck at a plateau and haven’t been able to get to the next level—this chapter will introduce you to six habits that will enable you to close that gap.
It’s Time to Save the Life You Deserve to Live
When I set out to determine what the single most effective personal development practice was, the one that would change my life the fastest, I couldn’t narrow it down to just one. In fact, I ended up with a list of six: meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and journaling. And my epiphany came when I considered how powerful it could be if I combined all six of them.
A few months into writing this book, I was feeling frustrated that I didn’t have a coherent, memorable way to connect, organize, and present these practices. One day, I took a break from writing and went looking for Ursula to ask for her perspective. I expressed my frustration, and she immediately responded with a potential solution (like she usually does). “Why don’t you use a thesaurus and see if you can find synonyms for some of the words, and try to create an acronym to connect the six practices and make it easy to remember?” I loved the idea, told her she was brilliant, gave her a kiss, and went back to my computer. Soon, meditation became silence, journaling became scribing, and the following emerged:
•Silence
•Affirmations
•Visualization
•Exercise
•Reading
•Scribing
I wrote down “Life S.A.V.E.R.S.” and got excited because the acronym felt very authentic and appropriate—these six practices had literally saved me from missing out on being able to create the life I aspired to live. While none of the items on this list were new to me and are likely not new to you, these are six of the most timeless, proven personal development practices, which many of the world’s most successful people, across all walks of life, have sworn by for centuries. Consistently practicing any one of these can elevate your consciousness and help you become a better version of yourself. When you combine all six, you are harnessing the benefits of all of these ancient best practices to accelerate your personal development and transformation.
When you consider the words meditation, affirmations, and visualization, some preconceived notions may come to mind, and some of them may be negative. Often, these timeless rituals have been popularized in inadequate and even silly ways. For example, affirming something that isn’t true, such as “I am a millionaire” or even “I am happy,” when you’re anything but, can feel inauthentic and like a waste of time. So, any negative preconceptions you may have are reasonable. But I encourage you to be patient and open-minded as you read this chapter. You’ll find that each of the S.A.V.E.R.S. is presented in unique ways that are results oriented, practical, and have proven to be effective.
One of the most encouraging aspects of the Miracle Morning is that you can implement all six of these powerful personal development practices in one simple, sequential routine that takes as little as six minutes, as much as an hour, or anywhere in between. For your reference, roughly 70 percent of Miracle Morning practitioners schedule 60 minutes to complete their S.A.V.E.R.S., about 20 percent schedule 30 minutes, and the remaining 10 percent spend more or less time on their routine. Whether you choose to allocate 6 minutes to your S.A.V.E.R.S., 60, or somewhere in between, you will have completed all six of these proven personal development practices before the rest of your day even starts.
In the coming pages, we’ll dive deeper into each of the S.A.V.E.R.S, and I’ll show you how to combine them to gain access to more of your potential, which you can then apply to changing, improving, or completely transforming any aspect of your life.