CUSTOMIZING YOUR MIRACLE MORNING
“The Miracle Morning is amazing. It has provided new levels of clarity, focus, and energy to my life. What’s great is that it can be a different routine for each person, depending on your goals and schedule. For me, as a business owner and mother of a one-year-old, it has been a time to reflect, pray, focus on my goals and dreams, exercise, and destress. It also gives me valuable time to be thankful for the people, events, and blessings in my life. We all have the same 168 hours in a week; start using the Miracle Morning, and you’ll find miracles in your life that you never knew existed!”
—Katie Heaney (Saint Louis, Missouri)
Your Miracle Morning is 100 percent customizable. Everything from what time you wake up and which activities you do for each of your S.A.V.E.R.S. to how long you spend on each one is all up to you. There are no limits to how your Miracle Morning can be personalized to fit your lifestyle and help you achieve your most significant goals. In this chapter, I’ll give you some ideas and strategies for how you can make this work for you. I’ll also address when (and what) to eat in the morning, how to align your Miracle Morning with your major goals and dreams, what to do on the weekends, a tip on overcoming procrastination, and much more.
Plus, I’ll include examples of different real-life Miracle Mornings, designed by individuals—from stay-at-home parents and entrepreneurs to high school and college students—to fit their unique schedules, priorities, and lifestyles.
Being Flexible with Your Miracle Morning and S.A.V.E.R.S.
This may sound completely counterintuitive but stick with me. You don’t have to do the Miracle Morning in the morning.
Huh?
Of course, there are undeniable advantages to rising early and getting a proactive start to your day, which we have discussed at length. However, some readers have schedules and lifestyles that simply may not allow it. Obviously, someone who works the graveyard shift and sleeps during the day is going to have a different wake-up time than someone who is in bed by 9 PM every night.
Considering that different people have different schedules, it’s important to remember that the essence of the Miracle Morning is waking up earlier than you have to and dedicating the first part of your day to personal development. If you drive a semitruck or work in a hospital from 10 PM to 6 AM and normally sleep until 2 pm, your Miracle Morning might start at 1:30 in the afternoon. What matters is that you begin your day with the S.A.V.E.R.S. so that you can start every day in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state—no matter what time that might be.
Others might have a more fractured, unpredictable, or inconsistent schedule, such as an on-call doctor or nurse, or the parents of an infant. If that describes you and you’ve been feeling like this might not work for you, I’ve also got you covered. Consider that the S.A.V.E.R.S. represent six of the most timeless, proven personal development practices, whose benefits are not restricted to the morning.
I’ve seen new moms post in the Miracle Morning Community about how they break their S.A.V.E.R.S. up and do one or two at a time while their newborns are napping. I’ve also seen shift workers in New York City say they complete their S.A.V.E.R.S. while riding the subway to work. Finding a way to get it done is what matters, and there is always a way when you’re committed.
Here’s one such story from Molly Mathews, a mother of two who has been doing her Miracle Mornings consistently for a year:
I was introduced to the Miracle Morning about a year ago after several successful mentors highly recommended it. I began it as a stay-at-home mom of two young kids and was struggling day to day with getting things done, feeling burned out and exhausted. I started incorporating S.A.V.E.R.S. for just five minutes in each category, waking up just 30 to 40 minutes earlier than my kids, and I felt the shift almost immediately in how much smoother my day went. I started having more energy and more clarity and feeling like a better mom. My mental health and overall happiness improved drastically! I have since added more time to each of the S.A.V.E.R.S.; I don’t always accomplish all of them before my kids are up for the day, but just taking some time for myself first thing makes a big difference. If I don’t get in all of my S.A.V.E.R.S., first thing, then I still make sure to get them in during nap time. Now I run two businesses in my downtime, am a full-time mom and wife, and have so much more passion and excitement for life! I am so glad I found the Miracle Morning!
So, while beginning your day with the Miracle Morning may be ideal, committing to getting your S.A.V.E.R.S. done each day, regardless of the time, order, or duration—no matter what—is what will enable you to continuously grow, evolve, and become the person you need to be to create and experience everything you want for your life.
What About Weekends?
When I was doing research for this book, I came across a quote from Oprah Winfrey that I resonated with: “Waking up early on Saturday gives me an edge in finishing my work with a very relaxed state of mind. There is a feeling of time pressure on weekdays that isn’t there on weekends. If I wake up early in the morning, before anybody else, I can plan the day or at least my activities with a relaxed mind.” I couldn’t agree more.
Like many newbies, when I first started doing Miracle Mornings, I did them only Monday through Friday, and I took the weekends off. It didn’t take long for me to realize that every day I did my S.A.V.E.R.S., I felt better, more fulfilled, and more productive, and every day that I slept in, I usually woke feeling lethargic, unfocused, and unproductive.
Experiment for yourself. You may start, as I did, by doing the Miracle Morning during the week and taking the weekends off. See how you feel on those Saturday and Sunday mornings. If you feel, like many people do, that every day is better when you begin it with your Miracle Morning, you might just find that weekends are your favorite time to do it.
When, Why, and What to Eat in the Morning
Up until this point, you may have been wondering, When do I get to eat breakfast in relation to my Miracle Morning? Besides when you eat, what you choose to eat is even more critical, and why you choose to eat what you eat may be most important of all.
When to Eat
Keep in mind that digesting food is one of the most energy-draining processes that the body endures each day. The bigger the meal, the more food you are burdening your body with having to digest and the more drained you will feel. With that in mind, I recommend eating after your Miracle Morning. This ensures that, for optimum alertness and focus during the S.A.V.E.R.S., your blood will be flowing to your brain rather than to your stomach to digest your food.
If you feel like you must eat something first thing in the morning, make sure that it’s a small, light, easily digestible meal, such as fresh fruit or a smoothie, and ideally includes healthy fat to fuel your brain (more on that in a minute).
Why to Eat
Let’s take a moment to discuss why you eat the foods that you do. When you’re shopping at the grocery store or selecting food from a menu at a restaurant, what criteria do you use to determine which foods you are going to put into your body? Are your choices based purely on taste? Texture? Convenience? Are they based on health? Energy? Longevity?
Most people eat the foods they do based mainly on the taste and, at a deeper level, their emotional attachment to the foods they like. If you were to ask someone, “Why did you eat that ice cream?” or “Why did you drink that soda?” or “Why did you bring that fried chicken home from the grocery store?” you would most likely hear responses like, “Mm, because I love ice cream!” or “I love the taste of soda!” or “I was in the mood for fried chicken!” All answers based on the emotional enjoyment derived primarily from the way these foods taste. In this case, this person is not likely to explain their food choices with regards to how much value these foods will add to their health or how much sustained energy they’ll enjoy as a result.
My point is this: if you want to have more energy (we all do) and if you want your life to be healthy and disease-free (who doesn’t?), then it is crucial that you re-examine why you eat the foods that you do and—this is important—start making a conscious choice to place significantly more value on the health and energy consequences (and benefits) of the foods you choose than you do on the taste. In no way am I saying that you should eat foods that don’t taste good in exchange for health and energy benefits. I am saying that you can have both. If you want to live every day with an abundance of energy so you can perform at your best and live a long, healthy life, you must choose to eat more foods that contribute to your health and give you sustained energy, as well as taste great.
What to Eat (and Drink)
Before we talk about what to eat, let’s take a second to talk about what to drink. Remember that step 4 of the five-step snooze-proof wake-up strategy (see page 57) is to drink a full glass of water—first thing in the morning—so you can rehydrate and re-energize after a full night of sleep. Extra points when you add a little sea salt and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Sea salt can help balance your potassium and sodium levels. This is actually an issue for many people, but they don’t realize it. When dissolved in water, potassium and sodium turn into ions, which are essential for optimal neurological health, cardiovascular system function, and cellular health. Lemon juice helps to alkalize the body, which is beneficial to balancing the typically acid-heavy diet that the average person consumes.
As for what to eat, a diet rich in living foods, such as organic fruits and vegetables, as well as healthy fats for your brain, will greatly increase your energy levels, keep you healthy, protect you from disease, and improve your mental and emotional well-being.
After I drink a glass of water, the first thing I eat is a tablespoon of organic coconut oil, which is available at most health food stores. That provides my brain fuel to start the day and engage in my Miracle Morning and puts something in my stomach to take my vitamins with.
Around 7:30 AM, while I’m helping Ursula get our children ready for school, I make what I refer to as my Miracle Morning superfood smoothie. It is a low-sugar, nutrient-rich blend of healthy fats from organic pecans and chia seeds, immunity-boosting nutrition from organic berries and spinach, stimulating and mood-lifting phytonutrients from cacao nibs, and a boost of caffeine and polyphenols from organic matcha green tea, all topped off with an organic plant-based vanilla protein powder. I also regularly change up the ingredients to keep it interesting. You can get the most up-to-date recipe at MiracleMorning.com/resources. That way, you can keep the printed recipe by your blender and not your copy of this book. If you’re like me, you might occasionally forget to secure the lid on your blender and end up with superfood smoothie all over your kitchen (true story). And that’s definitely not a Miracle Morning!
Remember the old saying “you are what you eat”? Take care of your body so your body will take care of you. I recommend applying the 80/20 rule here—as long as 80 percent of your food choices are healthy, you can splurge a little on the other 20 percent. The way I do it is eating an organic plant-based diet for the first 10 to 12 hours that I’m awake (a smoothie for breakfast, salad for lunch, organic nuts for snacks in between), which provides my body and brain with an abundance of energy. Then for dinner, I’ll usually have a small portion of high-quality meat, such as pasture-raised chicken, wild-caught fish, grass-fed beef, and so on, along with a serving of organic vegetables. Think of it as “vegan by day, paleo by night.”
How to Use the S.A.V.E.R.S. to Achieve Your Goals and Dreams
Most of us have goals we want to achieve or changes we want to make, and Miracle Morning practitioners use their S.A.V.E.R.S. to enhance their ability to achieve their goals and make their desired changes. This is especially true of any goals they’ve been putting off or haven’t been making time for—such as starting a business or writing a book. The S.A.V.E.R.S. will absolutely improve your ability to stay focused on your goals and identify which actions you need to take each day to make consistent forward progress.
For example, use some of your time spent in silence to contemplate your goals and embody the mental and emotional states that will help you achieve them.
When you create your affirmations using the results-oriented formula you learned earlier, make sure that you incorporate your most important goals and dreams so that your affirmations continually reinforce your clarity and commitment to follow through. Reading them daily will keep you focused on your highest priorities and the actions you need to take to achieve them.
When you are doing your morning visualization, imagine yourself effortlessly enjoying the process of achieving your goals (like I did while training for the ultramarathon) and keep a clear picture of what it will look like once achieved. Remember to maintain an optimal emotional state as you visualize, which will compel you to take the actions you’ve affirmed. The more vivid and compelling your vision is, the more effective it will be in increasing your desire and motivation to take the necessary steps toward your goals each day.
Exercise is a bit of an anomaly in this case (unless your goals are fitness related), but you can always listen to podcasts or audiobooks related to the goals you are working toward while you exercise. I have a friend who records herself reciting her affirmations and then listens to them while running on the treadmill.
When choosing which books and articles to read, select those that are in alignment with your goals to help accelerate how quickly you achieve them. If you want to improve your marriage or make more money, reading books on those topics will inevitably increase your chances of success. Remember, I started my Miracle Morning during the Great Recession when I was broke and in debt, and it was reading Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port that taught me the strategies I needed to get more clients and turn my financial situation around.
Finally, your scribing time can be completely focused on your goals. You can brainstorm the various ways you could reach your goals. You can clarify your top priorities in writing. You can acknowledge yourself for the progress you’ve made. You can reflect on your efforts and identify any areas where you may need to adjust your approach.
Whatever your goals—whether improving your marriage, increasing your income, losing weight, beating cancer, starting a blog, changing careers, becoming an entrepreneur, or any other meaningful outcome—your daily S.A.V.E.R.S. routine will help you to show up at your best every day so that you can achieve them.
Keeping Your Miracle Morning Fresh, Fun, and Exciting!
Over the last decade and a half, I estimate that I’ve done somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,500 Miracle Mornings. During that time, I’ve realized that my Miracle Morning will never stop evolving. While I still practice the S.A.V.E.R.S. every day and don’t see any reason I would ever stop wanting to experience the benefits of those six practices, I do think it’s important to mix things up and keep variety in your Miracle Morning so things don’t get boring or stale.
For example, you might change your morning exercise routine monthly. You could try different guided or self-directed meditations. As I mentioned when discussing affirmations, as you continue to learn, grow, and elevate your consciousness, your affirmations should be updated to reflect whom you’re becoming and your current goals. Naturally, the books you read will change as you complete each one, giving you something new to look forward to.
You can also adjust your Miracle Morning on the fly based on your changing schedule, circumstances, and priorities for the day. When I’m preparing for an upcoming keynote speech, I allocate my visualization to practice and rehearse my performance. When I’m traveling and staying in hotels, I adjust my Miracle Morning accordingly. For example, if I’m scheduled to give a late-night keynote or workshop at a conference, I move my wake-up and start time a little later. As I’ve been writing this book (my number one goal at the moment), my S.A.V.E.R.S. have been heavily focused on helping me to complete it.
As you can see, you can always design, customize, and evolve your Miracle Morning to fit your lifestyle.
Final Thoughts on Customizing Your Miracle Morning
Most humans have an innate need for variety. For most of us, it’s important to keep our Miracle Mornings feeling fresh and new. I once complained to my mentor, Jesse, that my job as a sales rep was getting repetitive and boring. His response was, “Whose fault is it that it’s boring? And whose responsibility is it to make it fun again?” This is a valuable lesson in personal responsibility that I’ve never forgotten. Whether it’s our routines or our relationships, it’s our responsibility to actively and continuously make them the way we want them to be.