Book Review: The Miracle Morning

Book: The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)
Size: 170 pages
Publisher:  Hal Elrod (December 7, 2012)
My Rating:🌟🌟🌟🌟
Category:  Self-help, Motivational, Entrepreneurship

Summary: Do you want to be more productive and fulfilled with your life?  The Miracle Morning argues that can be accomplished by taking the first moments in our morning to care for ourselves.  In practical and actionable steps, Hal outlines six steps you should do each morning (for 10 minutes each) using the acronym SAVERS.

1. Silence – Quiet your mind
2. Affirmations –  Think about the person you want to be
3. Visualization – Think about the goals you want to accomplish
4. Exercise – Not a full workout, just a few minutes to get your body going
5. Read – Feeding your mind
6. Scribbles – Journaling. You can divide a paper in half and write lessons learned on one half and new commitments on the other

My Review: 

I think Hal’s message is excellent.  I have found the disciplines of daily prayer, reading and journaling have made a big difference in my life. His book challenged me to set my alarm a half hour early and getting up and exercising consistently and purposefully.  This is an area of my life I have struggled with being consistent. I was skeptical at first, but I like his advice to tell yourself the night before you are getting enough sleep and assuring yourself you will wake rested.

I had pretty much dismissed affirmations and visualizations until I was reviewing my notes in order to write this post.  At first they seemed silly and almost like self promotion. But, I don’t think so any more.  I tweaked them a bit and have found they sent the tone for my day.  For affirmations I started writing  a few actionable sentences in my journal from my quiet time with God.  For visualizations I write a few sentences in my journal on how I perceive my ideal day looking.

There is a lot of buzz online. Hal has a website, Facebook community and  lots of tools  to help you implement the steps in the book.  Once you finish the book you can start right away implementing actionable steps. This book is definitely not meant to be read and shelved – which is probably what I would have done if I hadn’t been writing a review.  The key is to absorb the concepts and allow them to change your life.

What I liked:

• The Miracle Morning website. Hal is generous with a Fast Start Kit as well as free downloads of sample affirmations and journal.
• The 30 Day Life Transformation Challenge – I love that he has actionable steps to implement the book.
• It is a best seller and he is self published and has partnered with experts in various fields to write, The Miracle Morning for writers, sales people, net-workers and real estate agents.
• The momentum his book is creating.  His personality is energetic and catchy – his blog, podcasts and book are fun. His Facebook community has 53k followers.

I would recommend this book to: Anyone who wants to be happier, more productive, more focused -or just wanting to live their life intentionally.

Sum it up: In order to work well, love others well and live well, you need to first make sure you are caring for yourself.