6 Activities for a Powerful Morning Routine

Good morning, everyone! I hope wherever you are listening that you are staying safe and healthy.

You know what they say…the early bird gets the worm. 

Normally, I am not a morning person. I do my most creative work at night. I love sleep, and it takes me several hours in the morning to fully wake up and become a functioning human. During quarantine, especially, my sleep schedule has been completely out of whack. 

But I am also a person who craves routine. I cannot sit still, and I am in a constant, relentless pursuit of pushing my boundaries, maximizing my potential, and ultimately living the best, most fulfilling life possible.

What I want out of my mornings is and should be different than what you want for yours. Right? We’re different. We have different goals. One of the reasons I want to become a morning person is to settle into my day calmly, rather than waking up and putting on a pot of coffee and immediately signing in to work or logging into my social media accounts. 

Technology and social media are HUGE deterrents from having a productive morning. When I first launched my show, I talked about how to battle our culture of consumption and minimize screen time – so go give episode one a listen if you haven’t already for tips on that.

If I start my day on a positive note, then the rest of my day will likely be positive too. But if I start out frantic every morning, then I’ll have anxiety and stress all day long.

Another reason I want to wake up earlier is simply to gain more time in my life. 

There’s a quote that I’ve kept in my phone notes from a guy that quit his six-figure job to pursue his passions, and it goes: 

“50% of my life during the week was dedicated to growing someone else’s business. 33% of my life during the week was sleep; replenishing my energy to grow someone else’s business. That left me with 17% of my life… I sold 83% of me so I could try and “live on my own terms” 17% of the time.”

By getting up earlier, I essentially want to maximize the time that I can live on my own terms, build my business, and ultimately claim the life that I truly want. Even getting up one hour earlier gives me an extra 15 days worth of time every year. And if you can’t tell, I am all about productivity.

For you, you might want to get some quiet time in before the kids wake up, to make a healthy breakfast, or whatever the reason might be, but the purpose is to be more intentional about your mornings.

So in the coming weeks, I’ll be attempting to transform my mornings, courtesy of a recent book I picked up called The Miracle Morning. It was written by Hal Elrod, and it’s sold over two million copies.

Anyway, Hal Elrod has been through some challenges in his own life, including two near-death experiences, and he says by introducing these dix practices into your morning routine, they are – and I quote – “guaranteed to save you from a life of unfulfilled potential.”

So, the the six practices in the “Miracle Morning” routine are called “S. A. V. E. R. S.” (S-A-V-E-R-S), and Elrod uses it as an acronym for:

1. Silence
2. Affirmations
3. Visualizations
4. Exercise
5. Reading
6. And Scribing (aka writing, but the W would’ve ruined the acronym).

When is the last time that you just sat in complete silence and listened? It’s pretty uncomfortable if you’ve never done it before. For this, you can choose to just sit without distraction, practice meditation, do breathing exercises. I think there is even a 10-minute meditation playlist on Spotify.

I plan to either listen to a sound machine or my Calm app. Even that isn’t necessarily complete silence, this step is about building a stronger mind-body connection and improving our relationship with just being and sitting still.

Affirmations

Come up with 3 “I am” statements. Write them down on post-its. Put them on your bathroom mirror, and say them out loud every morning. Repeat them all day long if you can. My “I am” statements are: I am in control of my own destiny. I am financially free. I am a wildly successful business owner.” I do switch these up from time to time.

Hal says: “They immediately make an impression on your subconscious mind…They transform how you think and feel so you can overcome your limiting beliefs and behaviors and replace them with those you need to succeed.”

You might roll your eyes or think repeating these things out loud is corny, but trust me, it works. And what do you have to lose?

Visualizations

Through visualization, you train your brain to see things as you would like them to be instead of as they are. This is different from Affirmations; Affirmations are about just being, and visualizations are goal-oriented. For example, when you envision your best life – and the best possible version of yourself, what does that look like? Close your eyes. Try and picture it. Try and create the scene, smell the smells, and hear the sounds in your brain.

Examples of what I do to visualize include standing in front of my vision board and intently looking at each thing pinned on there, or scrolling through my Pinterest boards to get in touch with my aspirational nature – the way I want my body and house to look, the recipes I want to cook, the places I want to travel.

Exercise

Pretty self explanatory, right? Take a walk around the block while you’re drinking your coffee or tea, take the dogs for a walk, do jumping jacks, ride your bike, stretch, dance around your bedroom, whatever. Just get your body moving, and that blood and oxygen pumping to let your brain know that you are AWAKE.

Reading

I know I’ve overviewed a few books on this show so far, but like I said, I’m obsessed with personal growth and development, and I think we should all make time for it, so I’m glad this one was included on Hal’s list. He says, “The fastest way to achieve everything you want is to model successful people who have already achieved it.”

You don’t have to read chapters on chapters, unless you want to. But you should aim to get in 10 pages every morning – you can even start by reading The Miracle Morning! 

Scribing

AKA journaling. There’s a lot that you can write about in the mornings, like three things you’re grateful for, areas you want to improve in, the biggest goals or to-dos you want to check-off that day, and more. It doesn’t have to be pen to paper; it can also be on a screen. 

I already plan out my weeks in a bullet journal, so I have all of my daily goals planned out that are aligned with my weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. So I’m planning to spend my writing time bulleting out future podcast episodes, and working on concepts for a course I’m creating. 

If you are going to use a screen to write, I would recommend opening your document before you close your computer the night before, to minimize distractions once you do log in first thing. Remember – this time is yours, so don’t let those screens and red notification bubbles steal it from you!

And those are Hal Elrod’s SAVERS steps to a miracle morning! 

A lot of people wonder how long you have to spend doing each, and that’s really up to you. But start with just one minute for each. If you can’t find and spend six minutes each morning, then I don’t know how to help. But if you do this, it could wind up being the most powerful six minutes of your life.

You don’t even have to do all of these – you can do the one that excites you most. You don’t have to be limited by these six either. 

A mindset coach whose podcast I listen to regularly, talks about “eating the frog” and tackling the one task in the morning that you just don’t want to do. He suggests things like taking really cold showers, and if the sun is shining, going and letting the sun hit your skin.

The sunshine will actually communicate with the receptors in your brain and tell your body to physically stop producing melatonin because of your circadian rhythm. Your circadian rhythm is basically a 24-hour internal clock that’s regulated by light.

I’m going to start dedicating 5-10 minutes to each of these, to start, figure out what resonates with me the most, and allocate my time differently based on that. I know I can spend a ton more time writing than I could sitting in silence. And I’m setting small goals for myself, to wake up just 10 minutes earlier, every single day, so that a few weeks from now, I’ll have several hours to enjoy and look forward to each morning.

Listen, I really hope some of you join me with this. If you do plan on following this challenge, DM me on Instagram @darnroberts and let me know.

No matter what you decide to do, remember the point is to be intentional with your mornings, to start them in a positive way, and to wake up to your full potential.

Because how you spend your time is how you spend your life.

My friends, life is short, so do your best to make it a darn good one. Thank you so much for spending your precious time with me today.