Have you heard of The Miracle Morning?
It’s a book by Hal Elrod and is currently all the rage in the entrepreneur/online business space. I read it and think you should too.
(Side note: If you join Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited 30-day free trial
, you can read it for free! Just make sure to cancel your membership before your 30 days are up or you’ll be charged ~$10/m thereafter.)
Why? Well it’ll help you to change your mindset when it comes to starting each day off on the right foot.
Hopefully you know that jumping into email first thing isn’t the right way to start your day… If you don’t, you need to change up your business schedule ASAP!
It took me WAY TOO LONG to learn this lesson personally. But once I figured it out, my business changed for the better. I was even able to do this with my two remaining VA clients too!
Seriously, it’s changed my business (and stress level) 100%.
Instead of getting bogged down with putting out fires or burning up all of my creative energy first thing dealing with customer service issues (which are 90% negative), I can start each day by pre-planning my day, exercising, reading, etc.
What My Miracle Morning Looks Like
This is for the most part what I strive for them to look like, but I’m a mom of young kids and we all know that life rarely goes as planned. Know that having a plan and doing your best is what’s most important here – not perfection!
Wake Up Call
I use my Pavlok to wake up each morning at (or around 😉 ) 4 am each weekday morning. I purchased the Pavlok last year after hearing Maneesh Sethi (Ramit’s bro) on Pat Flynn’s podcast.
(Side note: I know I mention Pat’s podcast a lot – it’s because it’s one of the only podcasts that I find myself listening to and get extreme value from!)
As a former Psychology major, I <3 all things behavioral psych.
- Why do we do what we do?
- How can we making lasting changes when it comes to our habits?
It’s no wonder I found the Pavlok (think Pavlov and his dogs) interesting and decided to purchase one of my own wrist devices. While it does much more, I use it strictly for an alarm right now.
Why? Well it vibrates and SHOCKS me when it’s time to get my butt outta bed. It can also sound an alarm, but my whole point of using it is that it wakes ME up, but no one else.
My kids are LIGHT SLEEPERS y’all. So while I want to get up at the butt crack of dawn, I don’t want them to.
Pre-Breakfast
So after I get shocked once or twice, I rub the sleep outta my eyes and make my way to the kitchen to (quietly) make myself a piece of peanut butter toast with banana and shuffle downstairs to my office.
My toast is paired with my first cup o’ coffee, which is usually regular strength. I eat breakfast and sip my cup of joe while reading my daily devotional.
I prefer Joyce Meyer’s and usually just pull it up on my phone with the Praise & Worship station playing from Amazon Music in the background, which is included with my Prime membership (you can also try Amazon Prime for free using their 30-day free trial).
Next, I break out my SELF Journal (<3 this thing!) where I’ll notate what I’ve just read in the devotional (to help it sink in!) and then start planning my day. I have FOUGHT pre-planning my days for SO long…
Turns out, it’s super helpful.
And helps you to stay on task, focus on the right things (your MITs) and get stuff done! Who would thunk?!? 😉
Don’t you love those colored pens? They’re also ERASABLE! How cool is that?
As you can see from above, the day’s view includes fields for:
- Your daily schedule
- Morning gratitude entries
- Goal reflection
- Today’s targets (or as I call them MITs – most important tasks)
- An encouraging quote
- Lessons learned (what didn’t go so well?)
- Wins (what can you celebrate?)
- Evening gratitude entries
The SELF Journal is the perfect accompaniment to The 12 Week Year and The Miracle Morning. I’m currently in my second 12 week year cycle and am KILLING IT! (Especially compared the first one, which was pretty much a flop. 😉 )
Self-Development
So after I pre-plan my day, it’s time for some self-development reading. I have tons of books on my shelf, on my Kindle app and in Audible (my favorite free trial of Amazon’s lineup!)
I’m currently reading the monstrous (but surprisingly light) Tools of Titans book by Tim Ferriss. It’s SO good. And a perfect book to tackle a few minutes at a time!
Moving My Body
Sometimes I’ll do my favorite 5-minute morning yoga routing from YouTube, but most of the time, I’ll head for the gym.
My goal is to get to the gym M-F around 5 am for an hour workout. I’ve recently started working out with a personal trainer, so it might change slightly depending on her availability.
When I was working out on my own, I’d use the custom training plan I purchased from Hitch Fit. It’s still going to serve as a great guide on the 2/5 days per week I workout on my own.
I combine strength training and cardio in each workout, which currently looks like this (on my own days):
- Run 1.5 miles (at 6.4-6.7 mph – depending on how awake/energetic I am)
- Do first set of strength training exercises (usually 10-13 reps and 4-6 exercises)
- Run another mile
- Do second set of weights
- Run another half mile
- Do one last set of weights
*During the three miles I run each day, I’ll either listen to a podcast episode or an audiobook. Either make for a great distraction!
Prior to my workout I’m drinking a serving of BCAA’s and post workout I’m now drinking a protein shake – yummy! 😉
You may have read in a recent newsletter that I’ve committed (not registered, but that’ll be soon enough) to being in a fitness competition this October. This was one of my three “B” goals for this year and I’m excited to now have a plan in place (and a date) to achieve it.
Post Workout
The gym I’m now going to is maybe a five minute drive, so travel time is much less than when we went to the YMCA.
I get home around 6:30 am (give or take) and spend the next ~30 minutes either jumping into my MITs or more lately reading about other people’s fitness competition experiences. I want to stay motivated and reading other’s success stories will help!
The Rest of My Day
Day-in-the-life posts are super popular.
And for good reason – we’re all voyeurs, right? That’s why reality television is so popular…
At 7 am, I typically head back upstairs for breakfast. I make myself a super yummy omelet (one whole egg, egg whites, plus loads of sauteed veggies) and whatever the kiddos are into that day. Lately that’s peanut butter toast with banana for Shelbs, because she wants to be like her mama. 🙂
After breakfast, I hit the showers and get dressed for the day. Then it’s time for my “real workday” to begin.
I go back to (or start on) my MITs for the day and then follow my pre-planned schedule for the rest of the day. I batch calls/meetings to Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings, so the rest of my time is concentrated on those MITs, as well as the two hours I have blocked out for email (11 am – 12 pm and 4 – 5 pm).
Then at 5 pm I clock out for the day!
I’ve said it before, but I think it’s funny that I settled into a similar work routine that I had while working in Corporate America. I mean it’s fairly flexible – yesterday I got my hairs did and renewed my license during my “workday,” but I tend to keep “banker’s hours” for the most part.
The Miracle Morning Works!
Getting up early to practice my Miracle Morning, pre-planning my day and batching meetings/calls have been GAME CHANGERS for my business.
There’s no guesswork as to what I need to be doing when. And I now have firm boundaries around my work time.
As I mentioned above, it’s not perfect. But life rarely is. It is a blueprint for me to work off of though and if you know me at all, you know that Gina’s just happier with a plan. 😉
Sound off in the comments – have you heard of The Miracle Morning? Have you tried it?
