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The Life S.A.V.E.R.S. >Six Practices Guaranteed To Save You From a Life of Unfulfilled Potential

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. Overwhelmed. Frustrated. Unfulfilled. Blah.

These are a few unpleasant words that provide a rather unfortunate, but fairly accurate description of how the average person feels about his or her life, far too often.

You and I are undoubtedly living in one of the most prosperous, advanced times in human history, with more opportunities and resources available to us than ever before. Yet most of us aren’t tapping into the unlimited potential that is within every single one of us. I’m not okay with that. Are you?

The Potential Gap

Have you ever felt like the life you want to live and the person you know you can be are just beyond your grasp? Do you ever feel like you’re chasing your potential—you know it’s there, you can see it—but you can never quite catch it? When you see people who are excelling in an area that you’re not, does it seem like they’ve got it all figured out—like they must know something that you don’t know, because if you knew it, then you’d be excelling in that area too?

Most of us live our lives on the wrong side of a huge gap in our potential, a gap which separates who we are from who we can become. We are often frustrated with ourselves, our lack of consistent motivation, effort and results in one or more areas of life. 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. We all 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 very near your current potential and that a few tweaks could make all the difference. Or you might feel the opposite—like your potential is so far away from who you’ve been that you don’t even know where to start. Whatever the case is for you, know that it is absolutely possible and attainable for you to live your life on the right side of your potential gap and become the person you are capable of becoming.

Whether you are currently sitting on the wrong side of the grand canyon of your potential, 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 close that gap and get to the next level—this chapter will introduce you to six tools that will enable you to go from where you are—accepting less from yourself than what you know is possible— to developing yourself into the person you know you can become.

Your Life Is Not What You Think It Is

Most of us are so busy trying to manage, maintain, or even just survive our life “situation” that we don’t make the time to focus on what’s most important—our life. What’s the difference? Our life situation is the set of external circumstances, events, people, and places that surround us. It’s not who we are. We are more than our life situation.

Your life is who you are at the deepest level. Your life is made up of the internal components, attitudes, and mindsets that can give you the power to alter, enhance, or change your life situation at any given moment.

Your life is made up of the Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual parts that make up every human being—or P.I.E.S. for short. The Physical includes things like your body, health, and energy. The Intellectual incorporates your mind, intelligence, and thoughts. The Emotional takes into account your emotions, feelings, and attitudes. The Spiritual includes intangibles such as your spirit, soul, and the unseen higher power that oversees all.

Your life is where your ability to create new feelings, perspectives, beliefs, and attitudes in your “inner” world lies, so that you can create or alter the circumstances, relationships, results, and anything else in the “external” realm of your life situation. As many sages have taught us: our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. In other words, by focusing time and effort each day on developing your P.I.E.S., and constantly becoming a better version of yourself, your life situation will inevitably—almost automatically—improve.

I can assure you that through my own transformative journey—from the depths of mediocrity, justifying my excuses and living most areas of my life somewhere in between mediocre and average, to achieving goals that at one time seemed impossible for me—your commitment to daily personal development will be as instrumental for your transformation as it was for mine.

Time To Save The Life You Deserve To Live

For too many people, the extraordinary, fulfilling abundant life that they really want—our Level 10 life—eludes them because they’re so overwhelmed and overrun with their day-to-day life situation. Their life situation is eating up all of their time so that their life, and what matters most, isn’t getting attended to.

In order to save your Level 10 life from being neglected and limited by the demands of your life situation—which ultimately leads to a life of regret, unfulfilled potential, and even mediocrity—you must prioritize and dedicate time each day to your personal development. Enter The Miracle Morning Life S.A.V.E.R.S.—a set of six simple, life-enhancing, life-changing daily practices, each of which develops one or more of the physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual aspects of your life, so that you can become who you need to be to create the life you want.

Remember, when you change your inner world—your life—then your outer world—your life situation—will improve in parallel.

The First “S” of S.A.V.E.R.S.

Nope, it’s not “sleep.” Sorry. While I know many people would love it if they could sleep their way to success, unless you have been cryogenically frozen and are awaiting a large inheritance at the time of being thawed out—life just doesn’t work that way.

Here are six powerful, proven personal development practices known as the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. that you’ll use to gain access to the powerful forces—already within you—that will enable you to alter, change, or transform any area of your life. Let’s look at each of the six personal development tools that make up the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. and how each will help you become the person you need to be to easily attract, create, and live the most extraordinary life you have ever imagined. Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

S is for Silence

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. —MAHATMA GANDHI

You can learn more in an hour of silence than you can in a year from books. —MATTHEW KELLY

Silence is the first practice of the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. and may be one of the most significant areas for improvement for our noisy, fast-paced and over-stimulated lifestyles. I’m referring to the life-transforming power of purposeful Silence. “Purposeful” simply means that you are engaging in a period of Silence with a highly beneficial purpose in mind—not just for the heck of it. As Matthew Kelly so eloquently states in his bestselling book The Rhythm of Life, “You can learn more in an hour of silence than you can in a year from books.” That’s a powerful statement from a very wise man.

If you want to immediately reduce your stress levels, to begin each day with the kind of calm, clarity, and peace of mind that will allow you to stay focused on what’s most important in your life, and even dance on the edge of enlightenment—do the opposite of what most people do—start every morning with a period of purposeful Silence.

The life-enhancing benefits of Silence have been well documented throughout the ages. From the power of prayer, to the magic of meditation, some of the greatest minds in history have used purposeful Silence to transcend their limitations and create extraordinary results.

How Do Your Mornings Usually Begin?

Do you invest time in centering yourself and creating an optimum state of mind to lead you through the rest of the day? Or do you usually wait to wake up until you’ve got something to do? Do the words calm, peaceful, or rejuvenating describe your average morning? If they do, congratulations! You’re already a step ahead of the rest of us.

For most of us, words like rushed, hectic, stressful or even chaotic might best describe our typical morning. For others, slow, lazy, and lethargic might be a more accurate description of how the morning begins. Which of these scenarios best describes your average morning?

Mornings, for most of us, are typically pretty hectic and rushed. We’re usually running around trying to get ready for the day, and our minds are often plagued with internal chatter about what we have to do, where we have to go, who we have to see, what we forgot to do, the fact that we’re running late, a recent argument with our significant other or family member.

For others, we have trouble just getting going on most mornings. We feel sluggish, lazy, and unproductive. So, for the great majority of us, the mornings are either stressful and rushed, or slow and unproductive. Neither of these represents the optimum way to start your day.

Silence is one of the best ways to immediately reduce stress, while increasing your self-awareness and gaining the clarity that will allow you to maintain your focus on your goals, priorities, and what’s most important for your life, each and every day.

Here are some of my favorite activities to choose from and practice during my period of Silence, in no particular order, followed by a simple meditation to get you started:

Ö MeditationÖ PrayerÖ ReflectionÖ Deep BreathingÖ Gratitude

Some mornings I do just one of these activities, and other mornings I combine them. All of these practices will relax your mind and body, calm your spirit, and allow you to be totally present and open to receiving the benefits that will come from the remaining Life S.A.V.E.R.S. which make up the rest of your Miracle Morning.

It is very important that you don’t stay in bed for this, and preferably that you leave your bedroom altogether. The problem with staying in bed—or even in your bedroom, where your comfy bed is within your line of sight—is that it’s too easy to go from sitting in Silence, to slouching, to falling back asleep. I always sit on my living room couch, where I already have everything set up that I need for my Miracle Morning. My affirmations, journal, yoga DVD, the book I’m currently reading—everything has its place and is ready for me each day so that, in the morning, it’s easy to jump right in and engage in my Miracle Morning, without having to search for anything.

Meditation

Since there are plenty of great books, articles, and websites that concentrate on meditation, I won’t go into too much detail in describing the proven benefits and the various approaches to meditating. Instead, I’ll just mention a few of what I believe are the most significant benefits, and give you simple step-by-step meditation that you can begin immediately.

The essence of meditation is simply silencing or focusing the mind for a period of time. You may or may not be aware of all the extraordinary health benefits of meditating. Study after study shows that meditation can be more effective than medication. Studies link regular meditation to changes in metabolism, blood pressure, brain activation, and other mind and bodily functions. It can alleviate stress and pain, promote sleep, enhance focus and concentration, and even increase lifespan. Meditation also requires very little time. You can take advantage of the benefits of meditation in just a few minutes a day.

Well-known celebrities, CEOs and highly successful people like Jerry Seinfeld, Sting, Russell Simmons, Oprah and many more have publically stated that regular, often daily, meditation has become an invaluable part of their life. TupperwareTM CEO Rick Goings told The Financial Times that he tried to meditate for at least 20 minutes every day, stating, “For me, it’s a practice that not only burns off stress, but gives me fresh eyes to clarify what’s really going on and what really matters.” Oprah told Dr. Oz that Transcendental MeditationTM has helped her “connect with that which is God,” according to the Huffington Post.

There are many genres and types of meditation, but generally speaking you can divide them into two categories: “guided” and “individual” meditations. Guided meditations are those in which you listen to another person’s voice and receive instructions to help guide your thoughts, focus, and awareness. Individual meditations are simply those you do on your own, without assistance from anyone else.

Miracle Morning Meditation

Here is a simple, step-by-step individual meditation that you can use during your Miracle Morning, even if you’ve never meditated before.

§ Before beginning your meditation, it’s important to prepare your mindset and set your expectations. This is a time for you to quiet your mind and let go of the compulsive need to constantly be thinking about something—either reliving the past, stressing or worrying about the future—but never living fully in the present. This is the time to let go of your stresses, take a break from worrying about your problems, and be fully present in this moment. It is a time to access the essence of who you truly are—to go deeper than what you have, what you do, or the labels you’ve accepted as “who you are”—which most people have never even attempted to do. Accessing this essence of who you truly are is often referred to as “just being.” Not thinking, not doing, just being. If this sounds foreign to you, or too “new-agey” that’s okay. I used to feel the same way. It’s probably just because you’ve never tried it before. But thankfully, you’re about to.

§ Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit. You can sit up straight on the couch, on a chair, on the floor, or sit on a pillow, for added comfort.

§ Sit upright, cross-legged. You can close your eyes, or you can look down at the ground, approximately two feet in front of you.

§ Begin by focusing on your breath, taking slow, deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth, and be sure to breathe into your belly, rather than your chest. The most effective breathing should cause your belly to expand, and not your chest.

§ Now, start pacing your breath; in slowly on a count of 3 seconds (one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, three, one-thousand)… hold it in for 3 seconds (one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, three, one-thousand)… and then breathe out slowly on a count of 3 seconds (one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, three, one-thousand). Feel your thoughts and emotions settling down as you focus on your breath. Be aware that as you attempt to quiet your mind, thoughts will still come in to pay a visit. Simply acknowledge them, then let them go, always returning your focus to your breath.

§ Remember, this is a time for you to let go of your compulsive need to constantly be thinking about something. This is a time to let go of your stress and take a break from worrying about your problems. This is the time to be fully present in this moment. This is often referred to as just being. Not thinking, not doing, just being. Continue to follow your breaths, and imagine inhaling positive, loving, peaceful energy, and exhaling all of your worries and stress. Enjoy the quiet. Enjoy the moment. Just breathe… Just be.

§ If you find that you have a constant influx of thoughts, it may be helpful for you to focus on a single word or a phrase, and repeat it over and over again to yourself, as you inhale and exhale. For example, you might try something like: (On the inhale) “I breathe in peace…” (As you exhale) “I breathe out love… I breathe in peace…” (inhale)… “I breathe out love…” (exhale)… You can swap the words peace and love with whatever you feel like you need bring more of into your life (confidence, faith, belief, etc.), and whatever you feel like you want to give more of to the world.

§ Meditation is a gift you can give to yourself every day. It truly is an incredible gift. My time spent meditating has become one of my favorite parts of my day. It is a time to be at peace, to experience gratitude, and a time of freedom from our day-to-day stressors and worries. Think of daily meditation as a temporary vacation from your problems. While your problems will still be there when you finish your daily meditation, you’ll find that you are much more centered and better equipped to solve them.

Final Thoughts On Silence

There’s no single right way to spend time in Silence. You can pray, meditate, focus on what you’re grateful for, or even engage in deep thought. For me, sitting in Silence—especially meditating—was at first rather difficult, probably because I have what doctors have diagnosed as ADHD. I don’t know that I agree with their diagnosis or even with the idea that ADHD is a “disorder” (that’s another conversation for another time), but I can attest that it’s definitely a challenge for me to sit still and quiet my mind. Thoughts tend to race in and out, bouncing around like a pinball, almost nonstop.

So even though I would sit in Silence, my mind didn’t stop racing. The fact that sitting still and clearing my mind was so difficult for me was precisely the reason why I had to commit to mastering it. It took me three or four weeks of practicing Silence every day before I felt competent. I got to a place where I would allow thoughts to come in, I’d peacefully acknowledge them, and then quietly let them drift away without getting frustrated. So don’t be discouraged if spending time in Silence, or meditating, is at first a challenge for you.

As for how long to do your period of purposeful Silence, I recommend starting with five minutes, although in the next chapter I’ll teach you how you can experience the life-enhancing benefits of Silence in as little as 60 seconds a day! When I began this practice, I’d sit in Silence, calm and relaxed, say a prayer, meditate, ponder what I was grateful for, and just breathe deeply, for five minutes. It’s such a peaceful, perfect way to start each day. Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

A is for Affirmations

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. Once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen. —MUHAMMAD ALI

You will be a failure, until you impress the subconscious with the conviction you are a success. This is done by making an affirmation, which clicks. —FLORENCE SCOVEL SHINN

“I am the greatest!” Muhammad Ali affirmed these words over and over again—and then he became them. Affirmations are one of the most effective tools for quickly becoming the person you need to be to achieve everything you want in your life. Affirmations allow you to design and then develop the mindset (thoughts, beliefs, focus) that you need to take any area of your life to the next level.

It is no coincidence that some of the most successful people in our society—celebrities like Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Suze Orman, Muhammad Ali, Oprah, and many more—have all been vocal about their belief that positive thinking and the use of affirmations has helped them on their journey to success and wealth.

Whether or not you realize it, incessantly talking to one’s self is not just for crazy people. Every single one of us has an internal dialogue that runs through our heads, almost non-stop. Most of it is unconscious, that is, we don’t consciously choose the dialogue. Instead, we allow our past experiences—both good and bad—to replay over and over again. Not only is this completely normal, it is one of the most important processes for each of us to learn about and master. Yet, very few people take responsibility for actively choosing to think positive, proactive thoughts that will add value to their lives.

I recently read a statistic that 80% of women have self-deprecating thoughts about themselves (body image, job performance, other people’s opinion of them, etc.) throughout the day. I’m sure that men do also, although it may be to a lesser extent.

Your self-talk has dramatic influence on your level of success in every aspect of your life—confidence, health, happiness, wealth, relationships, etc. Your affirmations are either working for or against you, depending on how you are using them. If you don’t consciously design and choose your affirmations you are susceptible to repeating and reliving the fears, insecurities, and limitations of your past.

However, when you actively design and write out your affirmations to be in alignment with what you want to accomplish and who you need to be to accomplish it—and commit to repeating them daily (ideally out loud)—they immediately make an impression on your subconscious mind. Your affirmations go to work to transform the way you think and feel so you can overcome your limiting beliefs and behaviors and replace them with those you need to succeed.

How Affirmations Changed My Life

My first real-life exposure to the power of affirmations came when I was living with one of my most successful friends, Matt Recore. Nearly every day, I would hear Matt shouting from the shower in his bedroom. Thinking he was yelling for me, I would approach his bedroom door, only to find that he was shouting things like, “I am in control of my destiny! I deserve to be a success! I am committed to doing everything I must do today to reach my goals and create the life of my dreams!” What a weirdo, I thought.

The only previous exposure I had to affirmations was through a popular 1990s spoof on the hit TV show Saturday Night Live, in which Al Franken’s character Stuart Smalley used to stare into a mirror and repeat to himself, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” As a result, I always thought of affirmations as a joke. Matt knew better. As a student of Tony Robbins, Matt had been using affirmations and incantations for years to create extraordinary levels of success. Owning five homes, and one of the top network engineers in the country (all by age 25), I should have figured Matt knew what he was doing. After all, I was the one renting a room in his house. Unfortunately, it took me a few more years to realize that affirmations were one of the most powerful tools for transforming your life.

My first first-hand experience using affirmations came when I read about them in Napoleon Hill’s legendary book, Think and Grow Rich (which I highly recommend, by the way). Although I was skeptical that the repetition of affirmations was really going to make any measurable impact on my life, I thought I would give it a shot. If it worked for Matt, it might work for me. I chose to target the limiting belief I had developed after suffering significant brain damage in my car accident: I have a horrible memory.

If you read my first book, Taking Life Head On!, you know that my short term memory was almost non-existent following my car accident. While this led to some pretty comical incidents, my memory was so poor that friends and family would spend hours visiting with me at the hospital, take a quick lunch break, and then return to have me greet them as if I hadn’t seen them in years.

Facing such a real physical limitation due to a traumatic brain injury caused me to constantly reinforce the belief that I have a horrible memory. Anytime someone asked me to remember or remind them of something, I would always respond, “I would, but I really can’t—I have brain damage and a horrible short-term memory.”

It had been 7 years since my car accident, and while this belief was based on my reality then, it was time to let it go. Maybe my memory was so horrible, at least in part, because I had never made the effort to believe it could improve. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right either way.”

If affirmations could change what was, to me, the most justified limiting belief that I had, then they could probably change anything. So, I created my first affirmation which read: I am letting go of the limiting belief that I have a horrible memory. My brain is a miraculous organism capable of healing itself, and my memory can improve, but only in proportion to how much I believe it can improve. So, from this moment on, I am maintaining the unwavering belief that I have an excellent memory, and it’s continuing to get better every day.

I read this short affirmation every day, during my Miracle Morning. Still programmed with my past beliefs, I wasn’t sure it was working. Then, two months after my first day reciting my affirmation, something occurred that hadn’t occurred in over seven years. A friend asked me to remember to call her the next day, and I responded, “Sure, no problem.” As soon as the words left my mouth, my eyes widened and I got excited! My limiting belief about my horrible memory was losing its power. I had replaced it and reprogrammed my subconscious mind with my new, empowering belief, using my affirmations.

From that point on, having also added the belief that affirmations really work, not only did my memory continue to improve, but I created affirmations for every area of my life that I wanted to advance. I began using affirmations to improve my health, finances, relationships, overall happiness, confidence, as well as any and all beliefs, mindsets and habits that needed an upgrade. Nothing was off limits. There are no limits!

How’s Your Programming?

We’ve all been programmed—at the sub-conscious level—to think, believe, and act the way we do. Our programming is a result of many influences, including what we have been told by others, what we have told ourselves, and all of our life experiences—both good and bad. Some of us have programming that makes it easy for us to be happy and successful, while others—possibly the majority—have programming that makes life difficult.

So, the bad news is that if we don’t actively change our programming, our potential will be crushed and our lives limited by the fears, insecurities, and limitations of our past. We must stop programming ourselves for a life of mediocrity by focusing on what we’re doing wrong, being too hard on ourselves when we make mistakes, and causing ourselves to feel guilty, inadequate, and undeserving of the success we really want.

The good news is that our programming can be changed or improved at any time. We can reprogram ourselves to overcome all of our fears, insecurities, bad habits, and any self-limiting, potential-destroying beliefs and behaviors we currently have, so we can become as successful as we want to be, in any area of our lives we choose.

You can use affirmations to start programming yourself to be confident and successful in everything you do, simply by repeatedly telling yourself who you want to be, what you want to accomplish and how you are going to accomplish it. With enough repetition, your sub-conscious mind will begin to believe what you tell it, act upon it, and eventually manifest it in your reality.

Putting your affirmations in writing makes it possible for you to choose your new programming so it moves you towards that desired condition or state of mind by enabling you to consistently review it. Constant repetition of an affirmation will lead to acceptance by the mind, and result in changes in your thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. Since you get to choose and create your affirmations, you can design them to help you establish the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that you want and need to succeed.

5 Simple Steps To Create Your Own Affirmations

Here are 5 simple steps to create your first affirmation, followed by a link where you can download free Miracle Morning affirmations:

Step 1: What You Really Want

The purpose of a written affirmation is to program your mind with the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors/habits that are vital to your being able to attract, create, and to sustain your ideal levels of success—Level 10 success—in every area of your life. So, your affirmation must first clearly articulate exactly what you want your ideal life to be like, in each area.

You can organize your affirmations according to the areas that you most want to focus on improving, such as Health/Fitness, Mindset, Emotions, Finances, Relationships, Spirituality, etc. Begin with clarifying, in writing, what you really want—your ideal vision for yourself and your life—in each area.

Step 2: Why You Want It

As my good friend Adam Stock, President of Rising Stock, Inc. once told me, “The wise begin with whys.” Everyone wants to be happy, healthy, and successful, but wanting is rarely an effective strategy for getting. Those who overcome the temptations of mediocrity and achieve everything they want in life have an extraordinarily compelling why that drives them. They have defined a clear life purpose that is more powerful than the collective sum of their petty problems and the countless obstacles they will inevitably face, and they wake up each day and work towards their purpose.

Include why, at the deepest level, all of the things you want are important to you. Being crystal clear on your deepest whys will give you an unstoppable purpose.

Step 3: Whom You Are Committed To Being To Create It

As my first Coach, Jeff Sooey used to say, this is where the rubber meets the road. In other words, your life gets better only after you get better. Your outer world improves only after you’ve invested countless hours improving yourself. Being (who you need to be) and doing (what you need to do) are prerequisites for having what you want to have. Get clear on who you need to be, are committed to being, in order to take your life, business, health, marriage, etc. to the next level and beyond.

Step 4: What You’re Committed To Doing To Attain It

Which actions will you need to take on a consistent basis to make your vision for your ideal life a reality? Want to lose weight? Your affirmation might say something like: I am 100% committed to going to the gym 5 days a week and running on the treadmill for a minimum of 20 minutes. If you’re a salesperson, your affirmation might read: I’m committed to making 20 prospecting calls every day, from 8am-9am. The more specific your actions are, the better. Be sure to include frequency (how often), quantity (how many), and precise time frames (what times you’ll begin and end your activities.)

It’s also important to start small. If you’re going to the gym 0 days a week for 0 minutes, going to 5 days a week for 20 minutes is a big leap. It’s important to take manageable steps. Feel small successes along the way so you feel good and don’t get discouraged by setting expectations too high to be able to maintain. You can build up to your ideal goal. Start by writing down a daily or weekly goal and decide when you will increase it. After a few weeks of successfully meeting your goal of going to the gym 2-days-a-week for 20 minutes, then move it up to 3-days-a-week for 20 minutes, and so on.

Step 5: Add Inspirational Quotes and Philosophies

I am always on the lookout for quotes and philosophies that I can add to my affirmations. For example, one of my affirmations comes from the book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshal Goldsmith. It reads, “The #1 skill of influencers is the sincere effort to make a person feel that he or she is the most important person in the world. It’s one of the skills that Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Bruce Goodman used to become the best in their fields. I will do this for every person I connect with!”

Another reads: “Follow Tim Ferris’ advice: To maximize productivity, schedule 3-5 hour blocks or half-days of singularly focused attention on ONE single activity or project, rather than trying to switch tasks every 60 minutes.”

Anytime you see or hear a quote that inspires you, or come across an empowering philosophy or strategy and think to yourself: Man, that is a huge area of improvement for me, add it to your affirmations. By focusing on these every day, you will begin to integrate the empowering philosophies and strategies into your way of thinking and living, which will improve your results and quality of life.

Final Thoughts On Affirmations

§ In order for your affirmations to be effective, it is important that you tap into your emotions while reading them. Mindlessly repeating a phrase over and over again, without feeling its truth, will have a minimal impact on you. You must take responsibility for generating authentic emotions and powerfully infusing those emotions into every affirmation you repeat to yourself. Have fun with it. If you’re excited about an affirmation, it doesn’t hurt to dance and shout it from the rooftops!

§ It can also be beneficial to incorporate a purposeful physiology, such as reciting your affirmations while standing tall, taking deep breaths, making a fist, or exercising. Combining physical activity with affirmations is a great way to harness the power of the mind-body connection.

§ Keep in mind that your affirmations will never really be a “final” draft, because you should always be updating them. As you continue to learn, grow, and evolve, so should your affirmations. When you come up with a new goal, dream, habit, or philosophy you want to integrate into your life, add it to your affirmations. When you accomplish a goal or completely integrate a new habit into your life, you might find it’s no longer necessary to focus on it every day, and thus choose to remove it from your affirmations.

§ Finally, you must be consistent with reading your daily affirmations. That’s right, you must read them daily. Saying an occasional affirmation is as effective as getting an occasional workout. You won’t see any measurable results until you make them a part of your daily routine. That’s largely what The Miracle Morning 30-Day Life Transformation Challenge (in Chapter 9) is all about—making each of the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. a habit so you can do them effortlessly.

§ One more thing to consider: reading this book—or any book—is an affirmation to yourself. Anything you read influences your thoughts. When you consistently read positive self-improvement books and articles, you are programming your mind with the thoughts and beliefs that will support you in creating success.

Visit www.TMMbook.com to:

§ Get help creating and perfecting your affirmations…

§ See a sample of my own personal affirmations…

§ View and download highly effective Miracle Morning affirmations on everything from losing weight, improving your relationships, increasing your energy, developing extraordinary self-confidence, making more money, overcoming depression, and much more… Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

V is for Visualization

Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible. —CHERIE CARTER-SCOTT

See things as you would have them be instead of as they are. —ROBERT COLLIER

Visualization, also known as creative visualization or mental rehearsal, refers to the practice of seeking to generate positive results in your outer world by using your imagination to create mental pictures of specific behaviors and outcomes occurring in your life. Frequently used by athletes to enhance their performance, visualization is the process of imagining exactly what you want to achieve or attain, and then mentally rehearsing what you’ll need to do to achieve or attain it.

Many highly successful individuals, including celebrities, have advocated the use of visualization, claiming that it’s played a significant role in their success. Such stars include Bill Gates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Anthony Robbins, Tiger Woods, Will Smith, Jim Carey, and yet again, the one and only, Oprah. (Hmm… could there be a link between Oprah being one of the successful women in the world, and the fact that she practices most, if not all six of the Life S.A.V.E.R.S.?)

Tiger Woods, arguably the greatest golfer of all time, is famous for using visualization to mentally rehearse perfectly execution of his golf swing on every hole. Another world champion golfer, Jack Nicklaus, has said: “I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp in-focus picture of it in my head.”

Will Smith stated that he used visualization to overcome challenges, and visualized his success years before actually becoming successful. Another famous example is actor Jim Carrey, who wrote himself a check in 1987 in the amount of 10 million dollars. He dated it for “Thanksgiving 1995” and added in the memo line, “For acting services rendered.” He then visualized it for years, and in 1994 he was paid 10 million dollars for his starring role in Dumb and Dumber.

What Do You Visualize?

Most people are limited by visions of their past, replaying previous failures and heartbreaks. Creative Visualization enables you to design the vision that will occupy your mind, ensuring that the greatest pull on you is your future—a compelling, exciting, and limitless future.

Here’s a brief summary of how I use Visualization, followed by three simple steps for you to create your own Visualization process. After I’ve read my affirmations, I sit upright on my living room couch, close my eyes, and take a few slow, deep breaths. For the next five minutes, I simply visualize myself living my ideal day, performing all of my tasks with ease, confidence, and enjoyment.

For example, during the months that I spent writing this book (okay, who am I kidding—it took years), I would first visualize myself writing with ease, enjoying the creative process, free from stress, fear, and writer’s block. I also visualized the end result—people reading the finished book, loving it and telling their friends about it. Visualizing the process being enjoyable, free from stress and fear, motivated me to take action and overcome procrastination.

3 Simple Steps For Miracle Morning Visualization

Directly after reading your affirmations—where you took the time to articulate and focus on your goals and who you need to be to take your life to the next level—is the prime time to visualize yourself living in alignment with your affirmations.

Step 1: Get Ready

Some people like to play instrumental music in the background—such as classical or baroque (check out anything from the composer Bach)—during their visualization. If you’d like to experiment with playing music, put it on with the volume relatively low.

Now, sit up tall, in a comfortable position. This can be on a chair, couch, floor, etc.

Breathe deeply.

Close your eyes, clear your mind, and get ready to visualize.

Step 2: Visualize What You Really Want

Many people don’t feel comfortable visualizing success and are even scared to succeed. Some people may experience resistance in this area. Some may even feel guilty that they will leave the other 95% behind when they become successful.

This famous quote from Marianne Williamson’s bestselling book, A Return To Love, may resonate with anyone who feels mental or emotional obstacles when attempting to visualize: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The greatest gift we can give to the people we love is to live to our full potential. What does that look like for you? What do you really want? Forget about logic, limits, and being practical. If you could have anything you wanted, do anything you wanted, and be anything you wanted—what would you have? What would you do? What would you be?

Visualize your major goals, deepest desires, and most exciting, would-totally-change-my-life-if-I-achieved-them dreams. See, feel, hear, touch, taste, and smell every detail of your vision. Involve all of your senses to maximize the effectiveness of your visualization. The more vivid you make your vision, the more compelled you’ll be to take the necessary actions to make it a reality.

Now, fast forward into the future to see yourself achieving your ideal outcomes and results. You can either look towards the near future—the end of the day—or further into the future, like I did while writing this book, when I visualized people reading it, loving it, and recommending it to their friends. The point is you want to see yourself accomplishing what you set out to accomplish, and you want to experience how good it will feel to have followed through and achieved your goals.

Step 3: Visualize Who You Need To Be and What You Need To Do

Once you’ve created a clear mental picture of what you want, begin to visualize yourself living in total alignment with the person you need to be to achieve your vision. See yourself engaged in the positive actions you’ll need to do each day (exercising, studying, working, writing, making calls, sending emails, etc.) and make sure you see yourself enjoying the process. See yourself smiling as you’re running on that treadmill, filled with a sense of pride for your self-discipline to follow through. Picture the look of determination on your face as you confidently, persistently make those phone calls, work on that report, or finally take action and make progress on that project you’ve been putting off for far too long. Visualize your co-workers, customers, family, friends, and spouse responding to your positive demeanor and optimistic outlook. Final Thoughts On Visualization

In addition to reading your affirmations every morning, doing this simple visualization process every day will turbo-charge the programming of your subconscious mind for success. You will begin to live in alignment with your ideal vision and make it a reality.

Visualizing your goals and dreams is believed by some experts to attract your visions into your life. Whether or not you believe in the law of attraction, there are practical applications for visualization. When you visualize what you want, you stir up emotions that lift your spirits and pull you towards your vision. The more vividly you see what you want, and the more intensely you allow yourself to experience now the feelings you will feel once you’ve achieved your goal, the more you make the possibility of achieving it feel real.

When you visualize daily, you align your thoughts and feelings with your vision. This makes it easier to maintain the motivation you need to continue taking the necessary actions . Visualization can be a powerful aid to overcoming self-limiting habits such as procrastination, and to taking the actions necessary to achieve your goals.

I recommend starting with just five minutes of visualization. However, in the next chapter The 6-minute Miracle Morning I’m going to teach you how you can gain the powerful benefits of visualizing in just one minute per day.

[TMM Bonus] Create Your Vision Board

Vision Boards were made popular by the bestselling book and film The Secret. A Vision Board is simply a poster board on which you post images of what you want to have, who you want to become, what you want to do, where you want to live, etc.

Creating a Vision Board is a fun activity you can do on your own, with a friend, your significant other, or even your kids. It gives you something tangible to focus on during your Visualization. If you’d like detailed instructions on this process, Christine Kane has an excellent blog on How To Make A Vision Board as well as a free eBook titled The Complete Guide To Vision Boards. Both are available on her website at www.ChristineKane.com.

Keep in mind that, although creating a Vision Board is fun, nothing changes in your life without action. I have to agree with Neil Farber, M.D., Ph.D., who stated in his article on psychologytoday.com, “Vision boards are for dreaming, action boards are for achieving.” While looking at your vision board every day may increase your motivation and help you stay focused on your goals, know that only taking the necessary actions will get you real-time results. Life S.A.V.E.R.S./p>

E is for Exercise

If you don’t make time for exercise, you’ll probably have to make time for illness. —ROBIN SHARMA

The only exercise most people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, sidestepping responsibility, and pushing their luck. —UNKNOWN

Morning exercise should be a staple in your daily rituals. When you exercise for even a few minutes every morning it significantly boosts your energy, enhances your health, improves self-confidence and emotional well-being, and enables you to think better and concentrate longer. Too busy for exercise? In the next chapter, I’ll show you how to fit in a workout every day—in as little as 60 seconds.

I recently saw an eye-opening video with personal development expert and self-made multi-millionaire entrepreneur, Eben Pagan, who was being interviewed by bestselling author Anthony Robbins. Tony asked, “Eben, what is your #1 key to success?” Of course, I was very encouraged when Eben’s response was, “Start every morning off with a personal success ritual. That is the most important key to success.” Then he went on to talk about the importance of morning exercise.

Eben said, “Every morning, you’ve got to get your heart rate up and get your blood flowing and fill your lungs with oxygen.” He continued, “Don’t just exercise at the end of the day or at the middle of the day. And even if you do like to exercise at those times, always incorporate at least 10 to 20 minutes of jumping jacks or some sort of aerobic exercise in the morning.”

The benefits of morning exercise are too many to ignore. From waking you up and enhancing your mental clarity, to helping you sustain higher levels of energy throughout the day, exercising soon after rising can improve your life in many ways.

Whether you go to the gym, go for a walk or run, throw on a P90XTM or InsanityTM DVD, what you do during your period of exercise is up to you, although I’ll share some recommendations.

Personally, if I were only allowed to practice one form of exercise for the rest of my life, I would, without a doubt choose yoga. I began practicing yoga shortly after I created The Miracle Morning, and have been doing it—and loving it—ever since. It’s such a complete form of exercise, as it combines stretching with strength training with cardio with focused breathing, and can even be a form of meditation.

Meet the One and Only… Dashama

I can’t talk about yoga (or exercise for that matter) without talking about my friend Dashama. A few years ago, one of her students introduced me to her work as one of the world’s leading yoga instructors. Dashama is the most authentic, spiritual, practical, and all-around most effective yoga teacher I have ever come across. I asked her to share her unique perspective on the benefits of yoga (and I highly recommend getting her free Yoga training videos, available through www.TMMbook.com.)

From Dashama: Yoga is a multi-faceted science that has applications for the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of life. That being said, when Hal asked me to contribute a short introductory to yoga, for this book, I felt it was in perfect alignment with The Miracle Morning. I know from personal experience that yoga can help you create miracles in your life. I’ve experienced it in mine and also witnessed it in countless others whom I have taught around the world.The important thing to remember is that yoga can take place in many forms. Whether it is sitting in silent meditation, breathing to expand your lung capacity or back bending to open your heart - there are practices that can help every aspect of your life. The key is to learn which techniques to practice when you need a remedy and use it to your advantage to bring yourself into balance. A well-rounded yoga practice can enhance your life in so many ways. It can heal what is out of harmony and can move stuck or blocked energy through your body, creating space for new fluid movement, blood flow and energy to circulate. I encourage you to listen to your body and try some new sequences as you feel ready. To learn more and see instructional yoga videos, feel free to visit my website at pranashama.com. Blessings and Love, Dashama

Final Thoughts On Exercise

You know that if you want to maintain good health and increase your energy, you must exercise consistently. That’s not news to anybody. But it’s too easy to make excuses as to why we don’t exercise. Two of the biggest are “I just don’t have time” and “I’m just too tired.” There is no limit to the excuses that you can think of. The more creative you are the more excuses you can come up with, right?

That’s the beauty of incorporating exercise into your Miracle Morning; it happens before your day wears you out, before you have a chance to get too tired, before you have an entire day to come up with new excuses for avoiding exercise. The Miracle Morning is really a surefire way to avoid all of those excuses, and to make exercise a daily habit. (More on the easy way to implement positive habits into your life, like exercise, in Chapter 9: From Unbearable To Unstoppable – The Real Secret To Forming Habits That Will Transform Your Life (In 30 Days) which will enhance your quality of life for years to come.)

Legal disclaimer: Hopefully this goes without saying, but you should consult your doctor or physician before beginning any exercise regimen, especially if you are experiencing any physical pain, discomfort, disabilities, etc. You may need to modify or even refrain from your exercise routine to meet your individual needs. Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

R is for Reading

A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read. —MARK TWAIN

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body and prayer is to the soul. We become the books we read. —MATTHEW KELLY

Reading, the fifth practice in the Life S.A.V.E.R.S., is the fast track to transforming any area of your life. It is one of the most immediate methods for acquiring the knowledge, ideas, and strategies you need to achieve Level 10 success in any area of your life.

The key is to learn from the experts—those who have already done what you want to do. Don’t reinvent the wheel. The fastest way to achieve everything you want is to model successful people who have already achieved it. With an almost infinite amount of books available on every topic, there are no limits to the knowledge you can gain through daily reading.

I recently heard someone say in a mocking, I’m too cool for this tone, “Uh, yeah, I don’t read ‘self-help’ books,” as if such books were beneath him. Poor guy. I’m not sure if it’s his ego or just lack of awareness, but he’s missing out on the unlimited supply of knowledge, boundless growth and life changing ideas he could gain from some of the most brilliant, successful individuals in the world. Who in their right mind would choose not to do that?

Whatever you want for your life, there are countless books on how to get it. Want to become wealthy, rich, a multi-millionaire? There are plenty of books written by those who have achieved the pinnacles of financial success which will teach you how. Here are a few of my favorites:

§ Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill§ Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker§ Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

Want to create an incredible, loving, supportive and romantic relationship? There are probably more books on how to do exactly that than you could read in a decade. Here are a few of my favorites:

§ The Five Love Languages by Gary D. Chapman§ The SoulMate Experience by Jo Dunn§ The Seven Principles For Making a Marriage Work by John M. Gottman and Nan Silver

Whether you’d like to transform your relationships, increase your self-confidence, improve your communication or persuasion skills, learn how to become wealthy, or improve any area of your life, head to your local bookstore—or do what I do and head to Amazon.com—and you’ll find a plethora of books on any area of your life you want to improve. For those who want to minimize our carbon footprint or save money, I also recommend utilizing your local library or checking out one of my favorite websites, www.paperbackswap.com.

For a complete list of my favorite personal development books—including those that have made the biggest impact on my success and happiness—check out the Recommended Reading list located at www.TMMbook.com.

How Much Should You Read?

I recommend making a commitment to read a minimum of 10 pages per day (although five is okay to start with, if you read slowly or don’t yet enjoy reading). Let’s do some math on this for a second: reading 10 pages read per day is not going to break you, but it will make you. We’re only talking 10-15 minutes of reading, or 15-30 minutes if you read more slowly.

Look at it this way. If you quantify that, reading just 10 pages a day will average 3,650 pages a year, which equates to approximately eighteen 200-page personal development/self-improvement books! Let me ask you, if you read 18 personal development books in the next 12 months, do you think you will be more knowledgeable, capable and confident—a new & improved you? Absolutely!

Final Thoughts On Reading

§ Begin with the end in mind. Before you begin reading each day, ask yourself why you are reading that book—what do you want to gain from it—and keep that outcome in mind. Take a moment to do this now by asking yourself what you want to gain from reading this book. Are you committed to finishing it? More importantly, are you committed to implementing what you’re learning and taking action, by following through with The Miracle Morning 30-Day Life Transformation Challenge at the end?

§ Many Miracle Morning practitioners use their Reading time to catch up on their religious texts, such as the Bible, Torah, or any other.

§ Hopefully you took the advice I gave and you’ve been underlining, circling, highlighting, folding the corners of pages, and taking notes in the margins of this book. To get the most out of any book I read and make it easy for me to revisit the content again in the future, I underline or circle anything that I may want to re-visit, and make notes in the margins to remind me why I underlined that particular section. (Unless, of course, it’s a library book). This process of marking books as I read allows me to come back at anytime and recapture all of the key lessons, ideas, and benefits without needing to read the book again, cover to cover.

§ I highly recommend re-reading good personal development books. Rarely can we read a book once and internalize all of the value from that book. Achieving mastery in any area requires repetition—being exposed to certain ideas, strategies, or techniques over and over again, until they become engrained in your subconscious mind. For example, if you wanted to master karate, you wouldn’t learn the techniques once and then think, “I got this.” No, you’d learn the techniques, practice them, then go back to your sensei and learn them again, and repeat the process hundreds of times in order to master a single technique. Mastering techniques to improve your life works the same way. There is more value in re-reading a book you already know has strategies that can improve your life than there is in reading a new book before you’ve mastered the strategies in the first. Whenever I’m reading a book that I see can really make an impact on an area of my life, I commit to re-reading that book (or at least re-reading the parts I’ve underlined, circled and highlighted) as soon as I’m finished going through it the first time. I actually keep a special space on my bookshelf for the books that I want to re-read. I’ve read books like Think and Grow Rich as many as three times, and often refer back to them throughout the year. Re-reading requires discipline, because it is typically more “fun” to read a book you’ve never read before. Repetition can be boring or tedious (which is why so few people ever “master” anything), but that’s even more reason why we should do it—to develop a higher level of self-discipline. Why not try it out with this book? Commit to re-reading it as soon as you’re finished, to deepen your learning and give yourself more time to master The Miracle Morning. Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

S is for Scribing

Whatever it is that you write, putting words on the page is a form of therapy that doesn’t cost a dime. —DIANA RAAB

Ideas can come from anywhere and at any time. The problem with making mental notes is that the ink fades very rapidly. —ROLF SMITH

Scribing is the final practice in the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. and is really just another word for writing, but please allow me to keep it real—I needed an ‘S’ for the end of Life S.A.V.E.R.S. because a ‘W’ wouldn’t fit anywhere. Thanks ThesaurusTM, I owe you one.

Journaling

My favorite form of Scribing is journaling, which I do for 5-10 minutes during my Miracle Morning. By getting your thoughts out of your head and putting them in writing, you gain valuable insights you’d otherwise never see. The Scribing element of your Miracle Morning enables you to document your insights, ideas, breakthroughs, realizations, successes, and lessons learned, as well as any areas of opportunity, personal growth, or improvement.

While I had known about the profound benefits of journaling for years—and I had even tried it a few times—I never stuck with it consistently, because it was never part of my daily routine. Usually, I kept a journal by my bed, and when I’d get home late at night, nine times out of ten I would find myself making the excuse that I was too tired to write in it. My journals stayed mostly blank. Even though I already had many mostly blank journals sitting on my bookshelf, every so often I would buy myself a brand new journal—a more expensive one—convincing myself that if I spent a lot of money on it, I would surely write in it. Seems like a decent theory, right? Unfortunately, my little strategy never worked, and for years I just accumulated more and more increasingly expensive, yet equally empty journals.

That was before The Miracle Morning. From day one, The Miracle Morning gave me the time and structure to write in my journal every day, and it quickly became one of my favorite habits. I can tell you now that journaling has become one of the most gratifying and fulfilling practices of my life. Not only do I derive the daily benefits of consciously directing my thoughts and putting them in writing, but even more powerful are those I have gained from reviewing my journals, from cover to cover, afterwards—especially, at the end of the year. It is hard to put into words how overwhelmingly constructive the experience of going back and reviewing your journals can be, but I’ll do my best.

My First Journal Re-view

On December 31st, after my first year doing The Miracle Morning and writing in my journal, I began reading the first page I had written that year. Day by day, I started to review and relive my entire year. I was able to revisit my mindset from each day, and gain a new perspective as to how much I had grown throughout the year. I reexamined my actions, activities, and progress, giving me a new appreciation for how much I had accomplished during the past 12 months. Most importantly, I recaptured the lessons I had learned, many of which I had forgotten over the course of the year.

Gratitude 2.0 – I also experienced a much deeper quality of gratitude—in a way that I had never experienced before—on two different levels, simultaneously. It was what I now refer to as my first Back to the Future moment. Try to follow me here (and feel free to picture me as Marty McFly stepping out of a 1985 DeLorean). As I read through my journal, my current self (which was also the future self of who I was at the time I wrote those journal entries) was now looking back at all of the people, experiences, lessons, and accomplishments that I took note of being grateful for throughout the year. As I was in that moment reliving the gratitude that I felt in the past, I was simultaneously feeling grateful in the present moment for how far I had come since that time in my life. It was a remarkable experience, and a bit surreal.

Accelerated Growth – Then, I began to tap into the highest point of value I would gain from reviewing my journals. I pulled out a sheet of blank paper, drew a line down the middle, and wrote two headings at the top: Lessons Learned and New Commitments. As I read through my hundreds of my journal entries, I found myself recapturing dozens of valuable lessons.

This process of recapturing Lessons Learned and making New Commitments to implement those lessons aided my personal growth and development more than almost anything else.

While there are many worthwhile benefits of keeping a daily journal, a few of which I’ve just described, here are a few more of my favorites:

§ Gain Clarity – The process of writing something down forces us to think through it enough to understand it. Journaling will give you more clarity, allow you to brainstorm, and help you work through problems. § Capture Ideas – Journaling helps you not only expand your ideas, but also prevents you from losing the important ideas that you may want to act on in the future. § Review Lessons – It enables you to review all of the lessons you’ve learned. § Acknowledge Your Progress – It’s wonderful to go back and re-read your journal entries from a year ago and see how much progress you’ve made. It’s one of the most empowering, confidence-inspiring and enjoyable experiences. It can’t really be duplicated any other way.

Gap-Focus: Is It Hurting or Helping You?

In the opening pages of this chapter, we talked about using the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. to close your “Potential Gap.” Human beings are conditioned to have what I call Gap-focus. We tend to focus on the gaps between where we are in life and where we want to be, between what we’ve accomplished and what we could have or want to accomplish, and the gap between who we are and our idealistic vision of the person we believe we should be.

The problem with this is that constant Gap-focus can be detrimental to our confidence and self-image, causing us to feel like we don’t have enough, haven’t accomplished enough, and that we’re simply not good enough, or at least, not as good as we should be.

High achievers are typically the worst at this, constantly overlooking or minimizing their accomplishments, beating themselves up over every mistake and imperfection, and never feeling like anything they do is quite good enough.

The irony is that gap-focus is a big part of the reason that high achievers are high achievers. Their insatiable desire to close the gap is what fuels their pursuit of excellence and constantly drives them to achieve. Gap-focus can be healthy and productive if it comes from a positive, proactive, “I’m committed to and excited about fulfilling my potential” perspective, without any feelings of lack. Unfortunately, it rarely does. The average person, even the average high achiever, tends to focus negatively on their gaps.

The highest achievers—those who are balanced and focused on achieving Level 10 success in nearly every area of their lives—are exceedingly grateful for what they have, regularly acknowledge themselves for what they’ve accomplished, and are always at peace with where they are in their lives. It’s the dueling idea that I am doing the best that I can in this moment, and at the same time, I can and will do better. This balanced self-assessment prevents that feeling of lack—of not being, having, doing enough—while still allowing them to constantly strive to close their potential gap in each area.

Typically, when a day, week, month, or year ends, and we’re in Gap-focus mode, it’s almost impossible to maintain an accurate assessment of ourselves and our progress. For example, if you had 10 things on your to-do list for the day—even if you completed six of them—your Gap-focus causes you to feel you didn’t get everything done that you wanted to do.

The majority of people do dozens, even hundreds, of things right during the day, and a few things wrong. Guess which things people remember and replay in their minds over and over again? Doesn’t it make more sense to focus on the 100 things you did right? It sure is more enjoyable.

What does this have to do with writing in a journal? Writing in a journal each day, with a structured, strategic process (more on that in a minute) allows you to direct your focus to what you did accomplish, what you’re grateful for, and what you’re committed to doing better tomorrow. Thus, you more deeply enjoy your journey each day, feel good about any forward progress you made, and use a heightened level of clarity to accelerate your results.

Effective Journaling

Here are 3 simple steps to get started with journaling, or improve your current journaling process.

1. Choose a Format — Digital or Traditional. You’ll want to decide up front if you want to go with a traditional, physical lined journal or go digital, such as an online journal, journaling software, or journaling app, such as The Miracle Morning app for the iPhone, iPad, and Android (which has the built-in Miracle Morning Journal.) Having used both traditional and digital, there are advantages and disadvantages to both formats (which I’ll address in a minute), but it really comes down to your personal preference—do you prefer to write by hand, or would you rather type your daily journal entries. That should make it a relatively simple decision as to which format to use. 2. Get a Journal. When it comes to a traditional journal, while just about anything can work (you can even use a 99 cent spiral notebook), since you’re probably going to have it for the rest of your life there is something to be said about getting a nice, durable journal that you enjoy looking at. Get a journal that is not only lined, but also dated, with room to write for all 365 days of the year. I’ve found that having a pre-designated (dated) space to write keeps me accountable to follow through each day, since I can’t help but notice when I miss a day or two, because they’re blank. This usually motivates me to go back and mentally review those missed days and catch up my journal entries. It’s also nice to have dated journals for every year, so you can easily go back and review any time in your life, and experience those benefits I previously described in My First Journal Re-view. One of my favorite lined, dated journals is The Winners Journal (www.TheWinnersJournal.com), which I used from 2007-2009, and was very pleased with the results. In fact, it’s what inspired me to design and create The Miracle Morning Journal (which is available on Amazon.com). You can even download a free sample of The Miracle Morning Journal at the website listed after these three steps.When it comes to a digital journal (which I used before I created the TMM Journal), there are also many choices available. I enjoyed using the Day One iPhone app last year, and the online journal at www.penzu.com is very popular. Again, it really comes down to your preference and which features you want. Just type “online journal” into Google or “journal” into the app store, and you’ll get a variety of choices. As I mentioned, I also had a dated, lined Miracle Morning Journal iPhone/iPad/Android app customized and created. 3. Decide What To Write. There are infinite aspects of your life that you can journal about, and countless types of journals. Gratitude journals, dream journals, food journals, workout journals, etc. You can write about your goals, dreams, plans, family, commitments, lessons learned, and anything else that you feel you need to focus on in your life. My journaling method ranges from being a very specific, structured process—listing what I’m grateful for, acknowledging my accomplishments, clarifying what areas I want to improve on, and planning which specific actions I’m committed to taking to improve—to being pretty traditional, just a dated entry with a synopsis of my day. I find both to be very valuable, and it’s nice to mix it up.

To get a free sample of The Miracle Morning Journal, go to www.TMMbook.com.

[TMM Bonus] Do You Want To Write a Book?

According to a survey done by USA today, 82% of Americans want to write a book, but the #1 obstacle preventing them? You guessed it—they can’t find the time. If you have ever wanted to write a book, you can use the Miracle Morning to do just that. In fact, right now I am writing this at 6:03 a.m., during my Miracle Morning.

I believe that everyone has a book inside of them containing their own unique value to offer to the world. In fact, I’ve recently started coaching my private clients on how to start (or finish) their first (or next) book, and how to become a bestselling author. If you’d like help starting, completing, or marketing your book, feel free to send me an email with to helpmewithmybook@miraclemorning.com, and include a brief description of what you’d like my help with.

I’m always excited to hear your story and what you are passionate to write—I mean, scribe—about.

Customizing The Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

In Chapter 8: Customizing The Miracle Morning To Fit Your Lifestyle, you’ll learn how you can personalize and customize nearly every aspect of your Miracle Morning to fit your lifestyle. For now, I want to share a few ideas specifically towards customizing the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. based on your schedule and preferences. Your current morning routine might only allow you to fit in a 20 or 30-minute Miracle Morning, or you might choose to do a longer version on the weekends.

Here is an example of a fairly common, 60-minute Miracle Morning schedule, using the Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

The sequence in which you do the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. can also be customized to your preferences. Some people prefer to do their Exercise first, as a way to increase their blood flow and wake themselves up. However, you might prefer to do Exercise as your last activity in the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. so you’re not sweaty during your Miracle Morning. Personally, I prefer to start with a period of peaceful, purposeful Silence—so that I can wake up slowly, clear my mind, and focus my energy and intentions. I save Exercise for my last activity, that way I can jump directly into the shower and proceed with the rest of my day. However, this is your Miracle Morning—not mine—so feel free to experiment with different sequences and see which you like best.

Final Thoughts On The Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

Everything is difficult before it’s easy. Every new experience is uncomfortable before it’s comfortable. The more you practice the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. the more natural and normal each of them will feel. Remember that my first time meditating was almost my last, as my mind raced like a Ferrari and my thoughts bounced around uncontrollably like the silver sphere in a pinball machine. Now, I love meditation, and while I’m no master, I’d say I’m decent at it. Similarly, my first time doing yoga, I felt like a fish out of water. I wasn’t flexible, couldn’t do the poses correctly, and felt awkward and uncomfortable. Now, yoga is my favorite form of exercise, and I am so grateful that I stuck with it.

I invite you to begin practicing the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. now, so you can become familiar and comfortable with each of them, and get a jump-start before you begin The Miracle Morning 30-Day Life Transformation Challenge in Chapter 10. If your biggest concern is still finding time, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. In the next chapter, you’re going to learn how to do the entire Miracle Morning— receiving the full benefits from all six of the Life S.A.V.E.R.S.—in only 6 minutes a day.