Testimonial: Miracle Morning
How to achieve The Miracle Morning, a recommendation by our consultant Marie Coppée
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen”
– Michael Jordan
Balance between professional achievements and a healthy lifestyle is on everyone’s mind. But how to reach such idealistic situation?
You can easily find discussions, videos and articles on the matter but here is a great book to start with : “The Miracle Morning. The not-so-obvious secret guaranteed to transform your life (before 8 a.m.)” by Hal Elrod. The principle is simple : everyone, as a human being, can absolutely create the life he/she has always wanted by simply changing the way he/she wakes up in the morning. The key is to create rituals and habits that you can incorporate in your daily morning life. Why in the morning? because there is no escape : you cannot be tired of a long day at work, you cannot be out of your schedule, it is the beginning of the day… and you can choose how you want to start it.
First thing (and probably the hardest), is to beat the envy to hit the “snooze” button on your alarm clock for the simple reason that is a bad habit. First, sleeping 10 minutes more over and over does not make you less tired. Secondly, it has been proven that slamming the snooze button is actually worse because those 10 extra minutes of “sleeping between alarms” are less restful than 10 minutes of deep sleep.
Do you have to go to bed earlier to be able to wake up one hour earlier than usual?
Not necessarily, you will find out with practice. Between 3:00 and 5:30 a.m., our body already starts to secrete adrenaline, endorphins and serotonins to prepare the awaking. Therefore, the issue is not the quantity of hours you sleep but the motivation you have when you go to bed, thinking about waking up the next day. Think about it: it is Sunday, perfect time for a lie-in but today, you have to wake up at 5:00 a.m. to catch a flight to go on holiday. Do you have trouble waking up ? Of course you don’t. You jump out of bed at the first decibel you hear. You fell asleep excited as a kid going to Disney Land. Well, that is the spirit! Don’t go to bed thinking you only have 6 hours of sleep but focus on the reason why you want to wake up earlier. The Miracle Morning book helps you realize that you can be at your best on each aspects of your life (health, work, family, relationships, wealth, etc.) by changing the way you wake up.
It is explained that your quality of life depends of the quality of your habits.
If a person succeeds in his life, it is probably because he/she put in place habits that helped him/her create and maintain that level of success. I am not going to lie, it is not easy because we did not get a class on “How to maintain a good habit” when we were kid. It requires a lot of self-discipline to inscribe new habits in your routine but once this habit is implemented as routine, you won’t have to try so hard anymore. According to Hal Elrod, it takes 30 days to implement a habit in your life.
In practice, there are 3 phases of habit formation: phase one is the honey moon characterized with the feeling of “this is easy”. The second phase is when inspiration fades and reality sets in because the old habit is right around the corner. It is important to recognize when you have entered this phase to be able to fight it. Always remind yourself why you are doing it and picture your future life if you do not make these changes. The third and final phase is called 'the second nature'. It is still a fight against your old habits because there are a lot a traps you can fall into : for example, you are going on vacation you will be tempted by taking a break from this new habit, if you get disappointed because of a negative result and you are thinking “this is not working”, or the opposite, if you are seduce by the success and start to see yourself as superior. Good habits require consistent commitment and sometimes sacrifices.
The question is are you ready to put in place what it takes to live the life you have always dreamed of ?
