One of the biggest comments I routinely get is about my 4 AM wake up habit and routine. Yes, I wake up at 4 AM, five days a week. Maybe 4 AM is not for you, but how about one hour earlier than you do now? This habit will be brutal to start. I am years in, and I still hate it more days than not. All I ask is you give it 30 days.
In creating any successful habit, you must first understand why you are creating it. Why should you start your day one hour earlier than the rest of the world? Because this is YOUR time. The power of your mindset—and your morning routine, I dare say—is THE key to a life of success. It will not make you famous or bring your fortune. It will not make the masses cheer your name. But it will bring you peace, joy, and freedom to fulfill your purpose, and that is my definition of a successful day.
Here are 4 keys to a Miracle Morning routine.
- Get up one hour earlier than you do now. No one wants to start their day in a rush. You don’t want to scream at your kids for not putting their shoes on because their sock is twisted. But you do. You are late, you are rushed, and you are spinning out of control before you’re even out the door. How successful will this day really be? The key here is controlling your morning so you start with mindset.
- Move. In the first 30 minutes, you must move your body. Do what you can with what you have. You might stretch or run the roads. Whatever it is, get your blood flowing. This accomplishes two things: I won’t drone on about the healthy lifestyle you’ll start to create (which will change your life), but it will also drive your energy for the day. One of my favorite quotes is “Your body is like a power plant; it does not have energy, it makes energy.” You need this energy to make it through this day. You will be faced with challenges of all kinds, so prepare your body and your spirit.
- Goals. Spend 15 minutes on your goals. Write them down. Commit to writing down the goals for your life as if they have already happened. This will alter your subconscious to believing they have already happened. What is more important than a daily bath in your dream life?
- Gratitude. This is writing down 10 things you have been grateful for in the past 24 hours. It must be recent and specific examples. It’s easy to say I am grateful for my family or health, but listing specific instances will take your mindset to a new level of appreciation for the moments. You will soon find that you spend your day looking for things to write down in your gratitude journal, and when you are looking for blessings, they inevitably find you.
I love my morning routine; it has become so sacred in my house that my family and my work come second in this time. Any magnificent day I have had has been the result of a habit of waking up at 4 AM. I decided that if I started my day by beating the sun, then nothing can beat me. It will be hard. The days will still have tough moments, the kids or worries will keep you up at night, and you’ll sleep in. You are human. While we can’t control the rest of the world—pandemics, social unrest, and economic crises—you do have control of the energy and positive power you put out into the world. We need more of that now than ever before. You get to define your success, and you get to define your morning; I just hope you rise to beat the sun.
