The Miracle Morning (14 page)

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

M
orning 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
P90X
^TM
or
Insanity
^TM
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?