The Miracle Morning (5 page)

Whether you consider yourself to be a “morning person” or not, you’re going to learn how to make waking up every day easy, and you will begin forming habits of waking up with more energy and motivation than you’ve ever had before. By taking advantage of the undeniable relationship between success and early rising, you’ll find that how you spend the first hour of your day becomes the key to unlocking your full potential and creating the levels of success you desire. You’ll quickly see that when you change the way you wake up in the morning, you change your entire life.

— 2 —

The Miracle Morning Origin: Born Out of Desperation

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only
those who can leave behind everything they have ever
believed in can hope to escape.
—WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS

To make profound changes in your life, you need
either inspiration or desperation.
—ANTHONY ROBBINS

I
’ve been fortunate to hit what you might call “rock bottom”
twice in my relatively short life. I say
fortunate
because it was the growth I experienced and the lessons I learned—during the most challenging times in my life—that have enabled me to become the person I’ve needed to be to create the life that I’ve always wanted. I am grateful to use not only my successes, but also my failures, to help others in a way that can empower them to overcome their own limitations and achieve more than they ever thought possible.

My 1
^st
Rock Bottom:  Dead at the Scene

As you know, my first rock bottom was almost my last when, at age 20, I was hit head on by a drunk driver and died at the scene of the accident. (I wrote in detail about how I bounced back from my seemingly insurmountable adversity, as well as the 8 lessons I learned that will immediately improve the quality of your life, in my first book,
Taking Life Head On:  How To Love the Life You Have While You Create the Life of Your Dreams
.)

My 2
^nd
Rock Bottom:  Deep In Debt and Deeply Depressed

My second plunge into the depths of despair was more difficult than dying in a car accident was.

It was 2008. The United States economy was in the midst of the worst recession since the infamous Great Depression of the 1930s. In the years after surviving my car accident, despite bouncing back to build a hall of fame sales career, launch a six-figure success coaching business, and write a bestselling book, I was again challenged. This time it was a complete mental, emotional, and financial breakdown.

Seemingly overnight, the successful enterprises I had built were no longer profitable. Over half of my monthly income disappeared. I was suddenly unable to pay my bills. I had just bought my first home. I was engaged to be married, and we were planning our first child. Buried in debt, behind on my mortgage, for the first time in my life, I became severely depressed.

I was at the lowest point in my life. Could things have been worse? Probably. But was this the worst they had ever been for me? Absolutely. I had hit
my
rock bottom.

Why Debt Was Worse Than Death

If you were to ask me which was more difficult, my car accident or my financial struggles, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you it was the latter, by far. Most people would assume that being hit head on by a drunk driver, breaking 11 bones, suffering permanent brain damage, dying for six minutes, and waking from a coma to face the news that you may never walk again would be hard to top. It’s a fair assumption that the physical, mental, and emotional pain from such a horrific wreck would be the lowest point in any person’s life. However, this wasn’t the case for me.

You see, after my car accident, I had people taking care of me. In the hospital, my family never left my side. I was constantly surrounded by visitors—friends and family coming by daily to check on me and shower me with love and support. I had an incredible staff of doctors and nurses overseeing every step of my care and recovery. My food was prepared and delivered to me. I didn’t even have the everyday stresses of having to work and pay the bills. Life in the hospital was easy.

That wasn’t the case the second time around. Nobody felt sorry for me. I didn’t have any visitors. There was no one there to oversee my care and recovery. Nobody brought me any food. I was on my own this time. People had their own problems to deal with.

A domino effect led to struggles in every area of my life. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially—you name it—I was a mess.

I had so much fear and uncertainty that the only comfort I found each day was my own bed. As pathetic as it may sound, what got me through each day was the peace of mind from knowing I could eventually crawl into bed and temporarily escape my problems. Thoughts of suicide circled my mind daily. Not that I would ever have actually followed through with it. Suicide is not only one of the most selfish decisions someone can make (as it hurts so many other people), but deep down, I knew that no matter how bad life gets, there is
always
a way to turn it around. But the thoughts were still there. I just didn’t see a solution to my financial crisis. I couldn’t think of anything else that would put an end to my emotional pain.

The Morning That Turned My Life Around

Then, in a single morning, everything changed. I woke up feeling depressed, as I had been for weeks, but this morning I
did
something different. I took a friend’s advice and went on a run, to clear my head. Now, make no mistake, I was
not
a runner. In fact, running for the sake of running was one of the only things I can honestly say that I despised. However, my good friend, Jon, told me that whenever he was feeling stressed or overwhelmed, going for a run enabled him to think more clearly, lifted his spirits, and helped him come up with solutions to his problems. I was desperate. I had nothing to lose. I was going to go for a run.

So, that morning I laced up my Nike Air Jordan® basketball shoes (I told you I wasn’t a runner), grabbed my iPod so I could listen to something positive, and headed out the front door of my soon-to-be bank-owned home. I had no idea that, on that run, I would have one of the most powerful, profound, life-changing breakthroughs in my entire life.

Listening to a personal development audio from Jim Rohn, he said something that although I had heard before, I never really got it. You know how sometimes you hear something over and over again without actually implementing it, but then one day it finally clicks for you? It just takes you being in the right state of mind to really
get it
? Well, that morning I was in the right state of mind—a state of desperation—and I got it. When I heard Jim proclaim with certainty,
“Your level of success, will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become
,
”
I stopped in my tracks. This one philosophy was going to change my entire life.

The Success Parallel

All of a sudden, it hit me!  It was like a tidal wave of reality that came crashing down, and I became present to the fact that I had not been developing myself into the person I needed to be to attract, create, and sustain the level of success that I wanted. On a scale of one to ten, I wanted Level 10 success, but my level of personal development was at about a two—maybe a three or a four on a good day.

I realized this is the problem for all of us. We all want Level 10 success, in every area of our lives—health, happiness, finances, relationships, career, spirituality, you name it—but if our levels of personal development (knowledge, experience, mindset, beliefs, etc.) in any given area are not at a Level 10, then life is always going to be a struggle.

Our outer world will always be a reflection of our inner world. Our level of success is always going to parallel our level of personal development. Until we dedicate time each day to developing ourselves into the person we need to be to create the life we want, success is always going to be a struggle to attain.

I ran straight home. I was ready to change my life.

Our First Challenge:  Finding Time

I knew that the solution to all of my problems was that I had to commit to making personal development a priority in my daily life. This was the missing link that would enable me to become the person I needed to be able to consistently attract, create, and sustain the levels of success that I wanted. Simple enough.

However, my main challenge was the same as anyone’s: 
finding time
. I was so busy just trying to survive my life and pay my bills, that the idea of finding “extra” time for my personal development seemed almost impossible. Maybe you can relate? 

I love what bestselling author, Matthew Kelly says: 
“On the one hand, we all want to be happy. On the other hand, we all know the things that make us happy. But we don’t do those things. Why? Simple. We are too busy. Too busy doing what? Too busy trying to be happy.”

So, I grabbed my planner, sat down on my couch, and committed to finding time—
making
time—for my daily personal development. I considered the options: 

Maybe the Evening?

My first thought was that maybe I could make time in the evenings, after work, or maybe late at night, after my fiancé goes to bed. But then I realized that the evening was really the only time I had to spend with her during the day. Not to mention that late at night is rarely when I’m at my best. I’m usually so tired that focusing is even more of a challenge than it usually is. In fact, I’m hardly coherent, let alone in an “optimum” state of mind for personal development. Evening was not going to be the optimum time.

Possibly the Afternoon?

Maybe I could schedule it in the middle of the day? Possibly on my lunch break, or somewhere in between, I could just find some “extra” time. Well, that extra time just doesn’t show up and the day usually gets away from us.

Aw, Come on – Not in the Morning!

Then, I considered doing it in the morning—but I resisted. To say that I was
not
a morning person was a gross understatement. The fact was, I dreaded getting up in the morning, particularly waking up early, almost as much as I hated running. But the more I thought about it, the more a few things started to make sense.

First, by committing to my personal development in the morning, it would give me a positive motivational kick-start to my day. I could learn something new in the morning. I’d likely be more energized, more focused, and more motivated for the rest of my day. I remembered a blog post that I read on
StevePavlina.com
, titled
The Rudder of the Day
. Steve, also the author of
Personal Development for Smart People
, stated:  “It’s been said that the first hour is the rudder of the day. If I’m lazy or haphazard in my actions during the first hour after I wake up, I tend to have a fairly lazy and unfocused day. But if I strive to make that first hour optimally productive, the rest of the day tends to follow suit.”

Not to mention, by doing personal development in the morning, I wouldn’t have all of the excuses that accumulate during the day (
I’m tired
,
I don’t have time
, etc.)  If I did it in the morning, before the rest of my life and my work got in the way, I could guarantee that it happened every single day.

Finally, I just didn’t really see any better time to do it. Executing my personal development first thing in the morning was looking to be the most advantageous option, but it was already hard enough to drag myself out of bed every day at 6:00 a.m.—because I had to—so the idea of getting up at 5:00 a.m. seemed absolutely insane to me. Feeling frustrated and a bit defeated, I was about to close my planner and forget the whole idea, when I heard the voice of my mentor, Kevin Bracy, in my head. Kevin always told me, “Hal, if you want your life to be different, you have to be willing to do something different first!”

Damn it. I knew Kevin was right, but that didn’t make waking up early any easier. Committed to making a change, I decided to overcome my self-imposed, life-long limiting belief that I was not a morning person and wrote into my schedule that I would wake up at 5:00 a.m. the next morning to do my first personal development routine.

Our Second Challenge:  Doing What’s Most Impactful

Then I encountered another challenge—what was I going to do for that hour that was going to make the biggest impact and improve my life the fastest?  I could read, but I’d done that before, and I wanted this to be special. I could exercise, but again, that wasn’t getting my juices flowing. So, I pulled out a piece of blank paper and I wrote down all of the most life-changing personal development practices that I had learned over the years, but never implemented—at least never consistently. Activities like
meditation
,
affirmations
,
journaling
,
visualization
, as well as
reading
and
exercise
.

I chose the six activities that I thought would have the most immediate and dramatic impact on my life, assigned 10 minutes each, and planned to try all six the next morning. The interesting thing was, looking at this list got me feeling motivated!  All of a sudden the idea of waking up early went from something I dreaded to something more and more appealing. That night, I could hardly fall asleep, I was so excited for the morning to come!

When the alarm clock went off at 5:00 a.m., my eyes shot wide open and I sprung out of bed, feeling energized and excited!  It was effortless, it was invigorating, and it reminded me of being a kid, waking up on Christmas morning. There had been no time in my life when waking up was easier, when I felt more energized and excited about my day, than I did as a kid on Christmas… until today.