The Life S.A.V.E.R.SFrom Hal Elrod’s book
Miracle Morning“An extraordinary life is all about daily, continuous improvements in the areas that matter most.” - Robin Sharma
The potential gap is the gap that separates who we are from who we can become. To overcome this gap it is important to focus on your
life instead of your
life situation. Our life situation are the
external circumstances, events, people, and places that surround us. Our life, in contrast, are the
internal Physical,
Intellectual,
Emotional and
Spiritual (
PIES) aspects of our core being.
To change our life situation we need to change our life. Therefore, we should aim for daily, continuous improvements in PIES. Enter
The Miracle Morning Life S.A.V.E.R.S. – a set of six simple,
life-enhancing,
life-changing daily practices, each which develops one or more of the
PIES aspects of your life, so you can become who you need to be to create the life you want.
S is for Silence
“In the attitude of silence the soul find the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Silence consists in doing some contemplative practices like meditation, reflection, prayer, deep breathing or gratitude. I prefer to do silence first thing in the morning, as it clears my head and drives away the confused and misty morning thoughts. It gives me freedom to see the light of dawn.
If you are not familiar with this kind of thing, it can be helpful to read up on it or download a
meditation app.
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.” - Muhammed Ali
While affirmations have a corny reputation, the fact is that most of us have a ruthless inner critic that we have very little control over. The easiest way to mitigate the damage of self-deprecating thoughts, aside from shutting it down completely - with psychedelics or years of meditative practise - is to replace it with positive self-talk. It may still be neurotic, but hey - better to be brainwashed by positive than negative self-talk.
If you’re not familiar with this kind of thing, it can be helpful to read up on it or just search for
affirmations.
V is for Visualization“See things as you would have them instead of as they are.” - Robert Collier
Visualization is 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. Most people are limited by visions of their past, replaying previous failures and hearbreaks. 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.
Personally I’ve found that visualization greatly helps me to live in congruence with the life I want to achieve. It helps me be crystal clear about where I am, where I want to go, and how to get there. If you are not familiar with visualization, I recommend a quick
reading up on it.
E is for Exercise“If you don’t make time for exercise, you’ll probably have to make time for illness.” - Robert Sharma
Taking a few pushups or situps is great in the morning. It wakes you up and gets the blood flowing. You can do anything, yoga, running, or take a morning walk - whatever suits you best.
R is for Reading“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” - Mark Twain
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 anything you want is to model successful people who have already achieved it. With the incredible amount of books available on every topic, there are few limits to the knowledge you can gain through daily reading.
Whether you’d like to transform your relationships, increase you self-confidence, improve your communication or persuasion skills, learn how to become wealthy, or improve any area of your life, just be open to the idea that you will learn tons by investing time in reading relevant books.
S is for Scribing”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 (really: Journaling) is a way to gain clarity, capture ideas, review lessons, acknowledge your progress, practice gratitude, capturing dreams, writing about food, etc. Whatever you want to write about, and however you want to write, online or offline, it’s a great way to end the morning before officially starting the day.
If you can’t think of anything, try one of the following, or a combination: List what you are grateful for and acknowledge your accomplishments; clarify what areas you want to improve on, and plan which specific actions you are committed to taking to improve; write a synopsis of the previous day, and what you aim to do today.
Life S.A.V.E.R.S. ScheduleI recommend waking up an hour earlier, and try these. You may have tried one or several of these before, but found that they don’t stick. That’s probably because they were not integrated in a specific routine. By cramming all six practices into the first hour of the morning you get to nurture each aspect of your physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual well-being, while detracting almost nothing from the busy-work of the day.
Here is a sample schedule of how you can do this just by waking up an hour early:
Silence (5 minutes)
Affirmations (5 minutes)
Visualization (5 minutes)
Exercise (20 minutes)
Reading (20 minutes)
Scribing (5 minutes)
Total Time 60 minutes.