The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)

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

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my first personal development routine.