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

— 4 —
Why Did YOU Wake Up This Morning?
You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if
you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.
—GEORGE LORIMER
Your first ritual that you do during the day is the highest leveraged ritual, by far, because it has the effect
of setting your mind, and setting the context, for the rest of your day.
—EBEN PAGAN
W
hy did you wake up this morning? That’s a question you’ve probably
never been asked, but think about it for a second—why do you wake up most
mornings? Why leave the comfort of your warm, cozy bed? Do you do it
every day because you really want to? Or is it because, for one reason or
another, you have to?
If you’re like most people, you wake up to the incessant beeping of an
alarm clock each morning and reluctantly drag yourself out of bed because
you have to be somewhere, do something, answer to—or take care of—
someone else. Given the choice (do you have a choice?) most people would
continue sleeping.
So naturally, we rebel. We hit the snooze button and resist the inevitable
act of waking up, unaware that our resistance is sending a message to the
universe that we’d rather lie there in our beds—unconscious—than
consciously and actively live and create the lives we say that we want. Most
of us have resigned ourselves to a certain level of mediocrity and unfulfilled
potential. We don’t like it. We don’t feel good about it. We know that there is
absolutely another level of success, achievement and fulfillment that’s
possible for us, but we feel stuck, and we don’t know what to do to get
ourselves unstuck.
You Snooze, You Lose: The Truth About Waking Up
The old saying, “You Snooze, You Lose” may have a deeper meaning
than any of us realized. When you delay waking up until you have to—
meaning you wait until the last possible moment to get out of bed and start
your day—consider that what you’re actually doing is resisting your life.
Every time you hit the snooze button, you’re in a state of resistance to your

---

day, to your life, and to waking up and creating the life you say you want.
Think about the kind of negative energy that surrounds you when you begin
your day with resistance, when you respond to the sound of the alarm clock
with internal dialogue along the lines of, “Oh no, it’s time already. I have to
wake up. I don’t want to wake up.” It’s as if you’re saying, “I don’t want to
live my life, at least not to the fullest.”
Many people who suffer from depression report that the morning time is
the most difficult. They wake up with dread. Sometimes it is because of a job
they feel obligated to go to, or due to a relationship that is failing. Some
people feel this way simply due to the nature of depression and its ability to
weigh on a person’s mind, emotions, and heart without needing a specific
reason. The tone of our morning has a powerful impact on the tone of the rest
of our day. It becomes a cycle: waking up with despair, spending the day
continuing to feel that way, going to sleep feeling anxious or depressed, then
repeat the cycle of melancholy the next day.
Not only are people missing out on the abundance of clarity, energy,
motivation, and personal power that comes from waking up each day on
purpose, but their resistance to this inevitable daily act is a defiant statement
to the universe that they would rather lie in bed, unconscious, than to create
and live the life they desire.
On the other hand, when you wake up each day with passion and
purpose, you join the small percentage of high achievers who are living their
dreams. Most importantly, you will be happy. By simply changing your
approach to waking up in the morning, you will literally change everything.
But don’t take my word for it—trust these famous early risers: Oprah
Winfrey, Tony Robbins, Bill Gates, Howard Schultz, Deepak Chopra, Wayne
Dyer, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Aristotle, and
far too many more to list here.
No one ever taught us that by learning how to consciously set our
intention to wake up each morning with a genuine desire—even enthusiasm—
to do so, we can change our entire lives.
If you’re just snoozing every day until the last possible moment you
have to head off to work, show up for school, or take care of your family, and
then coming home and zoning out in front of the television until you go to bed
(this used to be my daily routine), I’ve got to ask you: When are you going to
develop yourself into the person you need to be to create the levels of health,
wealth, happiness, success, and freedom that you truly want and deserve?
When are you going to actually live your life instead of numbly going through
the motions looking for every possible distraction to escape reality? What if
your reality—your life—could finally be something that you can’t wait to be

---

conscious for?

There is no better day than today for us to give up who we’ve been for
who we can become, and upgrade the life we’ve been living for the one we
really want. There is no better book than the one you are holding in your
hands to show you how to become the person you need to be who is capable
of quickly attracting, creating and sustaining the life you have always wanted.