Are You A Morning Person?

Do you hate mornings? Do you wonder how on earth you’re going to get out of bed some mornings? Can you imagine how great it would be to energetically jump out of bed in the morning, ready to start your day?

For those of you who know me (that’s you Donna ;-)), you know that I am definitely NOT a morning person. It is my least favourite time of the day and the thought of getting up in the morning makes me feel ill. I do love my bed!

My hubby and little girl have learned to wait until Mummy has finished her pot of tea in the morning before giving her too much attention. I’m usually good by about 10am, so my new job at the literacy clinic suits me just nice. I start at 11am and work through to 5/6pm….perfect.

But I have been thinking lately that maybe, just maybe I don’t have to loathe mornings so much. Maybe there is a better way of getting out of bed to make it not so painful. Maybe I don’t have to be grumpy in the morning. Maybe I’m having a mid-life crisis….what am I thinking….getting up earlier!

Then I came across this:

I’ve seen this book around and heard some people talk about how it has had a major impact on their life….and apparently for the better.

The main idea is that you get out of bed for yourself and you spend the first hour on self improvement / personal development type activities to help kick-start your day. Most of us get out of bed to go to a job, or for the kids or just because you must. But when it’s something pretty exciting, like Christmas day or going on a holiday, we generally find it easy to get up.

By doing The Miracle Morning (TMM), the author (and thousands of people who have made the change) claims that you will see some benefits, including:

• Waking up with more energy;
• Lower stress;
• Improved overall health;
• Increased productivity; and
• Experience more gratitude.

S A V E R S

The hour comprises six specific activities, designed to have an immediate impact on your life. They are also known as the SAVERS.

S is for Silence – this can include meditation, prayer, reflection and deep breathing.

A is for Affirmations – repeating out loud (daily) what you want to accomplish and who you need to be to accomplish it.

V is for Visualisation – also known as mental rehearsal, you use your imagination to create mental pictures for a specific behaviour or outcome.

E is for Exercise – exercise in the morning to boost energy.

R is for Reading – to learn from the experts. No matter what you want for your life, there is a book out there on how to make it happen.

S is for Scribing – this is another word for writing or journaling. So just getting your thoughts out of your head and put them in writing.

Let’s do this!

So believe it or not I decided I was going to give this Miracle Morning a go. I don’t know why I want to do this, other than I would like to have more energy and be more productive. I am also a bit sick of feeling so grumpy in the morning….

The first thing I did was use some of the affirmations for my night time ritual. I am not a very good sleeper and I always think negative before bed, I’m going to be tired tomorrow, I’m going to bed too late, I hope Stephen doesn’t snore…..and the list goes on. It’s like I talk myself into have a bad night’s sleep.

I’ve printed off the night time affirmations that are provided and now read these each night before bed. They mainly talk about having a good night’s sleep, waking up energetically and telling yourself that you’re getting enough sleep.

I did this for a few days while I worked myself up to get up early. I didn’t want to go too hard core to start with, so I set my alarm for 5:55am on the first morning. It was pretty tough getting out of bed while it was still dark….but at least it wasn’t raining.

I saved the exercise component until the end…just because I dislike exercise nearly as much as I dislike mornings. So my routine pretty much looks like this:

Meditation – 5 minutes
Affirmations – 5 minutes
Visualisation – 5 minutes
Reading – 15-20 minutes
Scribing / Journaling – 5 minutes
Exercise – 15-20 minutes

I must admit I’m quite liking the gentle start to the day with silent meditation followed by saying out loud some affirmations. At the moment I’ve been saying the affirmations provided. I’m also using this time to say out loud my text (The Dalek) I’ll be using when I start teaching Talk 4 Writing.

For the first 2 days I went for a walk outside, but it had only just got light and it was only 5 degrees one morning. I decided this was just a bit too hard, so now I’ve been streaming You Tube exercise videos to my apple TV and doing those…much better. But boy oh boy, I’m sore….

To start with I just used a book for my journal.

But this morning (during my reading time) Nicole Avery from Planning With Kids shared an app that she’s been using for journaling. It’s called the 5 Minute Journal. I liked the look of this and the structure that it provides. So I downloaded this and used it this morning, rather than my book. Below is a screenshot of what the app looks like and what I wrote this morning.

There is also an evening component where you can document 3 amazing things and how your day could have been improved. A couple of other features I like include being able to set a reminder so that you’re notified each day to complete it. I also like that you can upload photos and export the journal to a PDF.

My thoughts

I am now at day 7 and I’m feeling proud of myself for sticking with this for a whole week. I’ve slowly been getting up earlier and earlier (5 minutes each day), where I hope to soon be getting up at 5am. Sounds so foreign to me, I’ve never willingly gotten out of bed at this time before.

My plan is to complete TMM from 5am-6am, and then from 6am-7am I have time to work on creating new teaching items that I just haven’t found the time for previously.

I don’t feel quite so negative in the mornings, and the last 2 days haven’t been as tough getting out of bed. In terms of the benefits I should be seeing, productivity is probably the noticeable one at the moment. And I’m also extremely sore….I don’t think I’ve done 7 days of exercise in a row…ever!

Summing up

I’m sure there are many things you can choose to make your mornings more serene and smooth. But for me, I’m going to continue with the miracle morning and see how it goes. I’m not hating it as much as I thought I would, and the gentle start with meditation, affirmations and visualisation I quite enjoy. If you’re thinking about making a change, take my advice and jump in with both feet and just do it! Maybe it will end up being just what you need.

If you’d like to find out more about TMM, then head over to Amazon where you can read more or purchase as a paperback or Kindle version.

*There are affiliate links in this post, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase I will receive a small referral commission.