This week we will be breaking down Chapters 9-10 and the conclusion of The Miracle Morning. If you haven’t read the breakdown for week 3 yet, go do so before continuing on with week 4.
Your Life is Created By Habits
Did you know that one of the main things that determines the outcomes of your life, is the habits you have?
It may not seem that way, but by nature we as humans are controlled by our habits. Each and every outcome we have in every area of our life is affected at least in part by some habit we have.
Some of the habits we have are good, and result in the success that we desire. While others are bad, and hold us back from achieving the things we desire.
One of the things I have learned over the past few years, and been reminded of while reading this book, is that sometimes we have to push ourselves to establish habits that we may not like initially, but ones that will help us achieve the things that we want to achieve.
This book has been a perfect example of this.
How so?
Many people hate getting up early. However, those who discipline themselves to wake up early and begin their day in an empowering way are set up to achieve far greater success than those who sleep in and wake up at the last possible minute.
As quoted in the book, Don Marquis said “Successful people aren’t born that way. They become successful by establishing the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don’t like to do. The successful people don’t always like doing these things themselves; they just get on and do them.”
Waking up early has been just one of these type of things in my life. Others include things like working out, eating heathy, reading books, spending time in the bible and prayer daily, and many other things. While each of these, at times, are things I find myself not wanting to do, the more consistently I push myself to make them habits in my life, the better my results and my life are.
In Chapter 9 Hal says, ‘It’s been said that our quality of life is created by the quality of our habits. If a person is living a successful life, then that person simply has the habits in place that are creating and sustaining their levels of success.”
So what does the book say about creating habits?
- Change is painful. Face it, nobody really likes change. The part that is enjoyable are the results that you get from the changes you make, but the changes themselves can be painful. The book says “Every year, millions of well-intentioned people make New Year’s resolutions, but less than five percent of us stick to them.”
- It takes time. Changing your habits doesn’t happen over night. The book says that it takes 30 days – but acknowledges that many different sources have different time tables ranging from as little as 7 days, to as much as over 60 days. Hal outlines a 30 day process broken down as follows:
- Phase One: Unbearable (Days 1-10). Here you may hate your new habit. You will try to reject the change. Push through this phase, as it is the toughest.
- Phase Two: Uncomfortable (Days 11-20). In this phase you may begin to see some results. It will get easier, but you will still need to push yourself. The new habit is not yet fully set.
- Phase Three: Unstoppable (Days 21-30). This is where you lock in the new habit. It is also where you fully begin to see the results of the new habit. Many people ease up a bit during this phase, and ultimately fail to lock in the habit. Push yourself these last 10 days.
While there is a bunch of debate about whether or not 30 days is long enough to build a new habit or not, it certainly is a good start. Some habit may take longer than this, while others may happen a bit sooner. But planning to push yourself to work on your new habit for at least 30 days is a great way to give yourself the best chance of having success.
The Miracle Morning Life Transformation Challenge
The last chapter of the book focuses on the 30 day challenge Hal created. It’s called “The Miracle Morning 30-Day Life Transformation Challenge”, and if you haven’t already started waking up early and implementing a Miracle Morning this is the perfect way to implement it into your life.
Hal says, “During The Miracle Morning 30-Day Life Transformation Challenge you’ll identify the habits you believe will have the most significant impact on your life, your success, who you want to be and where you want to go.”
He breaks it down into 3 steps (and a fourth that is a bonus):
- Get the fast start kit. Here is a link to his website to download the 30-Day Life Transformation Challenge.
- Plan your first morning. Put it on your calendar. Do it tomorrow morning. As the saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
- Do your first morning. Discipline yourself to get up and follow through with your plan tomorrow when your alarm goes off. It may suck, and you may want to stay in bed, but if you can force yourself to take action tomorrow you will be far more likely to succeed than if you push it off any longer.
- Get an accountability buddy. I have mentioned this before, but having an accountability partner is extremely powerful. It can be someone else in this book club, or anyone else you think will still be your friend if you ask them to start waking up earlier each day.
It is up to you wether or not your want to take this challenge. If you have been following along with this book club, and have done the action items each week, you are most likely already well on your way to building a new habit of starting each day with a Miracle Morning. However, if you haven’t done the exercises each week, and haven’t yet gotten around to implementing the Miracle Morning into your life, you should really give this 30-day challenge a try.
My Favorite Quotes
- Successful people aren’t born that way. They become successful by establishing the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don’t like to do. The successful people don’t always like doing these things themselves; they just get on and do them. —Don Marquis
- Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. — Jim Rohn
- Considering that our habits create our life, there is arguably no single skill that is more important for you to learn and master than controlling your habits.
- Habits are behaviors that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously.
- If you don’t control your habits, your habits will control you.
- On the other side of that line was freedom—the kind of freedom that can never be taken away from you. It was freedom from our self-imposed limitations.
- The Miracle Morning is a life-changing daily habit, and while most people who try it, love it from day one, getting yourself to follow through with it for 30 days—so you can make it a lifelong habit—will require an unwavering commitment from you.
- An extraordinary life is all about daily, continuous improvements in the areas that matter most. —Robin Sharma
- Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. —Neale Donald Walsh
- Remember, your life situation will improve after—but only after—you develop yourself into the person you need to be to improve it.
- Things do not change. We change. —Henry David Thoreau
- Where you are is a result of who you were, but where you end up depends entirely on who you choose to be from this moment forward.
It’s Action Time
- Plan to Take Action. If you haven’t already started to implement the Miracle Morning into your life over the last 4 weeks, don’t wait any longer! Download the 30-Day Life Transformation Challenge and get started tomorrow!
Coming Up Next…
We will be starting a new book next week! See you then!
