Ever have a pleasant surprise when two independent things you’re working on align perfectly? I feel that today as I write this post, which suggests to me that I’m meant to be doing both right now.

I joined Natalie Sisson’s 15 Days to Freedom New Year Blog Challenge, where she guides her readers to post to their blogs for 15 consecutive days. I wanted to do this to jump-start my momentum in this new year. Her Day 1 topic is to outline my Daily Success Plan.

At the same time, since I’ve left the world of standard corporate employment, there hasn’t been much routine, because the schedule and demands of each day can be so totally different.  I’ve been looking for a way to keep some rhythm and momentum in each day.  Ideally at the same time, I’ve wanted to find a way to avoid the distractions of modern life and carve out some time each day to work on myself.  For this, I have decided to follow Hal Elrod’s The Miracle Morning.

The gist of Hal’s plan is to get up an hour earlier than you would have otherwise, and spend that time practicing the 6 habits he calls the SAVERS:

  • Silence – prayer, meditation, etc.
  • Affirmations
  • Visualization
  • Exercise
  • Reading
  • Scribing – what we would usually call “writing”, such as journaling.

All of these are things I wish I did more of, so the idea of combining them all into a single morning routine sounds extremely powerful.

The problem being that I am so not a morning person.  To the point where I believe that this is genetic.  But even I know that with sufficient motivation this can be overcome.  At one point in my life, I was getting up early to go to the gym every day before going to work.  But nothing of that sort has been happening recently.

Well, I’m in Day 2 of the Miracle Morning, and I’m happy to report that the results so far are encouraging!  I’m making the attitude shift that convinces you that getting out of bed is going to be much better for you than hitting snooze several times.  And while it’s early enough that I’m using the time for Affirmations and Visualization in deciding/writing up/composing what those will be, that in itself is very empowering.

So there you have it:  a happy confluence, reinforcing new habits for what will be an excellent day, and an excellent year!  May you also be able to create the same for yourself.