Book Review: The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod

A Number One bestseller in Amazon’s Professional Development category (plus #2 in Social Psychology), The Miracle Morning* is a book that probably should have appeared on The Balance Collective Personal Development book club a lot sooner. I’ll be honest, though. I have been putting it off. I don’t do mornings. I have an innate, negative reaction to anything that is a little too mainstream and assumed that The Miracle Morning would be in the same ilk as the “GET UP EXTRA EARLY OR YOU ARE A FAILURE” type thinking that pops up too frequently on my social media feed.  However, when I asked which books are a must-read, The Miracle Morning appeared very frequently!

So, what it is all about? The reviews wax lyrical about the life-changing impact of the strategies that Elrod claims have turned his life, and thousands of others, around. It has spawned a whole heap of other books, an online movement, and journals. When you read the feedback online, people talk about the simplicity of this (MASSIVE tick for me), the flexibility of the approach (another tick) and that it is life-changing (not a bad claim!).

The book opens with Hal talking about a life-altering accident he had in his early twenties, and how this experience has changed his whole approach on life.  The injuries sustained from a car crash, and his physical and mental recovery, was the beginning of a self-improvement and self-reflection journey that eventually, even accidentally, created The Miracle Morning.

Before we get into what The Miracle Morning consists of, you have to work your way through several chapters of what is, ultimately a combination of a motivational speech (that he is now globally known for) and a little bit of a sales pitch around why you need to take part in The Miracle Morning. For someone that believes in the power of habits, behaviour, mindset, goals, and self-reflection, I scanned over this area. If you are new to the concept, then you are likely to be fired up and ready to go.

 

 

 

I think my biggest issue with the book, and you may disagree, was at least half felt like a sales pitch. I continued with the rest of with my guard up! One of my personal issue was that Elrod talked a lot through the book about “mediocrity” and how us readers don’t want to settle for a mediocre life. It was clear from the outset that this links to how he measures his own success. Case in point, he didn’t see himself as a success in his sales career till he reached the very top of the sales chart. And he talked about this A LOT. It is quite an aggressive and materialistic measure that doesn’t sit with how I view my life.

The heart of The Miracle Morning is the S.A.V.E.R.S, which boldly claim to be “Six practises guaranteed to save you from a life of unfilled potential”.  Ultimately, these practises are habits; things that will add mental and physical rewards to your life if you do them every day. However, I am still unconvinced that doing these alone are going to create the massive successes that Edlord claims. At times, it moves into the world of the Law of Attraction. If you aren’t sure about my thoughts on that, check out this blog.

You can probably tell by now, I’m not 100% convinced by the claims made in the book. In fact, I am not sure how there is a book’s worth of content. If you actually pull out the bulk of the motivational speech and sales funnel, there isn’t much more than a very long blog post.

However, in true Clara Cliff Notes style, I wanted to share my three-top take-aways from The Miracle Morning. There is some value in the book, even if you have to dig a little deeper!

1. SAVERS are good habits.
The SAVERS are basically: meditation (Silence), affirmations, visualisations, exercise, reading and journaling (scribing). Separately these have been shown to bring value to life and your wellbeing and won’t do any harm bringing them regularly into your life. I am currently working through creating my own Miracle Morning and, so far, I do feel calmer and more flexible (thanks to the exercise and moments of calm before my day starts!)

 
2. It doesn’t have to be in the morning
You have to get quite far in the book before this is revealed, but you can run this routine at any time of the day or even, taking a full hour! It’s about finding a slot of time in your day to focus on these useful habits. There is no doubt doing them in the morning, for the maximum amount of time that you can, will set you up for the day. But you don’t have to get up at the break of dawn to make it happen. Trying to shoehorn this into your day just to tick off your miracle morning will be counter-intuitive!

3. Start your day out of bed
Yes, that sounds a bit strange but hear me out. The first three aspects of S.A.V.E.R.S. could be done before you get up. You could lie there in silence, then repeat your affirmations then run through your visualisations. If, like me, your exercise includes a bit of stretching, then you could even start these in bed! But you are telling your body you aren’t ready for the day yet. Getting up, brushing your teeth and downing as much water as you can (his words, not mine) tells your body you are awake and ready for the day!

So, in conclusion, this book is useful to give you the structure in your day to focus on your health and wellbeing in a way that you may not have considered. Life-changing? I’m still on the fence about that, but there is no doubt that this could help create solid habits that will benefit you generally.

What did you think? Am I going to be put in book review jail as I didn’t love The Miracle Morning? Come over to Creating Careers to Enjoy to chat about the book!

Want to read other book reviews? Check out the collection here.

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