Partly because both of my parents keep early hours, and mostly because my life experience has shown me the benefits of getting up early in the morning, I've also become an early riser. I've even come to a conclusion that how to spend the first hours in the morning every weekday has a decisive impact not only on the rest of the day but also on our life in general, or to be more specific, on what we accomplish in our life.
After a number of trials and errors I've also come to a conclusion that I need three hours before I start my daily work. Since I start working at home or go out to commute to my workplace at eight, I get up at five on weekday mornings. I usually go to bed at eleven at night, so I sleep six hours on weekdays (but on Sabbaths and Jewish holidays I sleep more than nine hours, sometimes even 12 or 15 hours!).
This week I stumbled upon an amazing book entitled The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. Though its core message wasn't new to me, its practical tips and the reasons for the benefits of getting up early in the morning have assured me that I've been doing the right thing.
Probably the most useful practical tip of this book is what to do after getting up early in the morning. The author proposes six practices he abbreviated as S.A.V.E.R.S., or S for silence, including mediation, prayer, reflection, deep breathing, and gratitude, A for affirmations, V for visualization, E for exercise, R for reading, and S for scribing, with possible changes in the order.
My daily morning routine, at least on an ideal weekday, between five and eight has been reading, silence in the form of davening, and exercise in the form of running in this specific order for the past ten years or so. I start every new day with the study of musar, or Jewish ethics, followed by the reading of one of the self-help books waiting for me.
Having read about the effects of affirmations and visualization as part of the so-called "law of attraction", I'm now thinking about how and when to integrate them into my daily morning routine.
The author of the above mentioned book explains why it's important to wake up early in the morning "with passion and purpose", for example, as follows:
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.
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.
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.At least since last August when I had some significant turning point in my life, I've been feeling I can't wait to start each new day. And this little book has given me a convincing rationale for keeping and even intensifying this amazing feeling.