On the official list of Master-This-Or-DIE hacks for every budding entrepreneur and aspiring manager in 2019, is a Miracle Morning Routine (MMR) that will accelerate to you to a 7-figure income.
The prerequisites of a MMR might include:
Meditate without falling back to sleep
Workout
Breathing exercises
Prayer
Gratitude lists
Digital devices in the other room
Analogue alarm clock
Dressing for success, which translates to ‘the same black turtleneck and baggy jeans as the day before’, because Steve Jobs doesn’t make mistakes
Waking with the sunrise even if it’s raining out
Morning journaling
Green smoothie you pretend to like
An hour of drafting the book about your life so far
Writing out your goals as though already achieved and with enough emotion to put the cast of Titanic to shame, and then doing affirmations in your best Grant Cardone voice.
There is a book about it from a guy called Hal Elrod, but most of us got converted from all the podcasts and Medium articles that had each billionaire casually outline his or her own routine.
Oh, how it glittered.
We wanted THAT routine.
The one that creates the gazillionaire mindset.
So, we try the MMR and love it.
We tell our network how it changed everything.
We all start to add each other’s additional awesome ideas into our own routine.
We spend our quiet hours wondering if we have missed anything important out of our routine.
Are we meditating for long enough?
Should we just finally install Alarmy, or keep trying to teach ourselves to jump boldly out of bed on the count of 5 as preached by her grace, Mel Robbins?
Our MMR has now started to take 4 hours long, so our shrinking workday may mean turning away clients or cutting back on sleep.
We start dropping the ball and sleeping in, which means waking up and rushing into the workday wearing the socks we wore to bed.
No more MMR.
Oh, the hardship – we have already uploaded umpteen videos to the socials demonstrating our MMR. Do we keep pretending we are a thought leader in all things discipline or do we try to change the subject so our disciples are not upset.
Winter comes and the gym is cancelled.
Months pass and we think nostalgically back to the first-week high of our MMR.
We wonder if there is a book for rehabilitating all our good old habits.
Seriously, if this is you, CALM DOWN.
All is not lost.
Rehabilitation is as follows.
Step 1: Realize you are not Mark Z, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates.
Sorry, those spots are taken. You are you, buddy.
Resort to “fake it till you make it” and you will wind up with a documentary about you titled: “Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and the Cult of Silicon Valley”.
All the black turtle necks and low voices inspired by her heroes could not save her.
We are all wired differently, are at different chapters in life, and find different things to be “food for the brain”.
Pick your own top 3 morning habits based on which of them would help all the other good behaviours flow more easily. Then, focus on just doing ONE of those each day until you have nailed it.
For example, a lot of entrepreneurs find that a walk in nature in the early hours helps them clear the mind, spend time with God, and encourage brain power during the business day -- not just get the dose of fitness in.
Others notice that if they dress creatively, they feel better mood wise and are more likely to be bold in their follow-ups or record that daily video.
Experiment to figure out what yours are. If you are best to wake up softly like a cat, with soothing music for an hour, accept that and stop forcing the sleep out of your eyes with a motivational playlist from people trying to sell you their course.
Some personalities need spontaneity and variety, or they suffocate.
The keyword in self-aware is SELF.
Don’t try and do all the things just because that is what works for someone else.
Step 2: Stop aiming too high, wide, and deep.
Optimums get a little too optimistic, and realism takes over in the form of procrastination or skipping.
“I plan to read 15 mins of a book and no less, I shall do an intense workout cos walks are for old people, I also hereby decree that I will write for a whole half an hour on my book”.
Sure, you do.
Did you escape the 9-to-5 so you could enjoy more tyranny?
You wanted FREEDOM didn’t you?
Get real. The minimums are still wildly better than nothing at all, so choose which activities are a true must in your routine, and the amount of time or energy you would spend on each even on your worst day.
If that is 3 minutes, or 1 page, or a walk to the letterbox and back, start there and build up.
THAT is reality, and it sticks around.
The minute you start feeling doomed about it, you have probably bitten off more than you can chew, so spit it out in favour of a smaller portion.
This is a daily commitment, not a project, so keep it doable if you want consistency.
Step 3: Take stock
Track your top 3 morning routine habits so you can see what causes the ebb and flow and so you can get a dopamine high from ticking a box each morning.
Find someone else who needs to get into the habit of tracking their habits and ask each other if they tracked/are going to track their habits, every Friday afternoon and Monday morning.
Focus on the outcomes.
Does your MMR make you feel happier and more productive?
Reflect on it now and again to see if it is actually helping you and how.
That way you know if something needs switching to suit the changes in your life or career.
Make a note of things that can be sacrificed or adapted in your MMR for days you are unwell, on the road, etc… so that you can still just wake up and follow the plan even when there is disruption.
Cloning is so unethical.
So stop trying to steal Mark Zuckerberg’s MMR and go craft your own.
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