My Morning

So I'm trying something new. Well, not really new, people have been doing it since, well, probably since the beginning of human civilization. It's not even entirely new to me. The thing is, I am now doing it with new motivation, expectation, and purpose.

This "new" thing is called The Miracle Morning(TM) based on the book by Hal Elrod also titled, "The Miracle Morning." The not so new part is waking up early, the new part is why.

See, before, I believed that getting up early was merely a good idea, but I didn't understand that it was essential to living up to my full potential.

So a couple weeks ago, I decided to give The Miracle Morning(TM) a try and I committed to getting up at 5a.m. to work on my personal development. Hal's program is still new to me and I don't do everything exactly as he prescribes, but this morning I learned there's more than one way to have a Miracle Morning.

I got out of bed, walked to my dresser and turned my alarm off. My alarm is across the room so I have to get out of bed to turn it off. Then I grabbed my clothes and went to the bathroom where I can turn on the light without disturbing my wife who was out late last night. Once dressed, went to the kitchen for my glass of water, it helps me wake up. Well, that and the coffee.

I set my now empty glass on the table and turned around and then I saw it – the pile of dishes in the sink.

Now, last night I had a choice, stay up to unload and reload the dishwasher or save it for the morning. Either way, I had already set my alarm for 4:50 AM and it was after 10 PM at that point. If I stayed up I knew my wife would be happy when she came home and heard the dishwasher running, but I felt like I was going to pass out, so I went to bed.

So there I was, staring at the dirty dishes and I realized I had a choice, I could leave the whole mess for my wife and just get my coffee and get on with my Miracle Morning, or I could put off the reading I wanted to do and give my wife a Miracle Morning by doing the dishes. I did the dishes.

Once the dishwasher was running, I picked up my mug of coffee and stepped outside to enjoy the first light of day. I love being outside early in the morning! The sun wasn't up yet but there was enough light to see what I was doing. I stood on the deck and just listened to the birds for a moment.

Looking around I noticed that everything was dry, no rain, no dew. So I could sit in my favorite deck chair without getting a towel to dry it off. But I didn't sit down because since it didn't rained in the night the garden needed watering. I asked myself, "why not water everything now? I'm already out here."

It takes a little time to do because I use the water from the rain barrel, and that means filling the watering can multiple times. But that also gave me time to enjoy the peaceful morning. Even our relatively quiet neighborhood gets noisy with activity during the day, so I was grateful to be outside and hear only birds.

After filling and emptying the watering can a few times, I noticed the world changing from grey tone to full color as the sun peeked over the horizon. I turned to face northeast, smiling to welcome the coming day. The clouds were aglow with pink light. THIS is worth getting up early for!

I still had not exercised or done affirmations or the reading I was hoping to do, but though I did not plan to, I had practiced kindness, silence, and gratitude. I made positive choices and that turned into a positive attitude. I was feeling great. I was sure this was going to be a good day!

I may not have done things quite like Hal Elrod but I ended up having a good morning anyway. I was up early and got things done before sunrise and that put me ahead of the game! And that's what The Miracle Morning(TM) means for me.

What I had discovered was that you don't have to follow someone's program exactly as they lay it out. I took the concepts and adapted them to what I needed this morning, and I got a positive result, because doing something, anything, is better than doing nothing at all.