I am on my fourth day of the Miracle Morning challenge and I'm finally convinced that I'm truly benefiting from this experience. The experience essentially entails waking up an hour earlier than you normally need to, and doing the following: meditation, exercise, reading, affirmations, visualization, and writing.
I bought the book yesterday ( The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod) and am starting to dig into it today. And a lot of the truths are making me shift my mindset.
Firstly:
This quote made me realize that personal development is crucial. I always thought that ultimately life and success is about action and results and that motivational mindset is all fluff. But I realize if you work on personal development every day, success becomes more achievable. First of all exercise releases dopamine and serotonin to keep you going. Reading helps you expand your mind, shape your mentality, and learn different perspectives (like I am doing right now). Writing down goals and doing affirmations sets the tone for the rest of the day. Success just becomes easier when you have the right mentality and mood.
Next, I am going to paste this long, powerful paragraph I found in the book:
“Rearview Mirror Syndrome One of the most crippling causes of mediocrity in life is a condition I call Rearview Mirror Syndrome (RMS). Our subconscious minds are equipped with a self-limiting rearview mirror, through which we continuously relive and recreate our past. We mistakenly believe that who we were is who we are, thus limiting our true potential in the present, based on the limitations of our past. As a result, we filter every choice we make—from what time we will wake up in the morning to which goals we will set to what we allow ourselves to consider possible for our lives—through the limitations of our past experiences. We want to create a better life, but sometimes we don’t know how to see it any other way than how it’s always been. Research shows that on any given day, the average person thinks somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 thoughts. The problem is that ninety-five percent of our thoughts are the same as the ones we thought the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. It’s no wonder most people go through life, day after day, month after month, year after year, and never change the quality of their lives. Like old, worn baggage, we carry stress, fear, and worry from yesterday with us into today. When presented with opportunities, we quickly check our rearview mirror to assess our past capabilities. “No, I’ve never done anything like that before. I’ve never achieved at that level. In fact, I’ve failed, time and time again.” When presented with adversity, we go back to our trusty rearview mirror for guidance on how to respond. “Yep, just my luck. This crap always happens to me. I’m just going to give up; that’s what I’ve always done when things get too difficult.” If you are to move beyond your past and transcend your limitations, you must stop living out of your rearview mirror and start imagining a life of limitless possibilities. Accept the paradigm: my past does not equal my future. Talk to yourself in a way that inspires confidence that not only is anything possible, but that you are capable and committed to making it so. It’s not even necessary to believe it at first. In fact, you probably won’t believe it. You might find it uncomfortable and that you resist doing it. That’s okay. Repeat it to yourself anyway, and your subconscious mind will begin to absorb the positive self-affirmations. (More on how to do this in Chapter 6: The Life S.A.V.E.R.S.) Don’t place unnecessary limitations on what you want for your life. Think bigger than you’ve allowed yourself to think up until this point. Get clear on what you truly want, condition yourself to the belief that it’s possible by focusing on and affirming it every day, and then consistently move in the direction of your vision until it becomes your reality. There is nothing to fear, because you cannot fail—only learn, grow, and become better than you’ve ever been before. Always remember that where you are is a result of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be, from this moment on.”
This part particularly resonated: "Always remember that where you are is a result of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be, from this moment on.”
So yes, you are who you are based on the stuff you did in the past. But where you go is up in the air. I am trying to stop myself from being bound by my past. I let the past shape my thoughts and my decisions a lot of times. I tend to ruminate and think I should not have said this or that and regret certain actions. But if I stop myself in my tracks and realize none of these things are permanent, then I can work towards a different future. If I stay in the past, I'm always going to be in that same stage.
Here are the last two screenshots I'm going to share today:
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Everything you do now is actually crucial to who you are becoming.
So today I had some negative thoughts of "I should have done something this way", "I shouldn't have said this", and "I'm scared of feeling anxious". This time - I just visualized who I want to be in the future and thought "am I in line with who I want to be?" When I have negative thoughts, it's easy for me to tell myself "I should stop doing that", but this method doesn't really work for me. I end up ruminating still. But when I visualized my best self and understood that me trying to entertain this mentality shapes who I am becoming, that every action, thought, decision shapes who I could be, then I decided to stop and say "let me act more accordingly to the person I want to be".
I found this really helped. So now I'm realizing if I keep practicing these rituals, I'm going to knock out all the mental, physical, emotional improvements in the beginning of the day, and build this muscle!
I'm super excited to keep this challenge going. If you have done this before, let me know in the comments!
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