Morning has broken

Stop procrastinating and get active says CHRIS HUNT: only you can start making the changes you need to have a more positive life

SO last week I gave you some seriously powerful strategies and habits to implement that will 100% make a positive difference in your life.

Have you tried introducing any of the habits? If you did, what habits have you stuck with? Which of the lifestyle strategies do you think you are going to keep up?

Good habits once established are just as hard to break as bad habits.

One of the major habits I have worked on in the last 12 months is owning my morning and making best use of the time when there is a serious opportunity to make your day turn out the way you want it.

This period of the year is the best time to start doing this as the sun is up, it’s nice and light and the added heat makes you want to get out of bed.

Why wait? Start owning your mornings tomorrow by reading this article and then implementing the points straight away.

For example, with running my private training studio, coaching at the boxing club, dropping off and picking up the girls from school, planning client sessions, making time to eat, training myself and all the other things that need to be completed each day it can be quite intense sometimes.

In the past I would leave things to get done and some days the tasks would not be completed due to literally running out of time.

This is now a thing of the past however as I now have systems in place to manage my mornings.

One of the first books I read on the subject was called Miracle Morning and it was written by Hal Elrod.

He went through a near-death experience when he was younger and battled through recovery and completely surprised all medical professionals. He believes that the mornings are the perfect time to get your head in the game and make the day play out how you want it to.

Here’s a great quote from the book: “You can start saying yes to life by stopping to hit the snooze button. It not only makes you tired and groggy because it interrupts you in the wrong parts of your sleep cycle (snoozing makes it worse as you go back to deep sleep, which is then interrupted), but you also subconsciously tell yourself that you don’t really want to get up and face the day. You should wake up excited every day! Don’t ruin your day if you had a bad night’s sleep by saying: ‘This is way too little, I can’t function this way, the day’s ruined’.

“Tell yourself that you’ll feel good and make the most of the day instead; you’ll survive the day just fine! The goal of a good morning routine is to increase your ‘Wake up motivation level’. It means on a scale of one to 10 you move up, where 10 is being super excited to start the day, whereas one means wanting to stay in bed at all costs. Start by telling yourself that you’ll have a good night’s sleep and wake up refreshed in the morning, regardless of when you go to bed.”

I completely agree with what

Hal says in that you think you are doing yourself a favour when you hit snooze but all you are actually doing is wasting valuable time to get your brain and body ready for action. Hal goes one step further and lists six steps that you should take every morning to really own your mornings. I have adapted these with my own clients but to save confusion check out Hal’s list below easily remembered by the acronym S-A-V-E-R-S.

S – Silence – Sit quietly when you first wake up and maybe try meditating. Use this time for some deep breathing exercises.

A – Affirmations – Positive self-talk works and you can either just say things to yourself or write it down and then read it out. It’s a simple process but one that can instantly change your mindset.

V – Visualisation – Play out how your day is going to happen. Doing this will then make the actual action later much easier.

E – Exercise – My clients love training in the morning. I train my Alpha Warriors Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings and my private clients sometimes start as early as 5.30am. If you get your exercise in early, it means the day and other obstacles can’t then get in the way.

R – Reading – Reading and writing helps your personal growth. Try reading 10 pages each morning. Imagine doing this for one year. You’d have read 3,650 pages, or roughly 18 books! With only 10 pages! That is a huge change, fuelled by a small commitment.

Feel free to reread, highlight and circle information to get your brain up and running.

S – Scribing / Writing – I like to look at my calendar every morning, plan out some sessions and do some emails / social media posts. I find my brain is fresh after doing all the other steps and having that time before my day gets full of tasks is always nice.

So there you have it, some simple steps and implementation tactics to start your day the right way. I can’t begin to tell you how important managing my mornings has been.

You can even take it one step further which I have done with some of my own clients and set aside 20 minutes every night doing something similar to Hal’s Miracle Morning but let’s leave that for another week.

For now, I have a challenge for you… Seek an accountability partner to help you make the Miracle Morning stick. When you have a workout friend who you go to the gym with, you’re much more likely to follow through. So get a friend and commit to each other that you’ll do 30 days of the Miracle Morning and see how it works out.

You’ll notice three distinct phases: the first 10 days it’s hard and you have to fight each day not to give up. The second 10 days it will start to feel more normal. The last 10 days your Miracle Morning will already become enjoyable, and you will look forward to it each day. So go find a partner to do this challenge with and start getting excited about tomorrow! Life is amazing and even more amazing when you are in total control of it.

If you can’t find an accountability partner give me a shout, I have had lots of feedback from readers over the last 41 columns and even worked privately with some of them. The results already have been nothing short of amazing.

If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing to do is wake up. Have a great Thursday and own your morning tomorrow!