Waking With A Purpose


Day one of my Best Month Ever Challenge and I can already see how I want to make some improvements. That’s what the journal is for though, right? I enjoyed filling out my goals for the day and I am looking forward to filling out the evening page of the journal later. My morning didn’t have as much structure as I would have liked, but I DID get a lot done!! I even vacuumed the first and second floors without killing any cats. 🙂 First time vacuuming since the newbies have been fully acclimated to the house.

I was having a discussion about The Miracle Morning with a friend the other day. She wasn’t fully grasping the concept and I really felt like I wasn’t explaining it well enough to make an impact. My hubby wants to get in on this, but he doesn’t feel he can read the book just yet. He was hoping I could walk him through the general concept in the meantime, so I went poking around online for a “cheat sheet” of some sort. I stumbled across Hal Elrod’s “Achieve Your Goals Podcast” Episode 25 – exactly what I was looking for! I listened to it last night while I was folding laundry and doing other chores. WOW! That episode really spelled the MM concept out nicely and solidified some things for me that I hadn’t quite grasped from the book. I typed up a Google Doc for the hubby that I think will help ME as well. I’m struggling with Affirmations and Visualizations a bit and Hal gave some great tips.

I get it now though!! Waking up with a PURPOSE!! That is the whole point of my new morning routine. Not waking up because I have to, but waking up with PURPOSE. 🙂 No more being tied down to responsibilities and requirements in the morning. Mornings now are about ME. Wow does that ever set me up for a much better day than I used to have!

Another way my mornings have improved is in the rearrangement of my schedule. I have always been the type of person who MUST shower first thing – or I can’t function the rest of the day. Try as I might, I’ve never been able to get my shower much under 30 minutes. 🙁 I move as fast as I can and stay as focused as possible, but nothing ever changes. Last week I saw a comment in the MM community that suggested making exercise the first task in the morning. This was in reference to someone having trouble clarifying affirmations and visualization (me too!) and sounded like something I should try as well. I also was feeling ready to move on from half-assedly riding the exercise bike.

I did a quick internet search for “best online workout videos”, found a series on youtube that fit what I was looking for, and selected their 30 day fat burn workout program. Three days in and OUCH. Muscles. Hurt. Everywhere. The other thing I noticed? I can shower in under 15 minutes now. HUH?!? It quickly became obvious that I was using the shower to wake me up in the morning. Using exercise to wake me up cuts my shower time in HALF. Wow. Well I’m impressed.

After listening to Hal’s podcasts for a few months and really enjoying them, I still just wasn’t on board with this whole morning schedule concept. How quickly that changed, huh? I was sold after day one and I’m even more sold on it now.

The best part about all this? Seeing my hubby start to get on board too. 🙂 Talk about TWO people who desperate don’t want to be mediocre anymore…