If you read last week’s article, and if you actually did the homework, you may now be thinking:
“Okay I dragged myself out of bed . . . now what?”
Maybe you already have some big goal, and you already know what you need to do to get there. In that case, use your mornings to just do it! It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. If you’ve been wanting to write a book, get up and write each morning! If you’ve been wanting to train for a marathon, get up and run each morning! If you’ve been wanting to learn about Financial Independence, get up and read from a book or blog on the topic one morning, and then take an action the next morning based on what you read!
However, if you aren’t sure where to start, I would recommend beginning with Hal Elrod’s S.A.V.E.R.S. from his book Miracle Morning:
- Silence, i.e. meditation
- Affirmations
- Visualizations
- Exercise
- Reading
- Scribing, i.e. writing
Meditation
I have to admit that when I first read Hal’s book a lot of the items on the S.A.V.E.R.S. list seemed rather new-age and hokey. Meditation? Really??? Visions of hippies wearing hemp clothes surrounded by incense were the first images to come to mind. Not that there is anything wrong with incense burning hippies, but it didn’t exactly resonate with me.
Turns out I was off base on my stereotype of who meditates and the purposes of meditation.
“When I look back at my life, I am happy to have had what most people would consider a successful life . . . More than anything else, I attribute it to meditation.”
Ray Dalio, billionaire & founder of the largest hedge fund in the world.
Meditation is for everyone!
For me, meditation is about training myself to quiet my mind and focus on whatever I am doing right now. It could be writing, reading, getting work done, playing with my kids, enjoying my dinner, or just sitting and breathing.
On mornings when I’m doing the whole list of SAVERS, I like to meditate as the first one. So much of my day is so hectic and noisy, it’s really nice to take a few minutes and just sit in silence each morning.
So, how do you meditate? It’s not complicated, but it can be challenging! If you are just starting out, guided meditations are nice. Try searching youtube for 5 minute meditations. Sam Harris has a good one.
Another great option for guided meditation is the app Head Space. You can get their 10 for 10 program for free (10 minutes per day for 10 days). I would recommend at least doing this, as you will learn a lot in those 10 days. After that you could either take that information and do your own thing, or subscribe to their app for more content. I think the subscription is great, as I use it daily, but it is a bit spendy. You will have to decide if the subscription is worth the money to you.
Affirmations
Affirmations are a list of things that you say out loud to yourself each day.
If sitting down to meditate sounded a bit odd at first, then taking time to say affirmations sounded crazy! Once again though, my understanding of what affirmations are was way off base.
Affirmations are NOT about telling yourself a bunch of BS in the hope that it will become true if you say it enough. Affirmations are simply statements of your goals, coupled with the actions that you will take daily to move towards those goals.
Ever tell yourself you are going to start doing something every day, then get busy, and then before you know it a month’s gone by and you had completely forgotten to do the thing that you wanted to do? Affirmations are a way to keep the things that are important to you front and center. Start each day by reminding yourself about your most important goals, values, and actions that you want to take.
To write an affirmation, simply start with something you want (1 sentance), and then write one or several sentences stating something you will do to make that happen.
Here are my own affirmations to give you an idea of what they look like:
I want to feel happy, because I deserve it and I have a lot to be grateful for. I will think of one thing I am grateful for every morning during affirmations.
I will think of one friend and wish for that friend to be happy.
I want to be a good husband and dad and to be loved by [my wife], [my oldest son], and [my youngest son], because they are what makes me happy. I will take care of the little things and keep my commitments. I will put [my oldest son] to bed at night, help with cooking and cleanup, and text [my wife] a special note from work every day. I will hold [my youngest son] every day. I will come home from work at 5:30 pm.
I want to feel healthy, strong, and in shape, so that I can enjoy and excel at the things I am passionate about: mountain biking, running, climbing, and skiing. I will exercise every morning.I want to be financially free, so that I can make more time for my family and passions. I WILL NOT SPEND UNNECESSARY MONEY. I will bring my lunch and bike to work. I will put all excess money towards investments and loan paydown.
I want to excel at my work because I am capable of it, and when I am excelling I enjoy my work. I will start early and FOCUS DEEPLY on my most important ONE thing. I will plan my week around my various ROLES to ensure I am spending time in quadrant II. I will be ON TIME to all meetings. I will empty my inbox and plan the next day before leaving work. I will not reply to emails that are vague or unimportant.
Affirmations by Mr. DS
I want to be less busy. I will say “NO” to plans unless my gut reaction says, “hell yeah!”
I want to be a better listener. I will practice empathic listening. I will seek to understand the person talking before adding my own point of view. I will do this by rephrasing what the person said and stating the emotion they are feeling.
I will be loyal to and defend those who are not present. I will note and deliver any feedback that is discussed about someone, good or bad.
I will think BIG, and think POSITIVE! I will not make excuses. I will speak positively about my career. I am lucky to work with great people, doing fun work. SMILE! It’s going to be a great day!
LITTLE daily actions matter. Do the thing, and you will have the power. Tell [my wife] I love her. Play with [my older son]. Dance with [my younger son]. Appreciate the good things. Exercise. Eat good food. Save money. Read. It matters.
To accomplish these, I will be committed, honest, and cool under fire.
Visualization
The idea behind visualization is similar to affirmations, except you use your imagination instead of words. Picture yourself having already achieved your goal. Next picture yourself successfully doing whatever you need to do to achieve it.
I used to use this technique in rock climbing before a red point attempt. Having already tried and fallen on the route a number of times, I knew the moves I needed to do. The challenge was executing. I would picture successfully doing the moves in my mind during rest days. In this way I could still practice without tiring out my fingers, and when I got back on the route I knew all the moves by heart due to the rehearsing I’d done in my mind!
We can do the same thing for any goal. My major goal right now is financial independence. The first part of my visualization consists of imagining what I would do with my time if it belonged to me. I might imagine skiing with my son on a Tuesday. The second part consists of imagining what I need to do to get there. Perhaps it’s saying “no” to a friend who asked me to go do something expensive that I really don’t want to do anyway. Perhaps it’s taking a big chunk of each paycheck and paying down a loan or depositing it with Vanguard. Whatever it is, imagine yourself doing it with a smile on your face.
Exercise
Exercise improves your mental health and your ability to focus. Of course, it’s also good for you physically. You should get some exercise every single day.
Lots of people geek out on the internet as to whether they should do long slow cardio (runners, bikers, triathletes), or short intense bursts (crossfitters), or nothing but heavy weights (olympic lifters). They all have good points, and these things are all good for you.
Here is the secrete though: Doing something every day is waaaaay better than doing something a few times and quitting. No matter what exercise you pick, if you just do it you will be at least 80% of the way there (wherever “there” is).
With this in mind I recommend picking something fun, and that you enjoy. Addicted to runner’s high? Do it! Hate running? Try rock climbing or biking or hiking! Short on time? Try Crossfit! Really short on time? Go hammer out 30 pushups (with however many breaks you need) and call it a day. Just do something!
In his excellent video Move, Will Gadd said, “I figure the type of movement is less important than moving itself . . . Life is more fun when you move!” Will Gadd is a badass, so you should take his advice!
Reading
Whatever your goal is, chances are that someone has written something that can help you. You can never learn enough, and hence you can never read enough.
The importance of reading non-fiction books on topics that you want to improve cannot be understated. Just do it!
Don’t have time to read? Hogwash! Cancel your cable subscription, and use the time that you used to watch TV to read instead and watch your life transform!
You cancelled cable and you still don’t have time (hint, this was me)? Take your book with you when you sit down to take a dump. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through Instagram pictures on the crapper you could be getting 5-10 minutes of learning every day while pooping. Do this every day, and you will be amazed at how many books you can get through. More importantly, you will be amazed at the things you learn and how they impact your life!
Here is a great trick: Did you read something that inspired you to make a change to your daily habits? Add it to your affirmations! As you read this aloud to yourself each morning, you’ll get a daily reminder, which will help you to actually implement it! In fact, if you’ve read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Slight Edge, The 5 Love Languages, The Magic of Thinking Big, or listened to many Tim Ferris podcasts then you probably recognized where a bunch of my affirmations came from!
“But books are expensive!”
No they aren’t! There are some books worth owning (and the links above will take you Amazon.com where you can buy them if you want, note that they are affiliate links), but the majority of the books I read are checked out for free from the library. You effectively already own almost every book you could want to read, and you have a professional staff to catalog and organize them for you. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of this? Go get a library card and read for free!
Writing
Hal Elrod recommends journaling daily. Over the years I had tried multiple times to start a habit of journaling before bed. Inevitably though, I’d get busy, it would get late, I’d be in a rush to get to sleep, and I would skip it. I was never able to consistently write in a journal until I started doing it in the morning during time that I control.
So what to write about? Hal Elrod recommends answering 4 questions each morning. This keeps your writing short yet valuable. His 4 questions are (paraphrased):
- What is something that I am grateful for?
- What is something that I accomplished yesterday?
- What is something that I need to improve?
- How am I going to improve it?
I sometimes change questions 3 and 4 as follow:
- …
- …
- What is the most important thing for me to accomplish today?
- How will I accomplish it?
This helps me hone in on my “One Thing”. Speaking of The One Thing, Gary Keller’s excellent book by the same name can help with the new versions of questions 3 and 4. You can answer question 3 by using Gary’s “Goal planning to the now”, and question 4 by using his “focusing question”. The concepts in The One Thing are big enough that I will do a separate post on them.
Tim Ferris also recommends morning writing, but he seems to take a slightly less structured approach to it. He says he just writes whatever is on his mind so that he can capture his nebulous thoughts on paper and get them out of his head so he can focus the rest of the day.
Once again, there are no rules, so do what works for you! Personally I like the structure of answering my 4 questions, but if the free-form method of just writing what’s on your mind works then that’s what you should do!
How Long Does All This Take?
“What the heck Mr. DS! This is a lot of stuff! This will take me hours! Am I supposed to wake up at midnight?
The answer is to just never go to bed. Sleep is for the weak . . . Just kidding. Actually you can make each of these as long or as short as you want.
For days when you are in a hurry, Hal recommends a 6 minute Miracle Morning: Sit quietly and focus on your breathing for 1 minute, say your most important affirmations for 1 minute, spend 1 minute visualizing a goal, write a couple words to answer your 4 questions (1 minute), read 1 page of a good book, and do 1 minute of exercise (pushups, burpees, jumping jacks, etc).
Conclusion
As hokey as these 6 SAVERS sound, and as skeptical as I was, in the two and a half years since I started doing them:
- I have gone from a stressed out depressed wreck to loving life and looking forward to getting out of bed each day!
- I have gone from having no savings to a 50% savings rate and am well on my way to financial independence!
- I have tripled my net worth!
- I have gone from hating my job and looking for any escape I could find to loving my job, without changing jobs!
- I have improved as a husband and father, and my relationships with my wife and kids are much happier!
Did these SAVERS do all of this for me? No! Waking up early and doing my SAVERS just kept my ship pointed in the right direction by giving me time each day to ponder what is really important.
What do you think? Have you tried SAVERS or something similar in the morning? If so, how did it work out? Comment below and let me know!