Review: The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) by Hal Elrod

This was an appropriate choice for January for The Classy Career Girl Network book club that I decided to join this year. That said, while this book has gotten rave reviews and I'm sure it's helped hundreds, if not thousands of people, change their habits and ultimately their lives, it was a waste of time for me to read. I felt like 70% of the content could have been cut out, but then there wouldn't be a book without 70% of the content! Why was it necessary to be so repetitive with explaining his life story? Sure, Hal has been handed one hell of a deck of cards in this life and has certainly overcome the odds against him. And as a motivational speaker, he has certainly changed many people's lives. I don't deny his inspirational attitude in not quitting despite what he's been dealt.

At the same time, I didn't get anything out of reading this book because I am not the target audience. The target audience is someone who has never read any personal development books and views the whole genre suspiciously. I have read enough personal development articles and books, and participated in workshops around mindfulness, meditation, and visualization that I found myself skimming through much of the explanations of these concepts.

I'm in the minority in that I've already started working towards improving my life and changing my habits and routines. Therefore, as I said before, I'm not the target audience for this book. The target are those people whom have never picked up a self-help book or bothered to read anything about improving their situation before now. Nothing wrong with that at all, it's just disappointing for someone like me who is past the point of being helped by a book such as this one.

In sum, this book basically tells the reader how to gradually change their habits to become a better person by getting up an hour or two earlier in the morning. And in turn, implementing what he calls "S.A.V.E.R.S." At first, he suggests doing different amounts doing each step each morning and then gradually adjusting your routine to eventually designate 10 minutes of the hour to each step.


Those steps are:
Silent meditation
Affirmations
Visualizing the day ahead
Exercise
Reading, specifically to learn something
Scriving (aka writing/journaling/blogging)

While I don't do this in the morning as he suggests because it helps set the tone for the day, I do many of these throughout the day and particularly at night so that I can unwind from the days stresses and help set the tone for the next day. If I wanted to implement these habits in the morning, I could, but prefer to do them at night despite it going against Hal's whole premise of the book suggesting that even the night owl can become a morning person.

Overall, had this been published as a blog series, I would've appreciated it more. I like the concept but didn't appreciate the overly simplified steps.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - It was okay. Not for me. I can see why others enjoy it.

**
The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)
by Hal Elrod
Kindle E-book, Published December 7th 2012 (first published December 7th 2006)
Dates Read: Jan 3-9, 2018