How you spend your morning often determines how the rest of your day unfolds.
If your mornings usually feel rushed, stressful, or completely out of your control, you’re not alone. Many people wake up already thinking about everything they need to accomplish, leaving little time to prepare mentally or physically for the day ahead.
The good news is that you don’t need a complicated routine to change that. A few intentional habits practiced consistently can help you feel more focused, energized, and ready to tackle your biggest priorities.
One popular approach is the SAVERS method, created by Hal Elrod in The Miracle Morning. This six-step routine combines simple daily practices that encourage personal growth, productivity, and mindfulness. By dedicating a little time each morning to these habits, you can build momentum that carries throughout the rest of your day.
In this article, you’ll learn what the SAVERS routine is, how each step works, and how you can adapt it to fit your own lifestyle. Be sure to download the free Most Important Tasks printable at the end of the article to help you stay focused on your highest priorities each day.
What Is the Miracle Morning Routine?
The Miracle Morning routine was born after Hal Elrod was in a tragic accident, leaving him dead for 6 minutes and in a coma for 6 days. Now a keynote speaker and ultra-marathon runner, Elrod has turned his life around to help and teach other people.
The first thing that Elrod had to do to change his life after his accident was to wake up. And, morning after morning, he woke up again and again to feel lucky to face a new day.
He developed the miracle morning routine after picking what he thought was the best advice and habits from his research and his own experience and putting them together into a step-by-step process that’s easy to follow.
We’ve talked a lot about habit stacking on this site, and this routine falls into that category. The benefit of habit stacking is that you can develop multiple positive habits at the same time by automating your actions to perform the whole sequence, which requires less motivation than adopting several individual habits.
We’re all well aware of the challenge of adding several new habits to your life all at once, but it’s much easier to build an entire new routine.
According to Hal Elrod, adopting the sequence of habits that comprise the Miracle Morning Routine will help you be among the 5% of people who don’t let negative factors or bad habits get in their way of living the life that they want to live.
To get the most out of this routine, you need to first free yourself from the following obstacles that often hold people back:
Once you’re able to move past these obstacles, you’re all set and ready to make the Miracle Morning Routine work for you. Let’s look at the steps involved in this routine.
6 Steps to Completing the Miracle Morning Routine
1. S = Silence
What type of tone would you set for your day if, when your alarm went off, you didn’t jump out of bed in a hurry to get a move on to start another hectic day at work?
What if, instead, you started it by sitting in intentional silence while doing some deep breathing and appreciating the moment? What if you could be calm and reflect on the things you’re grateful for that day? Or just sit and be mindful?
As you sit in silence, you’re able to calm your mind, release any tension from your muscles, and liberate stressful thoughts you’ve been holding onto. Use this initial step to develop a greater sense of direction and purpose for the day.
There are several things that you can do for the “silence” portion of this routine, including:
These are just a few of the morning routine habits that successful people do every day. If you want to learn more, take a few minutes to watch the video below.
2. A = Affirmations
After you finish your period of silence, refer to your daily affirmations. These are statements that you read out loud that confirm your limitless potential and your top priorities.
Positive self-talk is a powerful tool to use, and many successful people use affirmations to start their day, which helps them go on to live a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As you focus on the things that are the most important to you, your senses of confidence, commitment, and motivation all increase.
You feel re-energized as you restate your purpose and goals and envision yourself taking the necessary actions to live your life the way you want to, working toward outcomes that you know you deserve.
Maintaining positive self-expectancy will help you achieve your goals because you will feel in control by giving yourself empowering reminders every morning. Your subconscious will register what you’re saying and motivate you to act accordingly, no matter what your current situation is.
Your affirmations should be brief phrases that you can repeat as needed that are designed to provoke positive thoughts, attitudes, and actions. Some examples of positive affirmations include:
- I choose to live above negativity by letting go of negative thoughts and feelings.
- I accept and love myself for who I am.
- I am strong, resilient, and brave, and no one can take that from me.
For more ideas for your positive affirmations, check out our post on this topic that includes 1,132 examples. And remember to keep updating your affirmations. As you move forward in life and evolve, your affirmations should do the same.
3. V = Visualization
The process of visualization involves imagining exactly what you want to achieve and then mentally rehearsing the things you’ll need to do to get there.
Soon after articulating and focusing on your goals and the person you need to be to achieve them is the best time to visualize yourself living up to these affirmations.
For the short term, take a minute to visualize yourself having a productive and enjoyable day, smiling with your family, and finishing everything that you need to accomplish.
Then, picture yourself achieving your long-term goals in the future. If you have a vision board, this would be a good time to look at it, or you can simply close your eyes to picture these things.
Win your day by following Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning Routine!
Envision what achieving your goals will look like and how it will feel, and give yourself the mental experience of the joy that is ahead. Here are three steps to take to complete your visualization for the day:
- Prepare yourself by sitting up tall and taking a few deep breaths. Close your eyes and clear your mind.
- Visualize yourself achieving a goal and allow yourself to feel the pride of following through and being successful.
- Visualize yourself enjoying the process of engaging in the daily actions that are necessary to achieve your goal.
4. E = Exercise
You don’t need to spend an hour at the gym every morning to complete this portion of the process. You can do some yoga or go for a short walk and do light stretching if you want.
The point here is just to get your blood flowing a bit and help wake up your mind and body so you can be alert and gain a bit of energy.
You don’t need any equipment to complete this step. Consider the following exercises that you can do at home:
- Push ups
- Squats
- Jumping jacks
- Leg Raises
- Mountain Climbers
- Wall sit
- Lunge
- Squat
- Arm circles
When you exercise in the morning–even if it’s just for a few minutes–it significantly increases your energy, improves your health, boosts your self-confidence and emotional wellness, and helps you be able to focus and concentrate better.
5. R = Reading
If you’re a regular on this site, you know how important we believe it is to read. Reading other people’s positive ideas and thoughts will help you improve yourself. Make sure you’re enjoying what you’re reading and learning something from it as well.
Elrod especially suggests reading self-help books in the morning to focus on personal development and living in line with the affirmations you spoke in step two.
Don’t spend this time reading fiction, read something that is going to benefit you more in the long run. And even if you just have time to read a few pages, all of those snippets of information will compound over time and eventually add up to a lot more knowledge than it may seem like you’re taking in each day.
Reading other people’s positive ideas and thoughts will help you improve yourself.
If you’re a big fan of reading, it’s possible that this step will take up the majority of your morning routine time. And if you need help retaining the information you read, this article will help you read more books and retain the information.
6. S = Scribe
(i.e. Write in your journal.)
Many personal development experts claim that writing down your thoughts has a huge impact on people. How you choose to write is up to you, but Elrod offers a few recommendations.
First, he recommends using The Five Minute Journal, which has a section for morning and evening journaling. In the morning, you write:
- 3 things you’re grateful for
- 3 things that would make today a great day
- 1 affirmation
Alternatively, you can write in a gratitude journal of your choice, which will act as a reminder that there is something good that you can find in every single day–no matter how small it is.
A third suggestion is to do a quick writing exercise by dividing a piece of paper into two sections with one labeled “lessons learned” and the other “new commitments”. Then come up with 1 or 2 points for each.
The lessons can be simple, like don’t stay up until 3:00am binge watching a show when you have to be up early the next morning for an important meeting, or it could be a profound piece of wisdom you recently learned from a mentor.
It’s best to keep your commitments small and only applicable to that day, such as “I will drink 64 ounces of water before dinner” or “I will run three miles after work.”
This writing exercise will help remind you of progress you’ve recently made (through learning something new) while still focusing on progress you want to make.
Here are a few more things that you may choose to write about:
- Visualize any positive thoughts through illustrations
- Reflect on the past and write about how far you’ve come
- Do a brain dump and record even your craziest ideas
- Record your thoughts and feelings about recent events
- Write down things you’ve learned through your reading
Free Download: Most Important Tasks
The Most Important Tasks printable helps you identify and prioritize the tasks that will have the greatest impact on your day. By focusing on your top priorities, you can reduce overwhelm, stay productive, and make steady progress toward your long-term goals.
Download your free copy and start each day with a clear plan.
(The link opens up a Google Drive folder where you can get the PDF download in a variety of sizes: A4, A5, and US Letter.)
Final Thoughts on The Miracle Morning
Hal suggests doing each of these habits for 10 minutes, for a total of a one-hour routine. However, this can be adjusted to best fit your schedule. If it works best for you, you can do different habits for different lengths of time and switch up the order of these activities.
By staying committed to this process, you will be able to create everything you want in order to live your best life. By adopting the six steps laid out in this article, you will improve your mental and physical wellbeing each morning, all you need to do is to take the first step!
And if you’re looking for more morning routine ideas, be sure to check out these articles:
Finally, if you want the perfect morning routine, then check out this seven-step process for creating a morning routine that will become a vital part of your daily life.)
Connie Mathers is a professional editor and freelance writer. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and a Master’s Degree in Social Work. When she is not writing, Connie is either spending time with her daughter and two dogs, running, or working at her full-time job as a social worker in Richmond, VA.
