The magic of the morning: a summary - Brainlog #11

In his book, Hal Elrod offers a number of practices of self-development that help to live the first hour of the day with maximum benefit. Such a productive morning will give a boost of energy and inspiration for the whole day. These techniques are suitable for absolutely all people - regardless of age or occupation. And even regardless of whether you are a "lark" or "night owl".

Practice one: silence

How about starting a day not with running around and fuss, but with awareness, tranquility and tranquility? These conditions are most lacking for modern people in a highly stressed urban environment. One of the ways proven by science is meditation. Scientists say that it reduces the level of stress, improves concentration and even increases some areas of the brain (for example, the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus).

There is a very large number of techniques, the main thing is to carry them out. Here is an algorithm given by Hal Elrod:

  1. Comfortably sit in a comfortable, but not too relaxing place - not to fall asleep.
  2. Maximize your concentration on breathing. To do this, you can use the "rule of the square" - take a breath for 3 seconds, hold your breath for 3 seconds, exhale for 3 seconds and again hold your breath for the same time. Repeat this cycle throughout the session.
  3. Try to use the lower breath - the stomach. In doing so, you should breathe in your nose and exhale with your mouth.
  4. Your strategic task is to clear your mind of all thoughts. They will still attack you - just take it and keep concentrating on breathing.
  5. Start with 5 minutes and gradually increase this time.

Practice two: affirmations

In fact, this is not some kind of ultramodern fashion technology. Affirmations are the same inner dialogues that we semi-consciously conduct ourselves. But usually they are rather pessimistic and negative. Of course, this can and should be turned to good use. How can you reprogram your thinking with productivity and success with affirmations?

  1. Decide on the goals. And do it for each side of life - whether it's finances, relationships or physical health. Describe what you see your ideal life. The brain must know the specific destination.
  2. Answer the question "Why?". A few weighty arguments will help to clarify the goals better and make them more conscious. In addition, they will protect you from the oppressive and inhibiting doubts that will inevitably appear in your path.
  3. Describe what kind of person you need to be to achieve your goals. Self-development is for that self-development, which you invest first of all in yourself. You can change your life only by changing your personality - and this is perhaps the most difficult task. The first step to solving it is to understand what you want from yourself.
  4. Identify the actions that will lead to the goal. Include in them the exact number and frequency of steps that you intend to take. Say, "I'll go to the gym 2 times a week and spend 30 minutes on it." In this case, your progress will be maximally visible and controlled, and therefore - successful.
  5. Use someone else's experience. Add to your affirmations statements of other people who most exactly resonate with your thoughts. In this there is nothing shameful - on the contrary, you seem to get the strength of those individuals whose quotes are pronounced.

Briefly and effectively write down the answers to the above points, and then read them aloud every morning - every day. You can combine this with sports or a shower - the main thing is to do it emotionally and sincerely.

Practice the third: visualization

For quite some time athletes have been using this technique in their training. And in such a pragmatic area as sport nothing stays empty and inefficient - so you can safely add this technique to your arsenal.

Hell Ellrod recommends doing this practice right after reading affirmations - and doing this in three stages:

  1. Prepare yourself - sit comfortably, but not in too loose a position, close your eyes and breathe deeply. Beforehand, you can include pleasant but unobtrusive music.
  2. Imagine what you want to achieve.Just create in your brain as vivid and deep images of the life as you aspire to. Connect all the senses, imagine the emotions that you will feel. In other words, try to survive your future. The more alive it will be - the more effort you will then apply to achieve your plans.
  3. Imagine who you want to be. Imagine how fervently you will perform your work, and with what pleasure to go out for a morning run. Visualize all those actions in which you will be expressed as a person and how your environment will react - close, friends and colleagues.

Practice Four: Exercise

You may find it hard to force yourself - but you will never regret after. Morning exercise is a very effective and underestimated way of self-development. It not only improves well-being and saturates the brain with oxygen. The main thing is that it gives the most immediate impulse to real actions. The beauty of morning physical activity is that it's hard for you to find excuses. You have more than enough time and you are definitely not tired yet.

You can choose any kind of activity suitable for you - be it running, complex exercises or a bicycle. Hal Elrod advises you to take a closer look at yoga, which has a multi-faceted impact on almost all body systems, allowing you to fully incorporate your body. In addition, it also contains the spiritual aspect - many of its varieties are a form of meditation, and a huge arsenal of exercises will never give you bored.

Practice five: reading

Whatever you do not want to achieve - surely someone has already done something like that. Or at least was in a similar situation. And it is very likely that he told about it. Today there is no sense to reinvent the wheel - just read the manual for its manufacture. This is the power of reading - you can go a lot faster than its pioneer. Which will save you a lot of time to open your own!
Begin at least 10 pages per day - this will give you about 20 200-page books a year. Impressive? Here are some more tips to make reading more effective:

  • Monitor the process with your goals . Do not forget to ask yourself what you are reading and what you want to receive from the book.
  • Bend the pages, underline, make notes on the fields, read up to the holes - in general, do everything to take from the book a maximum!
  • Reread the best works . We rarely learn and apply even a tenth of what we learn about in life. In addition, over time our way of thinking changes - and we perceive the old information in a new way. All this indicates the need for re-reading - it allows you to go deeper into the material and make more use of it.

Practice six: keeping a diary

The diary helps document events, impressions, ideas, plans - everything that so easily vanishes from the head. This is a free form of psychotherapy, which is available always and everywhere. The need to summarize all the important things makes you think carefully and concentrate the experience you have experienced. And his re-reading allows us to take a fresh look at old ideas and life lessons, and also to trace our development.

You can choose both traditional paper format, and electronic - it all depends on your preferences. In the first case it is desirable to take a good, strong notebook, which will be pleasant to hold in hands. It is advisable to use ready-made solutions with marked out dates for each day - it disciplines and makes do not miss days.

There are many aspects of life that you can describe in your diary. You can write about your goals, dreams, plans, achievements, life lessons, ideas. You can simply describe the events and your thoughts about them. You can do it structured or write in a free and even artistic form, and also combine these approaches. More on how to keep a diary, you can read on the pages of my blog.

Awakening strategy: 5 stages of struggle for a cheerful and productive morning

For many people, the most difficult part of Elrod's technique is not to learn meditation or to start a diary. The most difficult thing is just to wake up. This is a huge problem that almost every person faced. Hal also did not pass this fate - because he had always considered himself an "owl." But to solve this problem, he came up with a five-stage awakening strategy:

1. Motivate yourself in advance

Everyone in his life had days when he woke up with joy and enthusiasm. Definitely, it was connected with something exciting and uncommon. There were other days when in the evening you were afraid to fall asleep thinking about tomorrow, and in the morning - did not dare to get up.
If your will is suppressed in the morning, trying to motivate yourself in such a state is a failed idea. Therefore, do it from the evening. Think about why you will rise tomorrow and as a result you will wake up with the same life-affirming thoughts.

2. Place the alarm clock as far from the bed as possible

A simple but very effective trick. You just can not unconsciously reach out and turn off the bell. Now you have to get out of bed to do it. Willy-nilly, but you wake up.

3. Run to brush your teeth and wash your face.

Obviously? No matter how it is. Many, even waking up, start lazily flipping the tape in social networks or simply basking in bed. But such a simple action as brushing your teeth and washing your face with water (preferably cold) practically exclude the possibility of returning to bed. After that you will feel much more cheerful.

4. Drink water

What would happen if you did not drink a drop of water within 6-8 hours? Surely you would feel dehydrated. This condition slows the metabolism in the body and causes a feeling of fatigue. But this is what happens to you at night. To run the body - just replenish it with a glass of water.

5. Wear a tracksuit

Physical exercise is one of the key moments of a successful and productive morning. Many people immediately go to the shower, but, according to Hal Elrod, you must earn it by pre-sweat well. It affects all spheres - intellectual, spiritual, physical, emotional.

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy these posts inspired by the life, motivation, and culture: