Day 1 of My Miracle Morning

Adam Joseph Rizzo
Jul 20, 2017 · 6 min read
The guide to ultimate productivity.

I’m not much of a reader. Just ask my beautiful fiance. I’m pretty ashamed to say I have leisurely read six books cover-to-cover in my entire life. Pretty sad, I know. It’s a goal of mine to read more and I started reading “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod yesterday after its rave reviews. I’m not even half way through the book but I have had what I would consider one of my best days of the summer yet!


The book preaches that the first hour or two of your day is the most important to becoming successful. How you define success in your life is up to you, but it takes the proper steps every morning to put yourself in the best position to succeed for the day. Elrod has figured out six things you should do every single morning right when you wake up within the first hour of your day. He has deemed them the Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

Now I’m not done with the book and have only read up on a couple of the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. and have had a chance to implement them today. Some things I already do so it fit in nicely. I wake up every morning at 4:30 with my fiance and we both hit the gym for an hour. With the E standing for exercise, I can check that off without any hesitation.

I just recently started up yoga, which I do for about 20 minutes when I get home from the gym. My first few yoga sessions I followed along with a video on YouTube in order to learn what I was supposed to be doing. Today I did it alone and in silence. I just did as many of the yoga positions I could remember. The key was that the room was silent. I was able to focus on my breathing and just be thoughtless for 20 minutes. It felt great to just clear my mind and not worry about anything for a few minutes.

Most people dread their alarm clock. I’ve always looked forward to getting up early and it’s coming in handy now!

The third of the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. I took part in for the first time today was affirmation. That actually started last night right before bed. According to his research, Elrod says if you tell yourself that whatever amount of sleep you are about to get that night (for me, it was 5 and a half: 11PM-4:30AM) that it was going to be more than enough to be the best you could be the next day. Basically you’re psyching yourself out. Instead of thinking “man, I’m definitely going to be exhausted tomorrow morning” you’re saying “wow, I can’t believe I’m going to get this much sleep!”

Whether you believe it or not, it’s proven to work. I not only said it (he actually has a small script to read) last night before bed, but I recited as much as I could remember again this morning at 1:00 AM when I needed to use the bathroom. And guess what? I woke up feeling great! I had a fantastic workout — both cardio and weight lifting — and came home to have a very relaxing yoga session.

After yoga was done, I moved on to a fourth key to starting the day off right: reading! Yup, the guy who has read six books was leisurely reading at 6:30 AM now. And what other book would I pick up except for “The Morning Miracle”? I read a couple of chapters before hitting the shower. If I can incorporate reading into my daily routine I’ll be psyched!

The other two Life S.A.V.E.R.S. he preaches — visualize and scribe — I hadn’t gotten to in the book so it wasn’t a focus of mine just yet. [P.S. — I still haven’t gotten to them in the book but I do know about them. Does that count?] I know I didn’t do it this morning but here I am, journaling about my day. Does this count? Who knows but it feels good!


So what did I get done today? Well all before 8:00 AM I had gone to the gym for an hour, completed 20-minutes of yoga and reading, showered, eaten a great breakfast and given myself a 30-minute reward of a cup tea and some free time on the computer. I figure if I get this mindless time out of my system, I’ll be able to focus on whatever I choose to do later.

I then began thinking about my web development endeavor and what I was going to do to better myself and my chances at “making it” in the biz. I did three things today that I had never thought about doing before:

  1. I reached out to a person that is also taking part in FreeCodeCamp and lives nearby to see if he wants to pair program through the courses. I don’t want to directly work with any one person but to have someone there to check in with on a regular basis and discuss problems we may have with specific projects and challenges seemed very appealing to me.
  2. I researched many different web development podcasts. I found enough material that I could listen to it constantly for about a month and still have more to listen to. Rather than listen to sports talk radio as they banter back and forth about meaningless topics or listen to Pandora, I figure this would help keep me engaged in my future career and keep me motivated.
  3. This one sort of piggybacks off of #1, but I started laying out the framework (in my head) of a Facebook group I would like to start. This would be a group of young, aspiring computer programmers and web developers that are learning the ropes of their chosen field and just trying to learn as much as they can. I haven’t fleshed out all the details but when I do I’ll be sure to tell you all about it.
Developers run on Starbucks.

All of this took about an hour this morning. Once I was done with that, I figured it was time for me to get started with my coursework. By 10 o’clock I was posted up in a local Starbucks with my MacBook, Gatorade bottle filled with water and a tall hot tea for a sugar and caffeine kick. For the next three hours I was locked in.

While I only completed three challenges, I made sure that when I had completed all of them I looked at how other people solved them. On all three, I learned at least one more way of how I could have achieved the end goal. Sometimes other people had much more efficient ways of solving it. Other times I nailed it and had the most concise form of completion.

The most important part about my research after completing each challenge was that I was learning something new! All three challenges provided me with completely different scenarios with different functions and methods that could be utilized. Some of them I knew very well. Others I didn’t know at all but with a little work, reading and research, I now have at least a very basic understanding of it and wouldn’t be afraid to use them in future challenges.


After three hours I could feel myself getting antsy and had to get out of there. I ran errands for the next two hours which always has me feeling productive. Some of them were setting myself up to be productive again tomorrow so I have that to look forward to (if you could ever look forward to yard work…).

I know it’s only been one day and while there wasn’t a ton of change to my normal, everyday routine I must say that the small changes I made (affirmation, silence and reading) gave me a sense of accomplishment and it was all done within the first two and a half hours of being awake. I know I will have this book done by the end of the weekend and will be on the hunt for the next one I will read immediately.


For those who consider themselves as “not a morning person” or just need a kick in the ass to become motivated or more energetic throughout their day, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of “The Miracle Morning” and give it a read. It’s only about 130 pages and will have you thinking and living differently immediately!

Striven Life

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Adam Joseph Rizzo

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Striven Life

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