Day 20 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Woke up on time as always. Did prayer and other stuffs. Went for long 80kms cycle ride with one of my friend. Today i had decided to not drink water or take any food intake for the entire route and that made the ride difficult. Bought my first cycling short and a jersey too. Jersey is tight and I can my Stomach bulging out, motivating me to thin myself :P

Talked with my Bestie at night for sometime - Highly Motivating. Finally I have got hold of two books that I wanted - Miracle Morning and You are a Badass. Starting with miracle morning first. Tomorrow is day 21 - ie the next phase of 30 day challenge. it is called unstoppable. Also there is a big match coming up tomorrow - May be match of 2017 for me :)

Ending my short update for now. Good Night Readers !!

Day 19 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Woke up on time and did my prayers, affirmations and visualisations. After that instead of going for swim, I went to bed again just to wake up at 6:45. Finished my reading part in the morning only. I decided to go swimming in the evening, but had to skip to watch Nadal's Australian open semi-final.

Marathon match, just shy of 5 hours. Finally Nadal won and after a real long time it will be Federer and Nadal in a grand slam final, so called Super Sunday. So plan for tomorrow - go swim and cycling in the morning. Total of 1 hour to 90 mins, depending on mood and also weather. Looks like it might rain in the morning and I would Love to go for a cycle ride in that rain.

Happy Weekend Friends :)

Day 18 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Happy Republic Day !!

60% of Miracle Morning Completed,
Woke up on time, actually slept for 10 extra mins. Did all my routines. Started the run late 6:30 am. Planned for 10 miles (16 kms) but I could achieve only 8 kms. Came back had breakfast and slept again. Finally woke up at 12, successfully wasted first half of the day.

Went out for lunch and did some grocery shopping. I wanted to see Federer and Wawrinka Australian open semifinal match. The Dish tv had some issues and was not working. Googled for live streaming links and realised that it was possible to watch the match on Sony Liv. Internet Rocks. I should have done this before to catch up on Nadal's match. Anyway, second semifinal tomorrow, but I will be in office and will miss it.

So, watched the thrilling match till early evening and again did some time pass activities :P Going out for dinner now. Not getting enough motivation to cook my own dinner, although I have all the ingredients ready to home. As I told in my previous post, 4 to 5 times a week I 'll try to make dinner and other days I 'll go out.

Have a Nice Day Tomorrow - Thank God Its Friday :D

4 Ball Basic Pattern

Day 17 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Good Morning !!

It was tiring, rather i felt sleepy after lunch yesterday. May be it was the effect of waking up early. Gradually I should get used to it. In the evening done some technical reading too. Again started making salad saute for dinner. Plan to have that dinner atleast 4 times a week. I am waiting to get back to normal work routine, ie next week, then only I will be able to see the positive/negative effect of Miracle Morning.

Today - Woke up on time and did all the planned tasks. Cycled fo about 35 mins, 15+ kms at 90% effort. Cycle needs some maintenance to make it go faster. As of now it doesn't matter even if I feel bit sleepy in the second half of the day as long as I am following my morning routine. It holiday at work tomorrow and so I will be having more time to relax and cover up on my sleep. Need to make list of affirmations that I should be using in morning. Visualisation board - have to make one, but too lazy to do so.

Have Wonderful Wednesday Folks !!!

Day 16 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Good morning Friends :)

Had plans to wake up at 4:30 am and add juggling in my morning routine list. But I woke up at 5 and did prayers, affirmations and visualisation. Read some technical stuff today for half an hour. As per plan I went for swimming and completed 10 small rounds, only 20 mins.

Had to fight a lot to push myself to go for swim. Once the costume was on, all the thoughts of procrastinating my swim to evening vanished. It is 7:10 am and I am almost ready to head out for office. Since there is still some time available, i will practice 5 ball juggling, rather learn 5 ball juggling.

Remember - The Miracle is Within You !!!

Day 15 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Halfway through and I have already missed two days of my Miracle Morning. Day before yesterday I forgot the blogpost and today I just skipped the entire Morning Routine.

Woke up on time, but then hit the snooze button like thousand times to finally wake up at 6:45am. Just 3 weeks ago, i used to wake up at 7:30 and get ready for work, now even waking up at 6:45am feels like I woke up late. Certainly some change is taking place.

Don't intend to miss a single day in the second half of the challenge.

Day 13 + Day 14 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Another exception was made yesterday as I skipped the blog post for the day. So here it is, 2 days in one shot.

Yesterday - Woke up on time tomorrow and did all the SAVERS task except blogging. Went for 25 km cycling. It was overcast and it did drizzle at times. It was really fun to ride yesterday. After coming home I slept. Then the maid came and so had to clean my room and other stuffs. Finally I slept again, woke up had lunch and slept again. Finally took shower at 5 pm and then just relaxed, not doing much.

Today - Woke up on time ie 5 am. went for a run, was planning for 5 or 10 kms but did only 3 kms. I was listening to audio book - Rich Dad Poor Dad while running. It felt good and refreshing, takes your mind of running pain. I don't intend to make this a routine, I still prefer running with no headphones. Writing a post now and so that all the task in my SAVERS will be complete.

I restarted reading the book - Stay Hungry Stay Foolish, short stories huge impact. Still struggling with technical books, need to fix a daily time to read atleast one hour. It is just the starting inertia which is stopping me back. Once I overcome it, then the reading will be unstoppable. Still not able to find the exact reason why this inertia got built up. Either I can sit and brainstorm the reasons or just start reading a book. Choice is Mine :P

Have a Super Sunday Friends :)

Day 12 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Woke up on time and performed most of my tasks. Had plans to go for swimming, but its too dark and cold outside. It has been just one hour that I am awake and I am already  feeling sleepy. Started reading Stay Hungry Stay Foolish. Had stopped reading it months ago, restarted  it and I will soon finish it. Thank God its Friday !!!

Day 11 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Woke up on time, did my prayer and slept back again. Didn't read any book but heard Rich Dad Poor Dad audio book for more than 90 mins. Came back to office after a week and got some new assignments to complete. As always, my work quality still needs lot of improvement.

Btw, this post comes from my friends new laptop. Using a Dell after a really long time. Marathon done, vacation done and January almost done. Time to look at yearly resolutions. One of the last years resolution was to do a triathlon. I bought a bike (cycle) last March and started 50 km cycling by September or so. Started swimming in May and kept on struggling with stamina. There were Sundays where I used to do 30 mins swimming (including breaks), 30 kms cycling and then around 3 kms running. Suddenly everything came to an abrupt end. The bottleneck is still swimming stamina. My plan for next 1 month is to do one activity a day. ie Swimming on day 1, then Cycling and then running the next day. I don't see much gain from this routine as of now. I also want to start on high intensity gym workouts, once or twice a week. May be after a month I should get more clarity on training plan that I should follow. In a month all my muscles should get ready for more strenuous workouts to be done in March. If not half (1.9 km Swim, 90 km Cycle, 21 km Run), I should atleast be able to do Olympic triathlon (1.5 km Swim, 40 km Cycle, 10 km Run) by December. There is a desire to improve my long distance record too. More on that in my next post.

Day 10 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Finally the first phase ends and today my SAVERS went for a toss. Woke up late, no reading or exercising. Author Hal Elrod talks about the power of the phrase - Can't Change It. I think I should accept what happened today, ie waking up late. I can't change what happened, forget it and focus on present to make a better tomorrow. Going back to Chennai tomorrow, morning flight. Not sure how my miracle morning will go tomorrow.

I feel tired and exhausted. Not sure if I will be entering my work place with renewed energy or same old enthusiasm. The post on marathon is still pending. The next 10 days ie day 11 to 20 are suppose to be uncomfortable. Also I will resume my training session on my new bike. I'll give more updates about my new bike (cycle) once I master it.

Day 9 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Day 9, still no sign of my marathon post
 I am becoming master of procastination. Woke up on time and did my daily routine. Till struggling with my legs, so I just went for slow walk in morning. For a change, I started listening to an audio book while walking. Rich dad poor dad, walked for an hour and was completely hooked up to the book.

I was not as open minded as I thought. I always used to think that morning walk or run should be done while listening to surrounding sound, ie no headphones. I used to see people with headphone and say to myself - this is not the correct way to start your morning. Today that view changed as I too had a headphone with an audio book playing on. There might be people listening to songs, prayers, audio books and may be no music at all. Ie using headphone only for noise isolation.

Need to be more open minded and less judgemental. Good Night Readers !!

Day 8 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Too tired today too and so writing this post late at night. Woke up on time and finished my prayer and visualisation and affirmations. Went for a slow morning walk. Legs still paining. I can walk but going up and down the stairs is still a big challenge. Started reading a small book, which should take around 1 hour to read. I think I will finish it off tomorrow morning. Things will back to routine once I go back to Chennai. Good Night Readers :)

Day 7 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

A very late post. Had my marathon today and somehow completed in just under 5 hours. Very exhausted as of now so keep this post as short as possible.

Woke up at 2:30 in the morning and did short version of my daily prayer, affirmation and visualisation. For exercise - I ran 42 kms :P , race started at 5:45 am and I slept a lot after coming home. I hardly had any practice in last month and so recovering is going to take some time. Didn't read any book or article, and scribing - I am writing this late post.

Good Night Folks !!

Day 6 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Woke up at 6:20, almost an hour late then my intended time. I am on vacation and nothing specific to do at a specific time. I am still doing my SAVERS, a relaxed one. Reading is still left, but remaining parts are covered. Realised that hitting snooze first time is very very hard as compared to doing it second time.

Ok, so here I am in garden. My childhood mini picnic spot. I remember on Sundays my dad used to bring me here and I used to have loads of fun. I used to enjoy horse riding, camel rides, popcorn etc. With friends - we used to bring sandwich and chocolates from home and have our mini picnic. It is just 300 meters from our building but as a small kid, it was a great place to celebrate.

Now the things/infrastructure has changed a lot. Mornings have become too crowded here as people have become more health conscious. The laughing club comprising of oldies goldies is still functional. Some basic exercise equipments have been set up for senior citizens and it is motivating to see them make use of this facility. A new skating ring has been opened in the park, how desperately I missed it during my training days. What is more exciting is that a kid was actually learning to skate there. All these sites are simply motivating.

Either the situation has drastically changed in last 10 years or my way of looking at things. May be both have changed, nonetheless it is motivating.

In my next post I'll try to focus on the mental talk I am having with regarding tomorrow's Marathon ! It is going to take each ounce of Mental toughness in me to cross the line, since there is no physical strength as of now due to lack of training and training discipline.

Happy Pongal
Happy Sankrant
Happy Weekend

Day 5 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

This is Sandeep reporting live from Mumbai :)

Like everyday, today also my eyes opened up at 4:30 an. Went back to sleep and woke up at 5 am. Prayed and meditated and then read. Today I read for 40 mins, it was too dark at 6 in Mumbai to go out for run. Not having my regular running shoes, I decided to keep my run short. Ran for 5 kms. I am so used to Chennai now, that I found my route too congested and polluted. So the breathing was somewhat hard.

Had tea made by mom to kick start my day. I am certainly late today in completing my SAVERS. It is 9 am and I am chatting with parents and Uncle and at the same time blogging. I have many products on my list to shop today, hopefully I should be able to buy them all. There is a cat that comes in our building everyday and we try to feed her milk everyday. Today I went down to pour the milk in her bowl. It was 6 am and complete dark outside. i went near to the wall and heard some meow meow and realised she was close to my feet. I was 4 step away from the bowl and she just leaped up on the wall and started giving angry looks to me. I thought she is gonna attack me any moment and so I just kept the glass there and she started drinking from that itself. I took 2 steps close towards the bowl to bring it close but she didn't let me go there too. So finally I stopped and went on for my run. Crazy Cats.

This time Mumbai Marathon team provided singlets to all marathon runners. Asics singlets, sleeveless and blue colour. It is one of the best running jersey I have ever had and I am planning to run my this year marathon in the same. Need to buy new running shoes too. It is said and believed that you should never try anything new on race day,I too believe it. So, I am going to have one or two short runs in this new kit and head on for the race.

Thank God Its Friday !!!

Day 4 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

It was just a little difficult to wake up at 5 this morning, may be coz I slept at 1 yesterday night.Also I didn't properly focus on prayer today. Too much of thoughts regarding today's travel, office work, etc. In the exercise section - I went for slow 2.4 km walk. Relaxing body and mind. Finished reading the book - Power of subconscious mind. Interesting read, explains why some of our prayers don't get answer. It also explains why we end up getting stuffs we didn't dream of. Not sure which will be the next book and what genre.

I am flying back home today evening for Mumbai marathon. Now-a-days it doesn't feel too different going home. The day of travel feels just like any other day. I am planning to cut down on sleep during this visit and spend more time with friends and parents.

In the book Miracle Morning, Hal says that most of us wake up at a particular time just because we need to be somewhere else at particular time. Like, I would wake up at 7 so that I can reach office at 8 or 8:30. So he suggest to wake up early (may be 1 hour) and do some particular tasks like meditation. Basically after waking up we should be at ease and not rush things up. Then I had one thought, now I wake up at 5 just because i need to do some tasks before going office. Is this correct thought process? Let me also remind me that past two days, my eyes used to open up at 4:30, much before the alarm. May be this is the state one needs to be. Ending my post abruptly now, since I need to finish my packing.

Happy Travelling Folks !!!

Day 3 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Instead of typing today, I wrote the post in a dairy and uploaded it, something that I am trying out for the first time..

Do - Comment to give feedback and share your viewpoint..

Day 2 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Good Morning !!

Lovely Cold Morning, just finished with cycling and sipping cold cup of milk. Woke few times in the middle of night. Woke up at 4.30 also and I had to remind myself that I have 30 mins more to sleep. So in a way it was like snoozing. Anyway, I woke up at 5 am like yesterday. Finished my prayer and affirmation by 5:30 and then read for 30 mins. Now its 6:50 and about to finish the last activity - ie blogging :)

So, what is this affirmation? Blogging is the last activity to complete the Miracle Morning, what are the other activities then? In the book Miracle Morning author Hal Elrod lists down 6 activities which should be done - SAVERS

S - Silence - Practice meditation or prayer in this section;
A - Affirmation - Talk positive to yourself about yourself to strengthen your belief;
V - Visualisation - Visualise all the activities for the day. Visualise how it would feel if your dream(s) come true;
E - Exercise - The word is self describing;
R - Reading - Read a book, may be self help book, technical books or something else which is thought provoking;
S - Scribing - Write down your thought, feelings or any idea which comes to your mind. I am blogging for this activity.

The goal is to have some ME time in the morning before you head on for work or your day to day activity. You may do one, two or all the activity for varying duration of time. Morning is the Best time to set the tempo for the rest of the day, so the above activities need to be done in morning and hence the name Miracle Morning !!

Have a Nice Day :D

Day 1 - 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge

Good Morning Folks :)

Woke up at 5 am,prayed and meditated for about 15 mins. Read a book for 20 mins or so. Ran a slow 5 km and now blogging. In the past there have been time where I used to wake up at 4 or 4.30 and then go on a 8 km run, almost daily for almost a week. So, today didn't feel that extra ordinary. The main purpose of taking up this challenge is that it has outlined some 6 to-do things and for a specific period. As the days pass by, I'll be telling more about those 6 to-do tasks.

I was very close to hitting the snooze button when it started waking me up at 5 am. After putting up the alarm, I sat on bed for about 5 mins and almost dozed off so lost sometime there. Anyway at the end I recalled the purpose for which the alarm was set at 5 am and went about my routine. The posts are getting shorter and shorter. The frequently I write the shorter they become. In future I take extra efforts to select a topic/theme to write on. Need to take blogging more seriously, not just an update notepad.

Need to get ready for the office, see you guys tomorrow.

Have Marvelous Morning !!!

First Post of 2017 and a trailer for new blogpost series

Happy New Year Readers !!

Its late at night and I have taken up a 30 day challenge which will start from tomorrow. It is nothing new, just waking up early at a fix time and going through some set routines. I want to talk in detail about this, but it is getting late now. The first and most difficult task about this challenge is waking up at a fix time daily, may be 5 am, 4 am or 5.30 or any other time that suits. The goal is to get minimum 60 mins of me time before you start your day/office. ie you should wake up and spend 1 hour doing some specific task related to your development before you open your office email. or before you start getting ready for work.

I have heard that it takes 3 weeks or 21 days to develop a habit. last year I took up a 100 day running challenge, where I was required to run minimum of 2 kms daily for 100 consecutive days. I completed the challenge but that habit didn't sink in. may be the motivation wasn't correct or I wasn't focused. Although I improved my average running speed in those 100 days but I didn't continue the activity after the challenge. Hal Elrod (author of Miracle Morning) believes that 30 days is required to build a habit and sustain it. First 10 days will be unbearable, next 10 (11-20) will be uncomfortable and last 10 (21-30) will be unstoppable. In last 30 days you would be at ease with the new habit and it will be easy to sustain it.

My 30 day challenge revolves around this book (which I haven't read yet) and I am going to wake up early from tomorrow and start doing exercise and other self development stuffs. A part of this exercise requires writing, so i decided to write a blog instead of personal journal. The topics will be based on my mood and events going on in and around myself. I will certainly talking about the effect of this 30 day challenge too.

Running - Mumbai Marathon is coming up next Sunday and I have tons of excuses that why I didn't train hard and follow my diet etc. I am not sure if I will run or not, but if I run, i am determine to complete, no matter how much time I take. Might not be the best run of my life so far, but still a run to remember for a long time.

Juggling - No updates as of now. Working on some tricks which I was suppose to learn last year. Hopefully I will come up with a video by March end.

See you guys tomorrow Morning :)

#GoForGlory