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This year began with my reading the book, The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) by Hal Elrod. I kept seeing folks in the bullet journal community doing level ten life spreads and when I searched to see what they were all about, I discovered it had to do with this book and since I had been hearing good things about the book too, I decided the time had come to add this book to my TBR list. As it happened it came in on hold from the library in time for me to read it and take it to the cabin weekend. It was a fairly quick read but did require a bit of thought. Luckily I had already gotten to the part where he told you to go to the website and download the Fast Start Kit (http://www.miraclemorning.com/start-here/). This includes the questions you answer to figure out where you stand in the various areas of your life so that you can begin getting all the areas up to level ten.
Hal also suggests the idea of getting up early every day and doing the SAVERS as a great way to begin your day. I am intrigued with the idea of the miracle mornings and believe it will work, but realize that I must first get myself to the point where I am getting at least seven hours of sleep on a consistent basis. I have it in my goals for the year to try the Miracle Mornings 30-Day Challenge at some point in 2017.
This was a good book and it inspired me to want to do better and try to un-do some of the bad habits I have developed over the last few years. I would totally recommend reading this book.
I decided that my word of the year to focus on would be FEARLESS, so I chose Why Not Today? Face Your Fears and Chase Your Dreams by Eric Dodge as the second book to read this year. I have known about Eric Dodge for years. I have met him and even had my picture taken with him in 2006, it didn’t turn out great but I will include it here anyway. He is a country music artist and an awesome performer. I had bought his book when it came out because I really wanted to support him and knew I would eventually like to read his book.
Eric wrote an excellent book and opened up and told the reader about his early years of being bullied, dating, depression, anxiety, weight gain and other adventures and things that lead him to be the person he is today. This book is a very uplifting story about how he overcame the obstacles in his life to become the wonderful man he is today. If you have ever dealt with any of these things in your life, you will enjoy reading this book. When I finished reading Eric’s book, I felt very hopeful, like I could do anything. If Eric could do it, then maybe I could too. I was willing to try.
The next book I found was one I had downloaded on a whim as an audio book from the library and I found I really enjoyed finding ways to “read” when I normally couldn’t, like while I was making dinner or driving. A great way to read that I don’t take advantage of nearly as often as I should. It was even better that it was read by the author. The book I listened to was called The Gratitude Diaries: How A Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life by Janice Kaplan. Now I consider myself a grateful person who usually looks on the bright side, but after listening to this book I realized that there are numerous times in my life when I am more negative than positive. The author tackles a new area of her life each month and sees how it will react when gratitude is applied. She tackles marriage, love, family, money, career, possessions, health, fitness and more. I really liked her mix of real life applications and scientific research. I began testing some of her suggestions right away, so we shall see how the attitude of gratitude will change my outlook on life. Again, this book is one that I highly recommend.
A really bad photo of yours truly with Eric Dodge in St. Louis 2006
