331: How to Make the Next 6 Months Your Best 6 Months

Hal Elrod: Goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning Community, what’s up? It's Hal Elrod. It is good to be with you today. And what are we going to talk about? Well, if you are listening to this on the day it comes out, it comes out July 1, 2020, at least that's the plan. Today is June 28. So, a few days before the first of July, but you look at the timing and that's right at the middle of the year. We got six months behind us, right about six months behind us and six months ahead of us for 2020. The first six months of this year have been crazy. Like that might be an understatement, but it's been pretty crazy with coronavirus and COVID-19, with the shooting of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests and the riots. Maybe you're familiar with Chaz up in Seattle, which from my perspective is a group of citizens who have blocked off a large portion of the city and claimed it as their own and said, "We don't want any police in here.” 

 

And the police are not going there when they're being called but a bunch of craziness around there, too. Anyway, the first six months of this year globally, for our society have been crazy, have been wild, unprecedented, and we've talked a lot about that on the podcast. We've talked about the one thing that we can all control, and arguably, the only thing we can control which is our inner world. That's been the big focus of at least for me once coronavirus hit, and I went okay how can I lead? How can I serve you guys and gals? And I thought if there's anything that I've kind of figured out is how to optimize your inner world even in the midst of chaos in your outer world, in the midst of tragedy, in the midst of adversity, in the midst of unimaginable challenges and difficult circumstances. How do you maintain your focus on what matters most to you and optimize your inner world so that you can perform at your best in everything that you do? 

 

So, we've focused a lot on that. Well, right now with this being the Achieve Your Goal Podcast, with this being the midpoint of the year, I want to talk about how to win in the second half of 2020. So, first half of 2020 for some of you, maybe it's been great. Maybe it's been the best first six months of any year you've ever had in your life. And if so, that's awesome. Let's keep that momentum going. But I think that for the majority of society and I could say me included, the first six months of this year have not been what I planned on, what I expected. You know, I've talked a lot very openly about I've gone through some major mental and emotional challenges, as I've come off my chemotherapy, which by the way, kind of exciting announcement, I took my last chemo pill a few weeks ago, and with the doctor's approval, decided that I'm done. I can't do it anymore. 

 

And so, it's been three-and-a-half years of chemotherapy, which not a fun ride but it is what it is. And so, yeah, I'm feeling better. I’m feeling so much better now that I'm not taking it to better physically, mentally, emotionally. So, that's good. Well, whatever your chemotherapy was for the first half of the year and whether it was the stuff going on in the world or the effects that's had on you, mentally and emotionally, or what's going on in your life, just personally, professionally, all of the above. What we can't go back and change is what's happened, right? And what we always have a responsibility to just our responsibility is what we do now and where we go. What are we going to do now to get where we want to go? That's always our responsibility. And I'll say this, there is a very significant difference between blame and responsibility. And I think that people confuse these quite a bit where you think, well, it's not my fault that blank and blank and blank happen, right? Like, you know, COVID hit, the economy crashed, my business failed or suffered. That's not my fault. I blame that on circumstances out of my control. 

 

And so, here's the important distinction to make is that blame and responsibility are not the same thing. Blame determines who is at fault. Responsibility determines who's committed to changing things or who is committed to creating the circumstances that one wants. So, while blame determines who's at fault, we just end it there. We go, “Yep. It's not my fault. I'm a victim.” Well, whoa, hold up. There's more to the story than that. Yes, you can blame whoever is at fault, but they're not responsible for you. They're not responsible for your life. The example I always use is when I had my car accident when I was 20, the drunk driver was to blame. Sure. But he wasn't responsible for me walking again. He wasn't responsible for me getting my life back and getting back to work and regaining happiness, all of those things like, yeah, he was at fault for the car accident. Sure. But my life, my inner well-being, my outer success, all of those things, were my responsibility. 

 

And so, the same is true for all of us right now. Whatever has happened to you up until this point this year or even in your entire life, some of it has been you've created, some that you've been completely responsible for, and you are to blame, right? I think that the majority of our lives we are to blame for the things that we do or the circumstances that we are in but not always. Sometimes it is absolutely someone else's fault. Someone else created circumstances or took an action that then impacted us possibly in a negative way, and wasn't our fault, right? We weren't to blame. But again, you may not be to blame but it is your responsibility no matter what has happened to you in your life up until this point, including the first six months of 2020 that is in the past. And it is now your responsibility, regardless of who's to blame for anything. It is your responsibility, just as it's mine, to create the circumstances to think the thoughts and do the things now moving forward, that will create the circumstances that we want in our lives. 

 

So, if we can start there from that place of responsibility or one of my mentors, Jim Dethmer, calls radical responsibility. By the way, the two books I'm reading right now, I’ll throw this out there in case you're looking for a good read, Loving What Is by Byron Katie and The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success. Two books I highly recommend so Loving What Is and The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. And I just got in the mail, Benjamin Hardy's book, Personality Isn't Permanent: Break Free from Self-Limiting Beliefs and Rewrite Your Story. Now, I've started reading this because he actually sent me an advanced PDF copy because I had him on the podcast a few weeks ago. Great interview. Dr. Benjamin Hardy is brilliant. But yeah, that's the new book. That's the book I'll be reading after I read these two books. So, there you go. There's three books for you, three books. 

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal Elrod: Alright. Back to today's topic. How do you win in the second half of 2020? I'm going to break this into three relatively simple steps or areas of focus for you to win in the second half of 2020. And when I say win, I mean, how do you make the second half of 2020 as good as successful in whatever way you define successful, as effective, as fulfilling, as humanly possible, right? How do you make this the next six months your best six months? That's what I want to focus on today. And of course, if you're listening to this three months from now or two years from now, everything we're going to talk about really is universal and it applies to your life at any given time. It just so happens that today is coming out. This episode comes up in July 1, six months into the year of 2020 so I thought let's take that kind of angle, that approach if you will, for the episode. 

 

So, three things to focus on. Number one is clarity. Number two is encouragement. Number three are strategies or strategy. Number three is strategy. So, clarity, encouragement, and strategy. Number one, let's start with clarity. And so that begins with defining what does it mean for you to win? So, if we’re going to talk about how do you win in the second half of 2020? How do you make the next six months your best six months? You've got to define what does that look like for you? What does that feel like? How would you measure that? If six months from now, you were to look back, starting it today at this moment, what would have to happen between now and the end of 2020 for it to be the best six months of your life? So, it starts with that clarity. You've got to define that. And that could be defined in multiple ways. 

 

One, it could be your goals, right? That's a very measurable, simple way to measure it. If you've got a goal that you are working towards or multiple goals, if you are working towards what I often refer to as a mission, which is simply a goal that you have decided, is the number one goal above all else, and I think it's really important by the way on a side note. If you've read my newest book, The Miracle Equation, that's a big focus is getting clear on your mission. Okay. We've got lots of goals. We got lots of things that we want to accomplish in our lives that we want to improve. We've got goals in different areas like our finances, goals around our health and fitness, goals around maybe our relationships with friends, family, significant other, our kids. So, we have goals in a lot of different areas. And one of the challenges is when our clarity is kind of spread out meaning you've got clarity in so many different areas that you don't have clarity amongst those areas, which takes top priority. 

 

Actually, I'll dive into this a little bit in case you haven't read The Miracle Equation or you haven't heard me talk about this in a while, the benefit of getting clear on your mission. So, you look at all your goals. What are the goals you have set for your life for this year? And hopefully, you have goals set by the way. With the Achieve Your Goals Podcast, it's been a while since we did a goal setting like workshop. In fact, the best one that we ever did, in my opinion, was Geoff Woods. And I'll look that up for you. Let's see Hal Elrod podcast, Geoff Woods. I get to do this on the fly. There we go. Boom. The One Thing We Need To Achieve Our Most Important Goals With Geoff Woods. That was Episode #252. So, if you go to HalElrod.com/252, that's a great in-depth workshop on goal setting. So, that's just for anybody that doesn't have clear, written goals for this year. 

 

Now, if you do have them, let's jump back in. And the idea is that we've got so many different goals and if we don't decide which goal is the most important goal, what I would call your mission, then what often happens is you spread yourself too thin, focusing a little bit on this goal, a little bit on this goal, a little bit on this goal, a little bit on this one. And you don't make significant progress on any of them. And the year ends and you're like, “I failed at all my goals.” But if you get really clear, okay, of all of my goals, if I had to pick and it's a hard thing to do because usually there's more than one area that's important to you. If I had to pick one area, one goal and only achieve that, what's the most important goal for me. And often, by the way, it's based on the season of life that you're in, the timing. So, like family's always going to be number one but really for me, right? 

 

But if you're in a season of your life where you need to make money, we're fine. You're struggling financially then putting finances as your number one goal doesn't mean that you don't care about your kids or your family. It doesn't mean that you don't care of another area. It just means that you're clear that the one thing that I need to focus on right now and it's for my family and for myself and for my mental-emotional well-being is finances. I've got to focus on earning more income. In fact, it was 2009 or 2010 or 2011, somewhere around there but I had that epiphany where I was happy, I was healthy, I just had a new baby. My wife and I had our marriage was just amazing like everything was great but I was struggling financially. And I had the epiphany. I'm reading all these books on being happy and being a great dad and being a great husband and fitness and all these things, and I'm thriving in all these areas. 

 

And so, I took all those books and I put them away and I pulled out all the books on my shelf, most of which I hadn't read on how to earn income. And I wasn't struggling like actually, we were doing fine, but I wasn't thriving. It wasn't where I wanted to be financially with the financial freedom that I felt like would be beneficial for me and my family. And so, I decided I'm going to focus on mastering the area of generating income. And that was when I launched a group coaching program for the first time in my whole life. I always done one-on-one coaching for usually back then I think it was like $600 a month that I would charge a client for a few calls a month and then I decided to try this group coaching model. And within two months, I had added $7,000 a month in recurring monthly income to my income. And it was I read this book called Get Clients Now by C. J. Hayden, I believe her name is, and she talked about creating a group coaching program so you could leverage and scale your time and your income, and what do you know, it worked, right? 

 

So, that was an example of I got really clear at that time that my mission right now is I want to increase our income like it doesn't mean I'm going to neglect my family or neglect my health. It just means I'm clear on what is my main focus right now. And by the way, here's one of the reasons this is so important in working alongside or working with our human nature. Human nature is to take the path of least resistance. It is to do the easy thing, the easiest thing and what happens is if you've got a bunch of things you're focused on and you've probably experienced this with even like a to-do list, where if you've got a to-do list for the day and you got like 10 things on there, we tend to go look down the list and gravitate toward the task or the goal that's the easiest, that has the least fear for us, that has the least significant consequences, good or bad, the least amount on the line. That's what we tend to do. So, it's really important if you're aware of that, that you realize, okay, most often the thing that you would identify as your mission is what you typically avoid or you kind of procrastinate in that area. 

 

And for me, it was money back then because I'm like, I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm going to the gym, everything's good. I'm like I'm doing okay financially and I don't want to worry about it. I don't want to think about it. There was stress around that. So, human nature is that we have stress around the tasks or the goals that are either outside of our comfort zone that we don't feel like we have mastery over or competency in. And so, that's where it becomes so important for you to get really clear on your mission. And your mission is that that goal, that outcome, that you've clarified needs the most attention right now. It doesn't mean it's the most important thing in your life for the rest of your life. Money will never be more important than, well, really than anything else for me like family, health, all of those things. Money would never trump the importance or significance of the other aspects of my life. 

 

But if we live in the society that we live in, it's driven by money. You need money to put a roof over your head. We don't live in, or at least most of us, in an area where you build a hut and then you live in that hut. Usually, you have to pay rent or a mortgage, right? So, there are aspects of how that specific goal would impact every area of life. So, I'm just using that as an example of one time in my life. For you, your mission is whatever you decide needs the most attention right now. It needs the most improvement right now. And being that we're in the midst of recession, I know for a lot of people listening to this, I know a lot of people it will be money. It will be increasing income or figuring out a new career or something in that realm. But for a lot of us, it may be your marriage. That was my mission for June was marriage. 

 

So, my mission for May and we'll talk about this when we get to strategies but I had a 30-day challenge in May to really focus on overcoming the depression that I had been suffering from, the anxiety, and being genuinely happy and peaceful and joyful and grateful. And I focused my Miracle Morning for 30 days, my Miracle Morning, the books I read, the affirmations I did, the visualization, every aspect of it, the meditation was focused on mastering, optimizing, nurturing my inner world and regaining the inner peace that I felt like I had for most of my adult life that I kind of had lost after I had cancer. And it worked. It was amazing, right? Focused on it, it worked. Not that it's 100% perfect but it was like an 80% improvement. And then last month, my mission in June was for my marriage to really focus on improving my marriage and nurturing it and optimizing it, mastering it, if you will. 

 

So, the books I read, my wife and I did our Miracle Morning together, there are a lot of areas. Every part of all of my SAVERS were focused primarily on that outcome, that mission for the month. So, these are what I would call monthly missions. Again, I'm getting a little ahead of myself because we're going to get to these in the third point here. So, I'll dial it back in for clarity in a second. But the point is you have to define, you have to clarify, you have to define what does it mean for you to win the second half of 2020, to make these next six months the best six months? So, imagine, fast forward six months, what will have happened between now and then? What will you have done, accomplished? And I mean, this is not in your head, by the way. You got to have a piece of paper and a pen or your computer. You've got to actually do this as an exercise. I should have mentioned that upfront. Might want to go back and relisten to some of this but getting that clarity is so important. Getting that clarity is so important. Clarity is power, right? Clarity is power. You've heard that before. I don't know who originally said it. 

 

And here's a way to understand why it is power. Because look at how a lack of clarity impacts us. If you wake up in the morning and you're lacking clarity on anything in your life, on what you're going to do for the day, on what the most important thing to focus on is right now for your business, clarity on what steps you need to take to achieve something or improve something in your life. When you're lacking clarity, you're lacking power. You have no internal power or fortitude to move and take action and move toward the things that you want to accomplish because you don't know what to do. You're lacking clarity and that's why clarity is power. Because once you clearly know exactly what your top priority is and the other priorities that fall in line below that, all of your most important goals but your mission, your top goal, once you have clarity on that, here's how it looked for me in the past. 

 

When I have clarity on my mission, when I wake up in the morning, it's very simple. Instead of looking over my list of to-dos or looking over my goal list, and by the way, don't miss this because this is simple but it really is profound. Instead of looking over my to-dos and my goals and going, “Huh, what should I do first?” And then gravitating toward the, "Well, I’m going to check email,” or, “I'm going to post on social media. I'm going to do something easy.” And we don't usually think it consciously. We just gravitate, we see it, we do it, we go, “Yeah, that's easy.” That's human nature. And so, rather than doing that when I was clear on my mission and I've used this for 15 years. Fifteen years ago is when I first did this in my sales career, I decided to achieving my best year ever in my career was my mission for that year. And the interesting thing about it is when you're on your mission, you wake up in the morning, and there's no wasted energy. I’m figuring out what you're going to do first. 

 

For me, it's I have to do the thing, the top priorities or actions that will move me toward my mission. So, I've clarified my mission and I've clarified the plan, the steps to get there. And so, when I wake up in the morning, when you wake up in the morning and you're on a mission, there is no internal conflict on what to do first. You do the thing that moves you towards your mission first. And then and only then, once you've accomplished that, then you get to move on to the next thing. You need to go to the gym or, well, unless your mission is fitness, but then you get to do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. But here's the thing, when the year ends, you ask yourself, "If all the goals on my list here, which of these is the most significant for me?” And the way that I like to ask that question is which of these will enable me to become the person that I need to be to create everything else in my life, achieve everything else in my life? 

 

Because the beauty of it is that first year when I did this, my goal was to double my income. I know you're like, "All you care about is your income, Hal?” No. If you're struggling financially, anyway, alright. I'm not going to defend myself. So, the point is my goal was to double my best year ever and, by the way, it was doubling my best year ever in sales and I can tell you the why. And this was in writing. It was to become the person that I need to be to achieve everything else I want for my life. So, I wasn't actually going out there to double my best year ever in my business for the money or for anything else. It was literally, I was about to leave the company that I'd worked for, for five years. I just hit Hall of Fame and I was like, “Alright, I'm done,” and then I had an epiphany. Wait a minute. I never gave it my all. I never really fulfilled my potential at this company. I just did pretty good. And pretty good though, I left a lot on the table. And as I was about to leave, and I was supposed to be done and moving on to the next career in my life, I was going to write a book and become a speaker. 

 

I decided I got to give it one more year. I got to give it one more year and I've got to challenge myself to go out there and perform and achieve and put forth the effort, the dedication, maintain the unwavering faith and put forth extraordinary effort required to not just do a little better, but to do 100% better, a 100% increase on my best previous year in the five-year career that I had. And by doing that, it enabled me to develop such discipline and focus that all of my other goals got achieved that same year. I wrote my first book. I got in the best shape of my life. I met my wife, which was to finally settle down and meet the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with and that happened as well. I gave my first-page speech. Every goal I set, I achieved, and I really believe especially in hindsight that it was the fact that I had clarity about my mission for the year. 

 

I knew the single most important goal and, by the way, like I said, it wasn't just about that one. You don't neglect everything else. So, I was clear on my number one goal but I was clear on all of the other goals and I had rituals, routines, habits in my schedule, that as long as I followed the schedule, as long as I made my calls at the designated times that I committed to make my calls for my work, as long as I went to the gym at the designated time I had to go to the gym, in my schedule was a daily appointment to write as long as I did my writing every day, all of these things. As long as I followed my schedule, which was part of the clarity, so when you get clarity on what it means to win, there are two parts to that. Number one is what's the outcome that you will feel, okay, this was it. I did it. I achieved it. I won. 

 

Then the second part is what are the rituals, the routines, the plans? What's the schedule look like? And that's really it, the schedule, more than anything else. If you want to change your life, you have to change your schedule. Your schedule if it is in alignment with your highest priority, your mission and all of your other most important goals, and you've got all of the time in your schedule with the rituals and routines, and the habits and the actions in order to achieve that outcome, well, then all you have to do is follow your schedule. So, if you really simplify what it's going to take to win this year, number one, is clarity. You've got to get clear on what does it look like for you to win. What's it look like for the next six months to be your best six months? And then you've got to identify the rituals and the routines, put them in your schedule, and then just follow your schedule. We could leave it at that. I've got a couple more, two more steps to share with you around encouragement and strategies. But this was the longest one. This was the biggest one and I think I'm overlapping in the strategies a little bit.

 

So, that's number one, get really clear on what it means for you to make the next six months the best six months of your life and finish 2020 no matter what's happened up until this point. What do you need to do? What are the outcomes? And what are the recurring appointments in your schedule that will get you there? And again, we could leave it at that but I want to share a couple more ideas. Number two is encouragement. And I want to just encourage you and you have to encourage yourself and this might sound like a soft topic, but sometimes it's what we need more than anything else. We just need someone to remind us, you can do it. You can do this. Anything another human being has done is evidence of what's possible for you. And it doesn't matter what's happened to you up until this point. All that matters is what you do moving forward. 

 

In fact, I posted that quote on Instagram the other day, not that exact quote. I posted the quote, here we go. Where is it? Where you are is a result of who you were but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be. So, where you are six months into 2020 is a result of who you were these past six months. But where you go by the end of 2020 is determined by who you choose to be now and for the next six months. So, realize that. I want to encourage you. First, I want to encourage you because sometimes you have to believe in the belief that someone else has in you until your belief catches up. And as somebody who grew up as a mediocre kid that didn't get good grades and wasn't an athlete and didn't ever accomplish anything, but then flipped a switch at some point in my life 20 years ago, decided, I'm not willing to settle for mediocrity anymore like I'm tired of not feeling good about myself and what I'm doing because I know that I'm leaving so much of my potential on the table. 

 

At any moment in life, you can flip that switch and you can choose that who I was is not who I'm going to be from now on. I'm going to make these changes today. I'm going to draw my line in the sand today and I'm going to start becoming and behaving in alignment with the person that I need to be to create the life that you deserve, that you really want, and that you deserve. So, there's my encouragement but more important is that you encourage yourself every day. For me, that's my affirmations like I need encouragement and I don't rely on it from other people. I appreciate it and it helped. I love it. I love when other people, friends, family, my wife encourages me but again, it's our responsibility, our lives, our internal state, every aspect of our lives, in my opinion, it's our responsibility. Your life is your responsibility. It doesn't matter who's at fault for where you are now whether it's you or someone else. Stop blaming. 

 

Even if it's you, don't blame yourself. Just own you are where you are. Be at peace with where you are, and then take responsibility for moving where you want to go. And so, for me to encourage myself every day it's in the form of affirmations, affirmations that remind me and that aren't cheesy ones like, “I'm amazing. I'm awesome.” That's okay. Nothing wrong with that. But for me, it's really reminding me of truths that I'm capable, that one of my favorite affirmations for years has been, “I am just as worthy, deserving, and capable of achieving everything I want in my life as any other person on earth. And I will prove that today with my actions.” I'll say that again for you. “I am just as worthy, deserving, and capable of achieving everything I want in my life as any other person on earth. And I will prove that today with my actions.” 

 

That's an example of an affirmation that encourages me not just pumping me up, but it reminds me of a truth. Yes. Wait, that's true. I'm a human being. You're a human being. You're just as capable, worthy, and deserving of achieving anything and everything that you want, as any other person on earth. And it's up to you to simply prove that today by following through with your actions. And then the third piece is strategies, right? So, how you're going to win the second half of the year, number one, you have to have clarity. Number two, it's encouragement. You got to keep yourself encouraged, keep reminding yourself that you can do anything, especially when you're struggling, when you have a bad day, when you wake up, and you're feeling off, when you don't get the results that you want. We need that encouragement. And number three is you've got to have strategies. You have to have strategies. And for me, it's I focus on monthly missions. There's a lot of strategies here. 

 

Probably the most effective strategy actually goes back to what I said in the clarity piece, which is simply creating what I call a foundational schedule, where every goal that you have, you have time blocked in your schedule specific to that one goal, specific to that one goal, and your mission, once you have clarity of what your mission is, and you have clarity over what your foundational schedule is that will ensure that you achieve that mission or nearly ensure that you achieve that mission and all of those your other goals, that kind of becomes your strategy. That clarity becomes your strategy. So, for me, I focus on monthly missions where I get really clear, okay, I've got my mission for the year. What is my mission for this month that will keep me on track for my mission this year? So, it's just breaking it down and, of course, you can do mission for the week, mission for the day. But a big focus for me is on monthly missions. 

 

Now, this is something I just launched in the Miracle Morning community on Facebook, by the way. I know hundreds of you or thousands of you have been following along and doing this but if you go to the Miracle Morning community on Facebook, it's the pinned post at the very top. I'll create a new one. I did one in June or one in May and one in June. I'll create a new one for July. You can go there right now and see the one for - actually it'll be the one for July today but, yeah, go in there and that just gives instructions on how to do a monthly mission and it's not really rocket science in terms of your monthly mission. It gives you steps though. I don't want to overwhelm it right now. I've given you a few other steps but the point of the monthly mission is to simply look at same as we've talked about with your mission for the year, what's the single most important outcome or improvement or action for me to take this month that will keep me on track for my mission for the year? 

 

And by the way, I'm going to twist this a little bit, which is remember, I said your mission is what is the single most important area of your life to focus on right now? Well, if that's the question that we're answering when it comes to our mission, then technically, your monthly mission could change. From one month to another, it might fall out of alignment with the bigger mission. And here's what I mean. If you've got an urgent issue in your life right now in the short term and maybe it's not in alignment with or it's not exactly in alignment with your mission for the year, that's okay. You've got to deal with your business. You got to take care of what you got to take care of. So, let's say, for example, this month your mission is in alignment with your mission for the year or the next six months, and then next month, maybe it is as well, but then maybe something happens. Something happens that you weren't expecting. You're thrown a curveball and in a couple of months, you've got to address that. So, your monthly mission might switch for a month and then you get right back in alignment with your mission for the year. 

 

So, for the most part, your mission each month would move you toward your mission for the year it would be in alignment but again, I just wanted to throw that out there. If you're wondering, "But, Hal, what if something comes up that I wasn't expecting and it's urgent? I've got to deal with it. It's a major issue in my life.” Yeah, absolutely. That might move to the forefront of your mission for the month and then as long as you are also staying on track for your mission for the year. Hopefully, that all make sense. And the last thing that I want to say, in terms of your strategy is make sure you have strategies to enjoy the journey. I think so often, we are living in this illusion that the future is where it's at. We think the future is where it's at. We think that our happiness, our fulfillment, it's all in what we're working towards. But here's the problem. That's not true. Because what you're working towards, if you get in that mindset, it becomes a perpetual mindset. And then when you finally achieve what it is that you're working towards, you at that point are working towards something else, and so you typically never find fulfillment. In fact, I'm going to read to you a journal entry that I wrote the other day about this. 

 

So, I'm going to skip ahead of the morning I woke up, I did some stretching, I drink some tea, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. “Now, I am sitting in the backyard with my feet on the grass, enjoying the symphony of birds and animals while my body is connected to the earth. And I'm reminded that this is what life is about. Just living. We/I get so caught up in doing that we/I distract ourselves from the truth. Life is for living. There is nothing we need to do and the actual doing/pursuing for the sake of altering the future causes us to miss out on the present, which is life. It's the only thing that's real, this moment, always. We spend our lives pursuing the future and thereby missing out on our lives, and the future we are pursuing never comes because when we get ‘there’, we are never actually there because we're always in pursuit of the future. It's not until we become aware of the fact/possibility that we're rarely/never fully present, that we can begin to consciously shift to being fully present. This moment is always perfect, and this moment is life. Thus, being fully present is living life to the fullest. This afternoon, I got to practice being fully present when I went wake surfing with Mike McCarthy. About a dozen GoBundance brothers, in order to ride the wave, I had to be fully intensely present. In those moments. I'm not thinking about the future or the past. I'm not concerned with or worried about anything. I am fully present and truly living life.”

 

So, I wanted to leave you with that. Because remember, making the next six months the best six months of your life, that's us projecting into the future. That's us thinking I asked the question, what would it look like at the end of the year at the end of 2020 if you were to make these next six months the best six months of your life to win? What does that look like for you? So, yes, it's important that we have a target to shoot for. But in my opinion, it's not as important that we're present to the target we've already achieved, right, the life that we are living right now, in this moment. 

 

So, to sum up today, and again, I encourage you to spend, grab your journal, grab a pen, grab your computer, spend a little time on this. Step one, clarity. Get clarity on what it means for you to win over the next six months. To make these next six months your best six months, what does that look like? What are your goals? What is your mission? And what are the actions? What are the schedule, the foundational schedule that you need to put in place in order to achieve all of that? Number two, encouragement.  Make sure you are utilizing affirmations every day to remind you of what you're committed to, why it's meaningful, encourage yourself that, yes, you can do it. Remind yourself what you need to do and when you need to do it in order to make that outcome, that mission, those goals, to make them a reality. So, self-encouragement is crucial. 

 

And number three, strategies. Focus on and it goes back to the clarity. Now, the clarity becomes the strategy because the clarity of what is your mission and then what is the schedule, the recurring activities that you need to have in place that if they're in place, and you follow through with them, you can't fail. At least you're going to make a heck of a lot of progress even if you don't get the exact result you want. As long as you're following the schedule that you set out to follow that's in alignment with your goals and your mission, that's how you get there. And that's last but not least, how you enjoy the ride, how you enjoy the process is to know that you're doing the things that are moving you in the direction of where you want to go. And remember to enjoy each moment, to enjoy each day to be fully present, not to have what it is that you think you want, your fulfillment, trapped, locked away in a potential future result. Because again, once you get to the future, you're just looking at the next future. You're looking further ahead. And I think Jason Mraz said that in one of his songs, "Life is for living.” Life is for living. 

 

[CLOSING]

 

Hal Elrod: All right. I think that's it. Goal achievers, that's what was on my heart today. I wanted to share it with you. I hope it's valuable. I hope it is helpful. By the way, we are working on the Miracle Morning Movie. I will update you on that. We have a tentative release date. I don't want to say. I think I said it out there at one point, 10-10-2020, October 10, 2020 is a tentative date but we're trying to work on this major worldwide release that involves 10 languages being broadcast simultaneously and trying to get the technology to work is proving to be. It's not as easy. It's easier said than done. I thought it up in my mind. Wait, what if we could broadcast this worldwide and like the top 10 languages where they're the most Miracle Morning practitioners all around the world? And how amazing would that be? 

 

And so, it's fun to think of these things and then actually figuring out who has the technology in place to execute. That's a whole different animal. I'll give you more updates as that comes clear, that becomes clear and we have some things solidified which hopefully will be here in the next few weeks. All right. I'm going to take a deep breath, drink some water. Goal achievers, members of the Miracle Morning community, I love you. And remember, the Miracle Morning mission is to elevate the consciousness of humanity one morning, one person at a time. And that's not something that I'm doing. It's something that our community is doing. And as each of us wake up and we dedicate time to our personal development, and we elevate our own consciousness, as we become more aware of how the way we think and the way we act impacts life, life as in our lives, the life of the planet, the life of humanity, as we elevate our own consciousness, and we are members of the human race, we are members of humanity, then by default, we are elevating the consciousness of humanity. 

 

And of course, the more we share our realizations and we share our knowledge and we share the things that have helped us and we ask others, we encourage others to elevate their own consciousness, of course, it spreads faster and wider and helps elevate consciousness globally at a faster rate. So, thank you for being a member of The Miracle Morning Community. Again, I love you, I appreciate you, and I will talk to you all next week. Take care, everybody.

[END]