[INTRODUCTION]

Hal Elrod: Today’s episode is brought to you by Organifi. Most of us could use more energy in our day, but caffeine can only do so much. At some point, we need to look at the root causes of our fatigue. And it turns out two main factors in low energy are chronic stress, raise your hand if you can relate to that, and a lack of nutrition. Organifi creates delicious superfood blends that address both of these problems. They use adaptogenic herbs and mushrooms to help balance cortisol levels associated with stress, and they make it easier to add more nutrients into your day. You simply mix a scoop into water or your favorite plant-based milk of your choice or put it in your smoothie and enjoy a natural boost any time of day. I take Organifi morning, noon, and night based on whatever my needs are at that time of day. Head over to Organifi.com/Hal, that is O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I, Organifi.com/Hal, and use the discount code Hal, H-A-L, to get 20% off your order as a listener of the Achieve Your Goals podcast.

Without further ado, let’s dive in to explore how we can talk to God, source collective consciousness, that voice of infinite wisdom to help us more quickly and effectively solve our problems, achieve our goals, and create the life that we deserve.

[INTERVIEW]

Hal Elrod: So, three questions that we are going to answer during the course of this podcast. What does it mean to make December the best month of your life? More importantly, why should you even care? Why is that an intention that you should set a commitment that you should make? What’s in it for you? What are the benefits? What’s the payoff? What’s the why to make December the best month of your life? And how do you go about doing it? Very simple, very straightforward. I hope this is impactful for you.

And starting with the what? What does it mean to make December the best month of your life? Well, I think that for me, it’s meant different things at different stages of my life. And so, the answer to that question could be different depending on what you are working towards right now. For example, if you’re working towards a goal that you’ve been working on all year long, let’s say it’s a specific measurable goal, such as earning $100,000 in income, and right now, you’re at $84,000 and you’re trying to close deals to get that extra $16,000, well, the best month of your life would ultimately probably be dependent on you pursuing that goal and giving it everything that you have.

Now, you might be– if you’re my wife, she’s not pursuing any financial goals right now. She’s preparing for a bunch of relatives, like a lot of family members that are going to be here for the holidays, right? So, she’s making all these plans and preparation. And so, the best month of her life is going to be showing up as the best possible host. And it involves a lot of preparation right now and decorating and shopping and list making and all of those things.

So, I want to start by setting that premise that the answer to this question could be different depending on what you’re working on. So, I want to talk in a general– what’s the word I’m looking for? A universal approach that you can apply to whatever matters to you at this time in your life. And universal approach is the best month of your life is about you showing up at your best. And the reason that this is important right now, the reason it’s a must, is that– well, it’s not a must, it’s optional, but we’re going into a new year, right? December, of course, is the last month of the current year and it precedes the new year.

And here’s how I want you to think about this. Most people approach the end of the year, I believe, very ineffectively. Most of us approach the end of the year kind of like we would approach the end of the day, right, where it’s like at the end of the day, we wind down, we take it easy, we relax. But the difference between the end of the year and the end of the day is at the end of the day, you’re preparing for sleep. You’re trying to relax your mind and your body and prepare for sleep, but the end of the year isn’t like the end of the day when you wind down to prepare yourself for sleep. The end of the year is more like the end of the most important race of your life that is setting yourself up for the next most important race of your life, right? Meaning you are finishing the year, and finishing the year strong sets you up to start next year strong.

And think of it this way, most of us, with the holidays, we start to really indulge. We eat more than usual. You could say we eat too much. Some of us drink too much, right? We stay up late. Like, all of our positive habits that we want to have in place when the new year begins, most of us let those fall to the wayside. And by doing that, we are also not cultivating an optimal mindset, right? Because if you’re on point with your habits and your behaviors and your rituals and routines, then that cultivates an optimal mindset.

So, most of us during the holiday, we end up suffering from what I call a holiday hangover. You overeat, overdrink, oversleep, and then you go into the new year. It’d be like preparing for a marathon by eating too much, drinking too much, staying up late, like versus no, I’m going to maintain the keystone habits throughout the holidays. For me, it’s the Miracle Morning, right? Like, I continue doing my SAVERS six to seven days a week even if I stay up late and I start my Miracle Morning an hour later than normal. Like, I’m going to take a lot of time after the holidays, I’m going to enjoy myself. In fact, my number one goal, which I’m going to walk you through an exercise here in a few minutes to get clear on some goals for the end of the year and the habits that will achieve those goals, my number one goal for the month of December is to be 100% present for my family during the holidays. That is my number one goal because my nature is to get sucked into my other goals and work and all of the things. So, I’ve got to be really clear with that intention and that commitment.

So, my number one goal is to be 100% present for my family during the holidays. In fact, I’ll run you through my top four goals. Number two is to do my SAVERS every day because that’s my rock. As long as I do my SAVERS, I know that I am focused on my personal development, that I am being clear with my affirmations on the things in my life that are most important, the goals, the habits, the behaviors, everything that matters most to me is all contained within the Miracle Morning and ensures that I’m learning and growing, I’m evolving every day, and I’m putting myself in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state so that I can show up at my best for my family so that I can clear out any issues that I have. Any stresses or whatever negative mindset or anything carrying over from the day before from a conflict with relatives or whatever it is, the Miracle Morning enables me to hit the reset button and get into that optimal state so that I can show up at my best for my family, for my loved ones. So, that Miracle Morning, make sure that I’m in the best possible state to achieve all of my other goals.

My third goal for the year is to maintain impeccable morality. That’s the end of this year for December. Impeccable morality, I’ll do a podcast on that coming up, but it’s something I’ve really been living in alignment with the last three and a half months. It started when I read this book, In His Steps. I asked the question, “What would Jesus do?” Even though I wouldn’t call myself like a devout Christian, it really opened my eyes up to modeling impeccable morality. And so, anyway, I’ll talk more about that on a future podcast episode.

But that is a goal for me, and I’m using a daily habit tracker to make sure that I don’t drink any alcohol, that I’ve got a whole list of things that for me, how I define impeccable morality. And every day, I’m tracking. And at the end of the day, if I checked off all– there’s like six different commitments, if I check all six of them, then I get to check off the one at the top, which is impeccable morality. I defined what that was for me and for the next 30 days and I’m doing it every day. Anyway, sorry, I don’t mean to get too in the weeds on that. And then my fourth goal for the month of December is to create my 2025 goals and affirmations, right? So, I’ll be working on those every single day.

So, here’s the point. The way you have your best month ever is you focus your energy on the things you control. And what do you control? You control your daily habits, your behaviors, your rituals, your routines. So, predetermining what are the things I’m going to do every day to ensure I can show up at my best, and like I said, for me, the Miracle Morning is the foundation, and then understanding why that’s important. It’s important so that you don’t go into this holiday slump, this holiday hangover, where you have this all-or-nothing mentality where you’re like, it’s the holidays, so screw it. I’m just going to throw caution to the wind and I’m going to fall off track and indulge in all these unhealthy habits. No, it’s like, okay, yeah, I’m going to take time off and enjoy my family, but I’m still going to wake up and I’m going to do my Miracle Morning. I’m still going to exercise. How many days a week? Basically, whatever you do when you’re at your best, keep doing that through the holidays. That’s how you make it your best month ever.

And even if you’re working towards a goal, like I gave that example of if you’re working towards an income goal or a sales goal or some sort of measurable goal that you’ve been working on all year long, ultimately, you control. You don’t control the outcome. You can’t always control the outcome, but you can control the output and what you do each day. I look at always the purpose of a goal, that Jim Rohn philosophy of it’s not to hit the goal, it’s to develop the mindset and the habits of a goal achiever by how you show up every day, like that’s it. Showing up at your best throughout December, that’s going to make it your best month ever.

And then when holidays end, you’re not starting at scratch or you’re not starting from behind the eight ball because you stopped doing the most important practices and habits to move yourself forward. You maintain those during the holidays, and then when January hits, boom, you’re off running, right? Families, maybe family came to visit. Now, they’re home. But you never took your foot off the gas completely. You stayed consistent. You stayed disciplined. And we’ve all heard that. It’s not how you started, it’s how you finished that counts. But I want you to consider that how you finish is also going to inform how you start the new year. And so, if you really are serious about making 2025 your miracle year, the best year of your life, and I’ll do a podcast on making it your miracle year here in the next few weeks, but in order to do that, focusing on making December your best month ever by focusing on maintaining the habits, the mindset, the practices that are most important for you is what will set you up for a great 2025.

And then, right now, I want to walk you through some questions to set you up. This is the how. Well, we’ve already talked about the how. You do it by focusing on the things that are in your control. But I want to walk you through an exercise right now and I’m going to ask you a handful of questions. And if you have paper, write this down. Write down your answers. If you don’t, make some mental notes. But the first question I want to ask you is, what are your top 1 to 5 goals for the rest of this year? What are your top 1 to 5 goals? And I give you that big range, 1 to 5, because you might want to focus on one thing during the holidays, be really clear on your mission for the year and that’s all you need to put your energy into.

But I want to give you that wiggle room. But for me, I feel like there were four. I’ve got four, my four top goals for rest of the year. I’ll run through them again real quick. Number 1, be 100% present for my family during the holidays. Number 2, do my SAVERS every day. Number 3, maintain impeccable morality. And number 4, create my 2025 goals and affirmations. Those are my top 4 goals for the month of December.

And there’s other goals that I’m going to the gym, I’m still doing these things that, like, I’m maintaining other habits, that’s not the only things that I’m doing. And by the way, under impeccable morality, I’ve got six commitments, right? One of them is loving my wife the way she deserves to be loved. And I’ve expanded on what that looks like in terms of how I treat her, how I experience her, how I view her, how I show up for her. That’s all within that impeccable morality.

So, that’s the first question for you. What are your top 3 to 5 goals for the rest of this year? And it might be the goals you’ve already been working on or maybe already reached your goals for the year, and now, you’re like, maybe you were planning on coasting in December and just eating too much and drinking too much and sleeping too much and hopefully have shifted that mindset for you a bit. And so, I want to ask you, what are your top 1 to 5 goals? Because having a predetermined goal, an outcome, an objective, a habit that you are committed to and you’re clear on is important for you to have a reason to be at your best.

And speaking of reasons, the second question I’ll ask you is which of these goals are most important to you? Now, if you only picked one, obviously, that’s your one goal. But if you wrote down two or three or four, you have a few goals in mind, which is the most important to you? And for me, by the way, it is be 100% present for my family during the holidays. It’s always my number one goal. Family is always number one for me. How I show up for my wife, my kids, nothing is more important to me than that. And sadly, it took me getting cancer to realize that I had been a workaholic for most of my life and was always justifying work over family because I was doing it for my family, right? And I realized that that wasn’t quite– even if I thought it was true, it wasn’t working, right? It was not working for me to choose work over family and somehow justify it was really for them. And I think at the end of the day, it was for me. But which of these goals is most important to you?

Number 3, third question for you, why is that goal important to you? Why is it important to you? And for me, because family is the most important thing in my life, that’s why it’s the most important goal to me. And number 2, to lead by example, after I went through cancer, I realized, okay, how can I use this experience to help other people? And the first keynote message that I gave after cancer and I gave it to a roomful of, it was like a thousand entrepreneurs. They were all there to learn how to make money and grow their business. And the title of my message was What Matters Most.

And I shared this philosophy that I learned from my good friend Jon Vroman, the founder of Front Row Dads. Jon Vroman said, and it was really just a realization that he had, which is at the end of my life, he said, “My kids aren’t going to remember how many books I sold or speeches I gave or how much money I made or how many mortgage payments I made. That’s not what they’re going to remember. They don’t really care about. They’re going to care about how much quality time I spent with them, how I influenced them, how I made them feel, how I supported their goals and their dreams, and then becoming the best version of themselves. So, for me, that is most important.

And the lead by example piece is I want to lead by example for other hardworking fathers that may justify putting work above family because we justify that we’re doing it for family. And I’m not saying work is unimportant. I’m not saying any of that. I’m just saying that for me, at least personally, and if it resonates with someone else, great. If not, no big deal. I want to live my life in alignment with my values. And my number one value is being the husband that my wife deserves, and tied for number one is being the father that my kids deserve. And I wrap that up as the family man that my family deserves.

All right, question number 4, what are the three to five, and it could be less, it could be one, right? I don’t want to– if you’re like, no, I only need to do one thing every day. What are the three to five key steps to achieve that goal, your number 1 goal by the end of the year? Mine is, I need to make sure that all of my work is done before the holidays start, right? That’s a big task. I procrastinate on certain things as much as anybody, as much as I’m productive. I still find that I end up procrastinating and pushing stuff off, or I just say yes to too much, maybe you can relate to that. I just say yes to too many things. And then it’s not that I’m procrastinating, I’m just like I have too many things and I have to pick and choose which things I get done. So, for me, it’s a major focus on the three to five steps to achieve the goal. I need to make sure that my work is done. I’ve got a podcast recorded for next week, which by the way, I do. I’m excited about that.

You’re going to love this conversation next week. I had this yesterday with my good friend Cathy Heller. She has a new book coming out, Abundant Ever After, and Cathy is a master at creating abundance in her life and teaching other people how to do the same. And so, I think you’re going to love– she’s a beautiful human being. You’re going to love next week’s conversation that will come out on December 3rd. And I’ll be hanging out with my family. So, I don’t have to worry about recording a podcast for you next week, but it’s already recorded and I think you’ll love it.

So, the fourth question, what are the three to five key steps to achieve the goal, your number 1 goal? And number 5, what are the one to three daily habits or scheduling tactics or time management strategies that you’ll use to stay on track and committed? Now, there could be some overlap in terms of the key steps in question number 4 with question number 5, right? The daily habits, the scheduling tactics, the time management strategies, the things that you’re going to use to stay on track and committed.

And the reason this is an important question and I separated this is because with the holidays coming up, you have to think through how am I going to deal with potentially staying up later, how that affects your schedule. How am I going to deal with having family in town and them needing my attention when I might want to go exercise? How are you going to arrange your schedule? That would be a time management strategy or a scheduling tactic. What are you going to do to stay on track and committed? And for me, 3, number 1 SAVERS, again, I already covered that, but that’s my daily habit to ensure that I stay on track because instead of waking up and going through my day without intention, the SAVERS, my affirmations ensure that I’m really clear on exactly what I’m committed to, why it’s a must, and what I need to do to follow through.

Number 2, the second approach is doing the most important task first. So, that’s just making sure I’m not procrastinating and I’m not diving into email when I know there’s a thing that I need to get done. It’s making sure that the highest leveraged tasks on my to-do list that I do those first, right? Brian Tracy wrote the book, Eat That Frog!, which is all about eating– if you had to eat a frog and a very unpleasant task, when is the best time to do it? At the end of the day, when you think about it and stress about it and worry about it all day or just get it done, eat the frog first thing in the morning, and then now you’re free and the rest of your day, you’re free. You don’t have to think about it. You don’t have to worry about it. It’s not in the back of your mind all day. So, that’s how you apply that simple, doing that first task, doing the most important task first. And then the third thing for me, personally, was record an episode of the Achieve Your Goals podcast in advance. So, I already checked that one off yesterday.

So, in summary of those questions that I encourage you to go through as you approach December, what are your top 1 to 5 goals for the rest of the year? Which of these goals is most important to you? And again, of course, if you only picked one goal, and in my notes, by the way, it says, what are your top 3 to 5 goals for the rest of the year? That’s what I wrote out. And then I went, oh, what if somebody only has one? I don’t want to make them write down three. So, yeah, what are your top 1 to 5 goals? Which of these goals is most important to you?

Question 3, why is this goal most important to you? Question 4, what are the steps, one to five steps necessary to achieving that goal in the month of December? And what are the one to three daily habits, scheduling tactics, or time management strategies that you will use to stay on track and committed? And again, remember why, none of this matters without the why. If I just give you an exercise on goal setting, you’re like, cool, yeah, I don’t need to do that. Like, I don’t feel like it. You’ve got to be sold on why this is important to you.

And like I said, most people approach December like the end of the day and I’m repeating myself, but I think this is important to close the call out by reminding you of why I’m inviting you and challenging you to commit to make December the best month of your life in the way that you do that. Now, these goals, these exercises, those five questions I just ran you through, those are optional. I just wanted to give you some sort of framework if you hadn’t thought through any predetermined goals for the month of December. If you already have things in place, this is about the way you make December the best month of your life is by showing up at your best, maintaining the habits, cultivating the mindset, pursuing one or more meaningful, predetermined goals. All of those things are within your control. Cultivating your optimal mindset, maintaining your daily habits, pursuing one or more meaningful goals, those are all totally within your control.

And I encourage you to make this the best month of your life because there’s no good reason not to. If you could sell me on why there’s a good reason not to maintain positive habits and a positive mindset and work toward at least one predetermined goal, even if that goal is being more present with your family than you’ve ever been before, right? I’m all ears. I’d love to hear it, but I think that this is always my every December. It’s make this the best month of my life to set myself up, to make the next year the best year of my life. So, I’ll be doing it. I hope you’ll join me. And thanks for listening today, goal achievers. I love you so much. I appreciate you.

And again, stay tuned. Next week’s podcast is going to be with Cathy Heller on how to create abundance in every aspect of your life, internally, externally, your mental and emotional well-being, your finances, you name it. And Cathy is a true living expert on that topic. So, I’ll talk to you next week. Love you so much.

[END]