Change Your Life by Changing Your Attitude: 5 Amazing Lessons from Hal Elrod

The Do It Scared™ Podcast with Ruth Soukup provides weekly motivation, inspiration, and practical instruction for anyone tired of settling for “good enough.” Each week we tackle topics like goal-setting, overcoming procrastination, finding the time, energy & know-how for accomplishing our dreams, and overcoming the challenges that stand in our way. Don’t miss an episode; subscribe here.

Have you ever felt stuck?

Maybe you’ve realized that whatever you are currently doing, it isn’t working. Or maybe you’re just frustrated that all your goals and dreams still feel so far away.

But what if I told you there’s a pretty simple way to transform your life, and that it all starts by altering your mornings?

Believe it or not, almost all of the world’s most successful people attribute their success to one of six practices. And, by combining those six practices into one morning ritual, you can actually crack the code to health, happiness, and prosperity.

Hal Elrod has been using what he calls the “Miracle Morning” for most of his adult life.

And he is now a bestselling author, motivational speaker, podcaster, and my guest for Episode 24 of the Do It Scared™ Podcast. Let me just say that Hal is one of my personal heroes. His book Miracle Morning absolutely changed my life, and I try to reread it at least once a year.

The thing is, Hal used to be pretty mediocre. The only record he ever held growing up was for the most hours of detention in one year! But Hal’s first job changed all that. He went from uninspired to record-breaking, accomplishing crazy success in sales.

Unfortunately, Hal’s experienced a few major setbacks since that first job. An almost fatal car accident left him with permanent brain damage. And then the 2008 recession nearly broke Hal, sending him into a deep depression. And to top it off, he was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer!

But he got through all of these rock-bottoms with a simple personal development trick.

In this episode, Hal shares his wisdom about daring to fight through adversity, taking full responsibility for where you want to go in life, not dwelling on the things you can’t change and the two simple decisions that the world’s top performers live by, and much more.

I guarantee you that his story will inspire you to change your attitude and change your life.

Get the synopsis below or listen to the whole podcast on iTunes or on Google Play. (Or just search for “Do It Scared” on your favorite iPod app!)  Never miss a new episode by subscribing on iTunes. You can also find the full show notes at https://doitscared.com/episode24/.

Here are my 5 favorite takeaways from Hal’s interview:

ACCEPT WHAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE

Hal has been using what he calls the “Miracle Equation” for most of his life. Starting out as a  knife salesman, this equation helped him to break records. But it wasn’t until he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, that this equation came back into play and literally saved his life.

The Miracle Equation boils down to this one five-minute rule, “if you can’t change something, there’s no point in dwelling on it and wishing it were different.” The trick is to give yourself five minutes to moan, complain, cry, vent and then after five minutes, you accept it, you make peace with it, and you move forward.

Every negative emotion that we’ve ever experienced is self-created by our resistance to our reality. So if you’re upset over something, it’s because you’re resisting it. And our resistance creates emotional pain.

By moving towards acceptance and making the choice to be grateful for whatever comes from that acceptance, you are able to channel your energy into positive outcomes.

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU WANT

The second part of the mindset we all need to adopt is focus all of our energy on what we want moving forward.

After Hal’s traumatic car accident, he made peace with his new body and then focused on what he wanted- to walk again. He states that while he was in the hospital he was, “visualizing walking again, praying about it, thinking about it, talking about it, dwelling on it, imagining it, feeling it in my body.” And he truly embodied a miracle, not only walking again but taking his first steps two weeks after his accident.

Hal believes in mastering our mindset. By accepting all the things we can’t change, and then actively focusing on and pursuing and creating all that we want in our lives, we have emotional peace from the acceptance. It is from this peace that we can consistently create a better future, which creates a better present.

SUCCESS IS SOMETHING YOU ATTRACT BY THE PERSON YOU BECOME

During the 2008 recession, Hal hit rock bottom. He lost half of his clients, and his home and dove into a deep depression. Then he came across a quote from Jim Rohn that changed his life for the better. The quote read, “your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development.” It was that quote that Hal realized his problem, he was the only one standing in his way. Hal states that he was frustrated his life wasn’t getting better, but finally realized life doesn’t get better until you get better, “ in that moment, I ran home, and I went, okay, I’ve got to dedicate time every day to my personal development.” And, ultimately his Morning Miracle came into being. He combined the best personal development rituals from the world’s most successful people into one ultimate morning ritual.

DO THE RIGHT THING, NOT THE EASY THING

Do the right thing, not the easy thing. To this day it’s one of Hal’s guiding principles. Every day we’re faced with multiple choices, from the food that we choose to the thing that we’re either going to do or procrastinate on. And the right thing is simply whatever moves us toward either our best life, our predetermined goals, or the best version of ourselves. If you do the right thing for enough days in a row, it does become the easy thing.

YOU ARE EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE

Wherever you are in your life right now, consider that it’s exactly where you are supposed to be. And if you’re not where you want to be or you’re enduring a difficult time- when we finally get to the place in our lives or in our businesses that we’ve been working so hard for, for so long and often struggling to try to get there, we almost never wish it would have happened any sooner. Instead, we look back with hindsight, and we see that the journey was necessary, that it was perfect, that the trials, the tragedy, that it was all part of who we needed to become.

If you continue maintaining unwavering faith that you’ll get there and putting forth extraordinary effort toward the life of your dreams, your success is inevitable.

Just always seek to see the perfection in every moment of every single day. And when you see that, it allows you to find the lessons and to find the strength to push through difficult times to end up at the great times.

Because you see, the truth is, mindset matters probably more than anything else. Change your “I can’t” into “I can” and see what becomes possible…don’t let your pattern of limiting beliefs limit your future, anyone can develop a growth mindset. What is possible for your future with this one simple shift? Keep us posted…we believe in you!