Matthew Hussey uses his birthday at the year's midpoint to reframe the next 184 days as a fresh start. He offers three strategies: identify and fight your specific weaknesses like distraction or neglect, reconnect with why your goals matter in the first place, and return to goals you already set instead of constantly chasing new ones.
So it was my birthday this week. In a way it's bittersweet because we think about the fact that it's our birthday and that's a really special day. But at the same time we can't help but think about all the things we wish we'd have done by that point. One of the things that struck me about it this year in particular was that my birthday is kind of the halfway point of the year. So my birthday comes in half time. Every sport in half time what happens? The coach comes down, takes them into the locker room and gives them a pep talk. gives them some sort of talk about what's gonna happen in the second half of the game. And it's different than the talk that people get in the first half of the game. Because when you're starting out a year, what happens is you think about what you want the result of that year to be and what you wanna take on as new habits in that year. Why is this year gonna be better than the last year? But half time's different, 'cause when you get a pep talk in half time, someone is talking to you based on what's already happened in the first half of the game. We know this, this and this has happened, now you need to do this as a result. I know I was a little frustrated at myself that things that, some things that I wanted to get done, I didn't get done or I didn't get there fast enough. There are certain projects I still haven't been able to start. Perhaps I was overly ambitious with a few things. We get to a certain point where we say, well, did I achieve half of the things I set out to achieve at the start of the year? And when the answer is no, and we feel like, it's already June and I haven't done all these things, that's when we start to look at the second half of the year and write it off before we've even begun. But here's the thing. There are six months of this year left. At the end of this month, at the end of June, there are six months left. 184 days of your life to play with, to be productive, to be efficient, to go out and love and be loved, to have fun, to have adventure, to have excitement, to try new things, learn new things, develop new skills. This is all time that we have in the palm of our hand. And if we focus on the frustration we have from not achieving what we wanted to achieve the first half of the year, then we'll never achieve what we could achieve in the second half of the year. So here's what I did. I looked at three key things that are gonna help me make the most of this year and I can share those with you so that you can do the same. Firstly, when you're going into the second half of this year, big step, know your weaknesses. I wrote down the biggest weaknesses that I need to combat. Distraction, being prone to overwhelm, being out of touch with the people I love, not sticking to my daily habits, and not refocusing on important goals every day. All of the things that I've been able to achieve in my life have been because I've been very much aware of those weaknesses that I have and I actively seek to combat them. When we don't get aware of our weaknesses, that's when stuff starts to go wrong because we don't see the pitfalls coming. Number two, know what drives you. One of the biggest reasons for lack of motivation is not that we're lazy people. What happens is we lose connection with the reasons that we go after things in life. Everyone has had a day where they felt particularly motivated and it wasn't that they were a different person that day, that their focus was in a different area. That day they were thinking about something that really drove them in an extraordinary way and made them go out and achieve. Third and final thing, renew your goals. A lot of the time we get it right in our lives, but the need to keep creating new things means we go on to the next thing without ever doing the old thing. I heard someone say recently and I feel bad that I can't quote them because I don't know who said it. It's better to go back to old resolutions than to keep creating new ones. what we do is we keep creating new goals because we want to be creative and feel like we're moving forward. But sometimes moving forward isn't creating new goals all the time. It's actually going back to a goal that we knew would make us happy, but we lost focus on that goal. So look, halfway through the year, we have six months left, and if we really go for it, we can make magic happen in those six months and it can be the most incredible year of our lives. So that's it from me today. I hope you're excited. I'm very excited. Here's to the rest of the year, my friends. Take care.
