The year is halfway over. How are those goals coming along?

I noticed something interesting lately with my email campaigns. I’m getting many autoresponder messages from people who are out on vacation. It’s summertime — a time for fun, travel, family, and friends.

This is fine, but my question for you is this:

Do you deserve a break right now? Or should you be working even harder to move toward your purpose?

It’s not that the idea of taking a little bit of time off is bad in and of itself, but rather the general lack of effort you see around this time of year.

Ninety percent of us have done absolutely nothing toward the goals we set at the beginning of the year.

Instead of looking back at our lack of production over the first half of the year, we take our foot off the gas and relax just because it’s nice outside.

I don’t know about you, but I have a mission to fulfill. That mission requires me to work 97 percent of the year.

Of course, I take time off from time to time, but there’s never a point in my year where I completely take a break from focusing on my purpose. And I’m someone who’s been working at it for years!

If you’re just at the beginning of the journey, now is definitely not the time to rest.

If you do get this message, consider this your “halftime speech” for the year in this game we call life.

At the beginning of the year, I started writing what will be my third book. For the past six months, I’ve been brainstorming ideas, working on drafts, editing, creating marketing plans, the whole nine.

This book has been frustrating to write because the standards I’ve set for myself are so high. But now, the draft is mostly done and the book will come out this fall.

Because I went through months of hard work and frustration, I’ll have another piece of evidence that I’m worthy of being successful.

For the second half of this year, I want you to focus on having a piece of evidence for your success.

What am I talking about?

Confidence is the number one reason people succeed or fail. Confidence is based on momentum. Momentum is based on taking steps that provide evidence that you’re ready to take the next step.

The best thing about confidence and momentum? The rich get richer.

See, the first part of any journey or new goal is the hardest part — going to the gym for the first time, writing the first post, making the first sales call for your new business, etc.

It’s hard because you have no momentum, no evidence.

But once you build momentum, the process becomes easier, not harder. It’s easier in the sense that the more momentum you have, the less likely you are to quit altogether.

The book I’m working on has been hard to write, but it wasn’t harder than building the momentum I needed to write my first book.

Evidence of past success breeds more certainty of future success. @Ayotheauthor (Click to Tweet!)

I have a good feeling the book will do well because I’ve written multiple books, made mistakes, learned from them, and improved.

The same will happen to you. Each time you get any sort of little win, you send a subconscious signal to your mind that says:

“See! I knew you could do it. Look at that step you just took successfully. Let’s move onto the next one.”

Momentum is such a simple concept that relatively few people follow because they don’t understand how motivation works.

They look at a long journey and see the need to consistently be ramped up and super motivated throughout. No, you need that high level of motivation to get started.

You need that combustion to get the spaceship to pierce the atmosphere and make it into space. But once you’re there, you’re there. You’ll get into a groove.

Ask anyone who works out a lot. They don’t have to negotiate with themselves to do it. There’s no decision to be made. Same with successful writers who follow the mantra,

I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes at 9 a.m. every morning.” 

Same with any creative person or entrepreneur that got traction with their idea.

Once you hit traction, that inflection point, success is just a matter of time.

You will still have to work hard, but you no longer have to exert as much effort just to bring yourself to get things done.

How about attempting to build momentum now?

While everyone else is partying…

While everyone else is on vacation…

I don’t know about you but come January, I’ll already be in the best shape of my life, with the business success I want, with the art I want already created.

While people take time to “get started” at the beginning of 2020, I’ll already have lapped them.

Join me. Maybe a change of scenery will be different. Try some August resolutions.


Ayodeji Awosika is a personal development blogger and the author of You 2.0. His goal is to help as many people as possible find the freedom to do exactly what they want in life. Find more of his work at ayotheauthor.com.

 

 

 

Image courtesy of Simon Abrams.