The Miracle Equation: The Two Decisions That Turn Your Biggest Goals from Possible, to Probable, to Inevitable

by Hal Elrod

The Miracle Equation is that process. As you’ll learn, the Miracle Equation is deceptively simple to explain but only a small percentage of our society understand how to execute it. It consists of only two decisions: The first decision is to maintain Unwavering Faith and the second is to put forth Extraordinary Effort, and the key to creating tangible, measurable miracles is to do both, over an extended period of time.

They decided that what they wanted was possible, figured out what they needed to do to make it probable, and then continued giving it everything they had until their success became inevitable. You can absolutely do the same.

The key is not to come from a place of I’m not good enough but rather from I am limitless, and I have more to give. It’s a subtle yet radical difference. It’s a difference that Miracle Mavens live by.

Whereas most people habitually allow their fear and self-doubt to consume their thinking, Miracle Mavens choose to override fear with faith. They have a foundational mindset that they can and will win at everything they do, while simultaneously being willing to accept when they don’t win and quickly moving on. That way they can take advantage of more opportunities. Even if it means that they will fail some of the time, they still have more chances to win.

There are two decisions that we consciously fail to make, over and over again, that hold us back from accomplishing what we want to. They are: the decision to maintain Unwavering Faith and the decision to put forth Extraordinary Effort. What prevents anyone from creating the life they truly want is that either they lack faith that they can or they don’t put forth the necessary effort. That’s it. And many people don’t do either.

DECISION 1: Unwavering Faith. Although you can call faith by another name—belief, confidence, or conviction—simply put, those who create extraordinary lives do so by establishing the faith that they can, and they continue to reinforce and maintain that faith until they create what they desire. Thus, their faith is unwavering.

DECISION 2: Extraordinary Effort. Though you can also find a variety of synonyms to replace effort—work, productivity, exertion, or action—ultimately those who achieve meaningful goals and live Level 10 lives do so by putting forth the necessary (and typically extraordinary) effort until they create their desired outcomes.

“The purpose of a goal is not to reach the goal. The purpose of a goal is to become the type of person who can achieve any goal, by always giving it everything you have, regardless of your results. It’s who you become through that process that matters more than actually reaching any one goal.”

Then I combined them into a single sentence, a mantra that I could easily remember and recite to myself every day, which would remind me of my two decisions: I am committed to maintaining Unwavering Faith that I will sell $20,000 for push, and putting forth Extraordinary Effort until I do, no matter what…there is no other option.

I was beginning to understand that if I wanted an extraordinary life, these were the two decisions that would create it. Unwavering Faith, combined with Extraordinary Effort, was the formula to consistently produce extraordinary results. Tangible, measurable results that were so significant, and so unexpected, that they felt like miracles.

Our inborn human nature leads us to take the easy road, doubt ourselves, and give up when things get difficult. The easy path is usually more comfortable in the short term, and our brains translate that comfort into this must be what I should be doing.

To create the most extraordinary life you can imagine—the one you want, deserve, and are destined for—you must overcome this inner conflict and take the path that leads to greatness, which won’t necessarily be the easiest path, the option that feels more comfortable or even safest.

When you feel yourself haggling in your head over a decision that comes down to your being limited (based on your past)or limitless (based on your potential), choose limitless. Period.

You are exactly where you’re supposed to be (and who you’re supposed to be) to learn what you need to learn so you can become the person you need to be who is capable of creating everything you’ve ever wanted.

Every experience you’ve had up until this point in your life, including those that have been the most difficult, is an asset when you choose to learn from it.

In order to become a Miracle Maven, you’re going to have to believe not only that your biggest goals and dreams are possible, probable, and inevitable…but that you deserve to achieve them. Without that last piece, you’ll never get to the goal because you don’t really believe you deserve to be there. You’ll always find an excuse to back away from your greatness. But when you believe that you’re entitled to success, you will fight for it.

The point is to align your actions and the amount of effort needed with your goal so that you feel deserving of it and avoid falling into the trap of being lazy. Let’s be honest: being lazy feels nice.

If you’re going to binge on Netflix, there’s no judgment here; just make sure you do it after you’ve accomplished your most important priorities for the day.

When you don’t put forth sustained effort, you don’t really deserve what you’re striving for, and you know it. This causes you not to believe in yourself, and not to believe that you deserve anything better than you have now.

In Cal Newport’s groundbreaking book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, he explains that our ability to perform deep work, or to focus on one task that requires a lot of brainpower for an extended amount of time, is decreasing just as this very skill is becoming more of an asset. Those who can develop this skill will be rewarded for it.

All those who have ever gone from being average to being extraordinary began by first seeing themselves as better than they had ever been in the past. They were willing to see a vision for themselves based on their limitless capabilities and then begin living in alignment with that vision.

Our emotional pain and those times we’ve felt bad have far less to do with what’s going on around us and everything to do with what’s going on inside us.

Every painful emotion that you have ever felt, are feeling now, and will ever feel in the future was, is, and will be self-created by you and is completely optional.

“The Five-Minute Rule,” and it basically stated, “It’s okay to feel bad when something doesn’t go according to plan, but not for more than five minutes.”

The Five-Minute Rule is so effective because it makes one lesson about emotional pain crystal clear: It’s not the experience, circumstance, or event that causes our emotional pain, but rather our unwillingness to accept life as it is and move forward that’s the cause.

In other words, acceptance is the key that unlocks the door to emotional invincibility.

there is only one cause of emotional pain, which can be summed up in one word: resistance. Simply put, all emotional pain that we have ever experienced, are experiencing now, or will ever experience in the future is self-created by our resistance to our reality. Resistance typically shows up in the form of wishing and wanting something to be different that can’t be. It might be wishing that something did or didn’t happen in the past, resisting something that is currently happening, or worrying (another form of resistance) about something that may or may not happen in the future.

The only way never to experience unwanted emotional pain again is to make a conscious decision to accept everything that has ever happened or will ever happen to you.

There is no such thing as a problem. The word problem is a label for a situation. There are merely situations, which become problems only if we choose to view them that way. We can choose to label any given situation as a problem or an opportunity or “to be determined” or any other label we choose. The label we assign to each of our situations creates our perception and experience of it.

Don’t wish for a perfect life tomorrow. See the perfection of your life today.

My life is always perfect. I am always exactly where I need to be to learn the lessons that will enable me to create everything I want for my life.

The “Can’t change it” mantra: Remind yourself that you can’t change what’s already occurred—whether it happened five minutes, five months, or five decades ago—and thus there’s no value in wishing you could. You can’t undo the past, nor can you alter the unchangeable aspects of your present or future.

The real purpose of every goal you set is to become the type of person who can consistently set and achieve significant goals.

The purpose of setting a goal is not to hit the goal. The real purpose of setting a goal is to develop yourself into the type of person who can achieve your goals, regardless of whether you hit any particular one or not. Some goals you’ll reach, and some you won’t. It is who you become by giving it everything you have until the last moment—regardless of your results—that enables you to develop the mindset and behaviors that will help you achieve bigger and bigger goals for the rest of your life.

As long as you maintain Unwavering Faith and put forth Extraordinary Effort with each and every goal you set, regardless of your results, you will always learn, grow, and become more capable than you were before.

To improve your life, you must first improve what you habitually think about. The most effective way to do that is to craft written statements (so that you’re not relying solely on your memory) that are strategically designed to guide and focus your thinking on what matters most to you, what’s possible for you, who you need to become, and what you need to do in order to make what’s possible inevitable.

The point is that your effort doesn’t always translate into success in terms of tangible results. But it will always translate into your developing yourself into the person you want to be.

You know what happens when we fail to prioritize our goals? We stay busy, perhaps make some inconsequential progress, but almost always end up with missed targets and/or feeling overwhelmed.

Multitasking slows down your progress. And pursuing several goals, with equal importance assigned to each, does the same thing.

Consider how much time you spend bingeing on Netflix or watching the news, surfing the internet, checking Facebook, or even playing games on your phone. Yes, all of these count against the time you spend on your highest priority. If you have ever thought, I don’t have enough time to get to my top priority every day, it’s not necessarily that you don’t have enough time but more that you are spending your time on lower-priority activities that you are thinking of as high priority simply because you spend so much time doing them. Remember, your schedule never lies.

Know this: your top priority can and will change. I’m sure you don’t have the same priority now as you did when you were fifteen years old. And it will change again, maybe several times, over the rest of your life, so don’t put too much pressure on yourself when it comes to figuring out what your top priority is right now. And don’t be afraid that all your other goals will suffer because of this choice. What you’ll find is that once you get clear about what your top priority is and what matters most to you, your productivity will actually increase.

As you review your goals to determine which is important enough to be your top priority, answer this question: Which one of these goals will enable me to develop the qualities and characteristics that I need to achieve everything else I want for my life?

Goals: Many things we want to accomplish. Mission: One thing we are committed to accomplishing, no matter what.

The challenge of long-term goals is that, by giving ourselves so much time, we miss out on an invaluable sense of urgency. When procrastination is combined with an unrealistic and perpetual sense of optimism—when you are always thinking I’ve got plenty of time—delaying becomes a luxury that we mistakenly think we can afford. This cycle leads to missed opportunities, unreached goals, and unfulfilled potential.

What if, instead of giving yourself twelve months to achieve your goals, you gave yourself one? What if every single month your New Year began? What if every month were an opportunity to reflect on your progress, to set new goals, and give yourself a fresh start? Establishing a monthly mission—a single goal each month that supports your larger mission—will provide you with a laser focus on your highest priority each and every month.

First, you hold one another accountable for doing what you say you’re going to do. One of the most powerful and underutilized resources available is integrity, which I define as doing what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it, without exceptions or excuses. When you commit to living with impeccable integrity, you gain the power to speak your life into existence, because if you say you’re going to do something and you keep your word, it’s as good as done (also known as inevitable).

Providing support for others also brings out the best in you. Holding others accountable tends to help you be more accountable.

As you know, the Miracle Equation encompasses two decisions that must be established and maintained over an extended period of time: Unwavering Faith and Extraordinary Effort. These two decisions, if you choose to move forward with them, radically increase your probability of achieving success. They don’t guarantee your success, nor do they conjure up any magical energy that attracts your desired result to you. It’s really much more concrete than that.

One of the benefits of making the decision to maintain Unwavering Faith is that it enables you to override all of your negative self-talk and gain access to a mindset that most people never experience.

Instead of resisting my reality and wishing it were different, I consciously chose unconditional acceptance, which enabled me to both be at peace with my diagnosis and created space for me to focus all of my thoughts and energy on the outcome I wanted, rather than the outcome that I was afraid of.