The world is like a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the world will prove loving, friendly, and helpful to you. The world is what you are.
– Thomas Dreier
The most important principle of human life is that you become what you think about most of the time. This insight is the foundation of religion, philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, and all success. Your outer world is very much a reflection of your inner world. If you change your thinking, you change your life.
Your biggest challenge and your greatest responsibility are to create within yourself the mental equivalent of what you want to experience on the outside. By doing this, you activate all your mental powers, and put the forces of the universe to work on your behalf. You take full control over your life.
Many thousands of people have been asked what they think about most of the time. Over and over, the most successful men and women report the same things.They think about what they want and how to get it most of the time. Unsuccessful and unhappy people, in contrast, think and talk about what they don’t want. They think and talk about their problems and worries, and about the people in their lives that they don’t like. But this is not for you.
When you think and talk continuously about what you want and how to get it, this way of thinking soon becomes a habit.When you think and talk about what you want, you become more positive, purposeful, and creative. When you stay focused on where you’re going, you become a more productive and effective person.
LEARNED OPTIMISMPerhaps the most important quality you can develop to achieve greater success and happiness is the quality of optimism. You can learn the habit of optimism by thinking the way that optimists do most of the time. According to interviews with thousands of the happiest and most successful people in every field, optimists seem to have two special ways of dealing with life. These are attitudes of mind that you can develop with practice.
First, optimists look for the good in every situation, especially when they experience reversals and setbacks. They keep themselves positive by looking for the bright side, the silver lining, to every problem. And they always find something.
Second, optimists seek the valuable lesson in every problem or difficulty. They believe that each temporary failure or obstacle has been sent to teach them something. They continually ask, ”What am I meant to learn from this situation?” And they always find something.
Your mind is structured in such a way that you cannot look for the good and seek the valuable lesson without taking full control over your conscious mind.When you do, you feel more positive and optimistic about yourself and your situation. You feel in complete control of your life.You perform at your best.
SEVEN STEPS TO HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIVING
In addition to looking for the good and seeking the valuable lesson, optimists have seven orientations, or generalized ways of thinking about themselves and their lives. These are the seven subjects that they think about most of the time.
Think about the Futur First, positive, happy people are future-oriented. They think and talk about the future much of the time.They think and talk about where they are going, rather than about what has happened in the past. They create a clear, exciting future vision of what is possible for them. By the Law of Attraction, they find themselves attracted toward their future hopes and dreams, and their future hopes and dreams are attracted toward them.
Think about Your Goals Second, they are goals-oriented.They think and talk about their goals much of the time. Once they have dreamed and fantasized about their ideal future visions, they boil them down into clear, written goals and plans that they work on every day. They focus their attention and concentrate their energies. They use their goals to take control over their futures.
Think about Excellence Third, they are excellence-oriented. They commit to becoming excellent at what they do, to joining the top 10 percent of people in their field, whatever it is.They identify their key result areas, and set standards of excellent performance for themselves in each one. They work on themselves each day, and never stop improving.
Think about the Solution Fourth, they are solution-oriented. They think about the solution rather than the problem. They think about what needs to be done rather than who is to blame. They use creative thinking methods to unlock their creativity and that of the people around them. They view their goals as problems to be solved, and they believe that there is a logical solution to every difficulty just waiting to be found.
Think about Results Fifth, successful, happy people are intensely results-oriented. They carefully plan each day in advance. They set clear priorities on their activities. They then work on those tasks that represent the most valuable use of their time.They plow through enormous amounts of work and become known as highly productive people. Because they are so effective and efficient, they get more done, they move ahead faster, and they make a greater contribution to their work and to their worlds.
Think about Growth Sixth, high performers are growth-oriented. They are continually reading, listening to audio programs, and attending additional courses and seminars. They are determined to stay at the cutting edge of their fields. They know that the future belongs to the competent, to those few people who know more than their competitors. They know that there is a race on, and that they are in it. They are determined to win.
Think about Action Seventh, and perhaps more important than any of the others, the most successful people are intensely action-oriented. They think about what they can do, right now, to move faster toward their goals. They are in constant motion. They work in real time. They have a sense of urgency.They cover more ground and get a lot more done than the average person. The more they get done, the better they get, the more valuable they become, and the more they earn.<>
YOUR POSSIBILITIES ARE UNLIMITEDWe are living in the golden age of mankind. There have never been more opportunities and possibilities for you to become all you are capable of becoming, and to achieve more of your goals, than there are today.You can use this book as a guide to greater success and happiness for the rest of your life. Here again are the 12 core ideas:
Change Your Thinking. The way you think about yourself, your abilities, and your potential – your self-concept – determines everything you are today, and everything you ever will be. Fortunately, your self-concept is learned. By taking complete control over the words, pictures, and ideas you let into your mind, you take complete control of your future.
Change Your Life.You come into the world as pure potential, with unlimited abilities in countless areas. As the result of destructive criticism in childhood, you can inadvertently develop fears of failure, loss, rejection, and criticism.You can develop self-limiting beliefs that hold you back. By getting rid of these negative emotions, you liberate your potential and change your life.
Dream Big Dreams. The true starting point of living the kind of life that is possible for you is to create an exciting future vision of what you would want your life to be, in every area, if you had no limitations at all. Imagine that you could be, have, or do anything at all in your family, finances, and personal life. Then set clear, written goals, backed by detailed plans, to make your dreams come true.
Decide to Become Rich. Resolve today to take complete control over your financial future. Begin to do the things that others have done to become financially independent, starting from where you are today. Determine exactly how much you want to earn, keep, and acquire; set these amounts as goals; and then think about them all the time. Whatever others have done, you can do as well.
Take Charge of Your Life. You are the primary creative force in your own life. Everything you are or ever will be will be the result of what you do or fail to do. Resolve today to accept 100 percent responsibility, with no blaming and no excuses, for everything that happens. Exert your personal power and take control of your thoughts, words, and actions. Become the master of your own destiny.
Commit to Excellence. The biggest rewards and the greatest satisfactions go to those who are very good at what they do. Resolve to join the top 10 percent of people in your field. Determine the key skills you will have to excel at what you do, set superior performance as your goal, make a plan, and then work on getting better every day.
Put People First. The quality and quantity of your relationships will have more of an impact on your success and happiness than any other factors. Organize your life around building and maintaining high-quality, high-trust relationships with the most important people in your world. Network regularly to expand your range of contacts. Mastermind with other positive, successoriented people.
Think Like a Genius.You are actually a mind, with a body to carry it around.You are not what you think you are; but what you think, you are.You have the ability to think better and more efficiently than you ever have before. When you begin to think the same way that the smartest and most successful people think, you will soon get the same results they do.
Unleash Your Mental Powers. Ideas are the primary sources of wealth today. The more ideas you develop to help you to achieve your goals, by the Law of Probabilities the more likely it is that you will come up with exactly the right idea for you, at exactly the right time.Your ability to generate new ideas is unlimited. Therefore, your future is unlimited as well.
Supercharge Your Thinking. There are several key thinking strategies and techniques practiced by top people everywhere. Any one of these methods of analyzing and assessing your situation can give you vital insights and ideas that can change your perspective, and even change your life. The more thinking tools you have, the more wonderful the life you can build for yourself.
Create Your Own Future. The ability to look into the future and then to take the steps today that will assure the future you desire is an essential way of thinking practiced by the most successful people in history. The most effective people plan their lives carefully, and make every effort to anticipate what might go wrong, well in advance. As a result, they think better and make better decisions than the people around them.
Live a Great Life. The world around you is largely determined by the world within you. The happiest, most highly paid and respected people in every area are those who are known for the quality of their character. When you organize your life around the twin qualities of integrity and courage, every door will open for you, and you will be a genuinely happy person. You will change your thinking and change your life.
JUST DO IT!Mental fitness is very much like physical fitness. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work to achieve it and maintain it. But it is worth every bit of effort you put in.The payoff can be extraordinary!
When you begin the process of working on yourself, to create on the inside a clear picture of what you want to enjoy on the outside, progress may be slow at first. But when you persist, when you keep doing and saying the right things in the right way, you will before too long get results out of all proportion to the efforts you put it.
There are no real limits to what you can be, do, and have, except for the limits you place on yourself.You are a thoroughly good and extremely talented person, and there is very little that you cannot achieve if you want it intensely enough and work toward it long enough and hard enough. The key is to begin today, and then never give up!
