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By Chip Madera, MS, CSP

September 23, 2014 | Formats: Article | Content Areas: Administration | Tags: Leadership, Management

Would you like to experience more success next year than you have so far this year? Would you like to wake up each day with a skip in your step, a smile on your face and a song in your heart? Could you stand to acquire more significant amounts of money next year than you will potentially make this year?

I’m betting you answered yes to at least one of these questions. Yet, if these are truly the desires of our hearts, why are so few really experiencing the success they long for in life? There are billions of people alive today, yet few are truly living a life of passion and fulfillment. Most of us want more success, more joy, more excitement and more money, but the fact is that very few of us live a life that verifies the possession of these assets.

Success and happiness seem to be reserved for the few luck folks who have been fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time, right? Nothing could be further from the truth. Many of us are not getting what we want and feel we deserve in life because of two key words— THOUGHTS and ACTION. In other words, we are not getting what we want because of what we think and because of what we do.

Re-engineer, reinvent and re-establish

Few have truly mastered the thoughts and actions necessary to be successful. We form
certain behaviors, practices and patterns of thinking that speed up, slow down or maybe even grind our journey toward success to a screeching halt. The question then is, "What thoughts and actions must I ponder and perform in order to live a passionately successful life?" The secret is not to work harder to do more of what we are doing. Rather to re-engineer and reinvent our present ways of thinking, and re-establish new strategies for action. It would be insane to do otherwise. You know that insanity is simply thinking the same thoughts and doing the same things over and over again, and expecting different results. Success demands a new order of business.

Controlling negative thoughts

Psychologists tell us that over 90 percent of our thoughts are negative. Daily we are bombarded with poisonous press, nagging naysayers and substandard self-talk that keeps us from living with joy and verve. Our ability to control our thoughts is key to self-mastery. Genghis Khan conquered many lands throughout China and Mongolia. Each city was fortified with massive walls of stone. So how did he and his armies triumph in the land? When he was asked his secret, he replied, "I would simply bribe the gatekeeper to let us in." What genius. Instead of using force, Genghis Khan and his armies walked right into the city and destroyed it from within.

Our mind is the gate over our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual resources. We must guard our gate with all diligence and refuse to be bribed by the negativity of the age. We cannot choose our thoughts, but we can choose on which thoughts we dwell and which we discard. Our ability to choose our thoughts wisely will truly determine our destiny.

You see a thought is simply a billionth of a volt of electricity. It is simply one neuron chemically connecting with another. Yet, that
simple spark can and will determine our success or our failure. A wise man once wrote, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." I agree. It isn't what others say to us that matter. It is what we say to ourselves and think about ourselves that directs our steps. 

The battle in our psyche

When we wake each morning there is a battle that begins in our psyche. This war is fought between a red dog and a white dog. The red dog represents all our negative, hurtful emotions and thoughts: Fear, anger, bitterness, resentment, etc. The white dog represents all our positive, hopeful emotions and thoughts: Love, joy, friendship, peace, understanding, etc. Every time we think a negative, foul or hurtful thought, we feed the red dog. Each time we think a positive, fortifying thought we feed the white dog. When we lay our head on our pillow at night, the winner of the war will be determined by which dog we fed and which dog we starved. Do you feed the red dog or the white dog?

Success and failure isn’t only in your head. Action is what makes success a reality. Yet thoughts are always the precursor to actions.
So attentively protect the gateway (your mind) to your personal power and resources for success. Contrary to popular belief, you
are not what you eat, you are what you think. So, what’s on your mind?