Your Thought Life: The Root Of The Fruit
I love to talk about the power of habits. It’s a small thing to some people, but those who left the corporate rat race to launch and successfully run their own business, retired early, have a happy marriage, and live in a healthy body with a healthy mind, know that habits are HUGE.
If you read articles like this, it’s because you CARE about growing and you care about succeeding. If you came to me and said you were starting today on a huge goal and today was day 1, I’d tell you one thing: your habits must change. Without even knowing what your habits are I would tell you “your habits must change.” Simply put: if you had success producing habits, you’d be successful. The name of the game is to create - and maintain - habits that take you TOWARD your goal and AWAY from the mediocre life that awaits you by floating along and keeping up with the Joneses.
Yes, but before you start randomly shaking things up, here’s a crucial bit to understand: habits are determined by actions. Actions are powered by thoughts. And thoughts are created by words.
Ah yes. That magical, mystical, secretive, yes-we-are-going-to-talk-about-it thought life.
Whether you realize it or not (big tip there), you have two lives: your outside life (your job, your house, your kids, your marriage, your church attendance) and your life that is unseen: your thought life. Someone’s impression of you is made by your fruit (what you have), but successful people understand all that fruit comes from a root (what you think).
Thoughts are more than just a series of random things funneling through your brain a mile a minute… thoughts are things. It’s not just a cute phrase, it’s the real deal. For instance, what are you sitting on right now? Understand that before it was a chair, it was an idea. Everything great started as an idea. Everything destructive also started as an idea. Thoughts are powerful, and understanding their power is crucial to your success.
Have you ever gotten excited about something, only to have a friend or family member ruin it for you? They planted a seed of doubt in you and effectively poisoned your thought life. Well, newsflash: there is an overabundance of negative people in the world, people who are more than willing to pelt your face with a tomato the moment you stick your head above the crowd. If you can count on one thing, you can count on the prevalence of negative people trying to convince you that you can’t do it...no matter what “it” is. So how to do some people rise up and others get so bogged down that they quit?
The answer lies in the quality of their thought life. How much good are you putting into the 6 inches between your ears? A sea of positivity will wash away the seeds of doubt.
Not only that, but you’ve got a war raging on two fronts my friend. Did you know many experts believe that your core beliefs are set by age 5? Before you can even put these thoughts into words, you are wired with beliefs like “I’m not a people person” and “I’m not as smart as everyone else”. Like the rings of a tree, each layer that defines us and stays with us for a lifetime. These hardwired thoughts serving as a 3 foot concrete wall between us and our success are called limiting beliefs.
Your biggest weapon to fight your limiting beliefs is learning how to think differently. Pour into yourself. Read, because reading is guided thought. Brainwash yourself for success. If you have ever chased success hardcore, or spent time pouring into yourself hardcore, you’ve likely been questioned by some loser (sorry), “aren’t you being brainwashed?” Well, if you didn’t have one before, here’s your retort:
What’s happening when you grow up watching 5 hours of TV a day? Or when, as an adult, you share your parents’ beliefs on everything - money, politics, religion - without ever having given those beliefs serious thought as to whether they are what you truly believe?
That’s brainwashing. It’s all brainwashing. The good news is that you can also brainwash yourself to be an overcomer and to believe you will succeed.
Think about it. If you truly believed in the goal you are chasing, wouldn’t you speak confidently about it everywhere you go? Wouldn’t you take every opportunity to expand your network? When you share something you are passionate about, people listen.
When you take action towards your goals, what is your attitude? Is it “this is going to work” or “man, I hope this works”?
What do you truly believe? When you believe big, you go the extra mile. When you believe big, you go for the gold when pursuing your goal.
Do you believe that your life was destined for greatness? If you do, you will also believe that all the good and all the bad over the years is leading you to that greatness, instead of believing that all your trials and hardships are meant to keep you down, or worse: that you are a victim. It’s equally available to believe that all those bad things are what your life is about. You won’t sweat the small, medium, and big stuff when you truly believe you are going to succeed. What you believe will keep you going through just about anything.
If you really, truly believed you were meant to succeed, how unstoppable would you be? Food for thought. And you must be hungry.
#perspective #thoughts #thoughtlife #foodforthought #networking #millennials #relationships #mentor #success #successmindset #positiveattitude #chaseyourdreams
