To change your life, change what you think about
The three main reasons why good thinking habits are important and essential are
- Good thinking lays a solid foundation for good results. While most people realize poor thinking produces poor results, relatively few people consciously work hard at upgrading the quality of their thinking habits. To progress in any field of human endeavor, you must act. The success or failure of your actions, however, depends entirely on how you think before you act. Thus, before you can achieve more, you must lay a foundation ofgood, solid thinking first.
- Good thinking increases your potential. If your thinking is poor, you limit your potential achievements. Conversely, high quality thinking habits expands the universe of options which are available to you. By enhancing your thinking habits, you open up a universe of new opportunities and possibilities.
- Good thinking automatically leads to more good thinking in the future – if you make it a habit. The more you engage in good thinking today, the better you’ll be positioned to continue to think further good thoughts in the future. Success naturally comes to those who make a habit of doing the things unsuccessful people avoid. Achievement is the direct flow-on effect of good thinking disciplines and habits.
It’s actually very simple: Many people think merely about survival. Average people think about maintaining what they have. Successful people focus on progress. Everyone has the potential to lift their achievements bychanging their thinking, but relatively few do that, and even fewer are willing to pay the price to achieve greatness.
If you do decide to upgrade your thinking, there are four key points to keep in mind:
- Changed thinking is never automatic. Instead, it will demand effort and work over an extended period before the new pattern of thinking becomes established.
- Changed thinking is difficult. The only people who believe thinking is easy are those who never try and guide their thoughts.
- Changed thinking is worth the investment of time and effort. When you take the time to learn how to think better, you are investing in your own future.
- Changed thinking is a great gift to give others. If you help teach another person how to upgrade their thinking habits, you give them a gift with unlimited potential upside benefits.
When you decide to take full responsibility for how you think, several things will happen automatically:
- Changing your thinking will change your beliefs – in that you will have more self-confidence, more awareness of the skills required to excel and more desire to actively shape your personal circumstances.
- As your beliefs change, so too will your expectations – because you will start to focus on what you can achieve with a stretch and what you’ll need to do to prepare to excel.
- Changing your expectations will change your attitude – in that you’ll have positive expectations of great success in the future. You’ll have enthusiasm and confidence you can achieve impressive goals as your attitude becomes more positive and upbeat.
- An improved attitude will change the way you behave – in that people will like being around you because you’re the type of person who’s going places. Attitude is always a predictor of behavior. Have a positive attitude about life and you cannot go wrong because you’ll view setbacks as temporary diversions rather than full stops.
- Changing your behavior will change your performance – because you’ll become willing to learn new skills and apply them rigorously as you strive to reach your new and enhanced goals.
- Upgrading your performance will ultimately change your life – because the results of your life will be the direct result of your performance over an extended period. The more you learn, the more you will aspire to achieve more in the future, and the greater the changes which you will generate in your
- behavior.
Therefore, don’t try and achieve more by changing your actions. Instead, change the way you think and everything else will just flow naturally forward from there.
To become a better thinker
- Have a place where you can think good thoughts – somewhere that works for you and matches your personality. Some people like to think in the car, on planes or in a spa. Find what works for you and go there daily.
- Have a workspace where you can shape your thoughts – and fine tune your ideas. This needs to be somewhere where you can concentrate undisturbed as you think through your ideas.
- Find somewhere which stretches your thinking – where you can meet the people and the environment to flesh out your ideas and improve them.
- Have a support group – where you can present your idea and have them assist you in taking it from an abstraction to a reality.
- Focus on implementation – because even the best ideas will have little impact until you start achieving something tangible and worthwhile.
- Keep exposing your ideas to new and additional input – because someone else’s ideas may be able to be incorporated into yours to come up with something better again.
- Spend time with good thinkers – as you bounce ideas off each other, your own projects can be sharpened and enhanced.
- Make a deliberate and conscious effort to think good thoughts – and be structured about the thinking process rather than letting random events sidetrack your attention.
- Always try and act on good thoughts- because doing so encourages more worthwhile ideas to flow through your mind.
- Generate momentum – by using your emotions to feed the thinking process rather than weighing you down with past baggage or memories of failures.
- Repeat the process over and over – so thinking well doesn’tbecome a once-in-a-lifetime event but something you do regularly to move on.
Inspired by
John C. Maxwell