Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement (4 page)

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CONTROL YOUR INNER DIALOGUE

Just as you become what you think about,
you also become what you
say to yourself
. The most powerful words you can repeat to yourself, especially if you are feeling tense or uneasy about an upcoming event, are the words, “I like myself! I like myself! I like myself!” Whenever you say, “I like myself!” your fears diminish and your courage increases. The words, “I like myself!” are so powerful and positive that they are immediately accepted by your subconscious mind as a command. They instantly affect your thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. Your body language immediately improves, and you stand straighter.Your face becomes more positive and cheerful.Your tone of voice becomes stronger and more confident. You feel better about yourself, and as a result, you treat everyone around you in a warmer, friendlier way.

You begin the process of changing your thinking and changing your life by going to work on your self-concept. You start by developing a clear, positive, exciting, and inspiring self-ideal, consistent with the very best person you can imagine yourself becoming. You develop a positive self-image by imagining yourself performing at your very best in everything you do. Finally, you develop high and unshakable levels of self-esteem by loving and accepting yourself unconditionally as a valuable and worthwhile person.

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EXAMINE YOUR BASIC PREMISES

Most of your thoughts and your responses to the events and people of your life are determined by your
basic premises
. These are the ideas, beliefs, opinions, and conclusions you have come to as the result of inputs and experiences starting in childhood. They constitute not only your self-concept, but also your
philosophy of life
. The more adamant and convinced you are of your basic premises, the more they predict and control everything you do, say, and feel.

If you believe yourself to be an excellent person, loaded with talent and ability, friendly and popular, healthy and energetic, curious and creative, and destined to have a wonderful life, these basic premises will lead you to set goals, work hard, develop yourself, treat others well, bounce back from adversity, and ultimately succeed. Nothing will be able to stop you in the long run.

It is not what happens to you in life that is important. It is only
how you react
to what happens. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, either. All that really matters is where you are going. And where you are going is limited only by your own imagination. And since your imagination is unlimited, your future is unlimited as well.
These
are the basic premises and beliefs you need to fulfill your potential.

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DISSOLVING THE MYTHS

Unfortunately, there are several myths that we accept as we grow up that can sabotage our hopes for success, joy, and fulfillment later in life. Let’s look at these self-limiting beliefs one at a time.

The first and worst is summarized in the feeling, “I’m not good enough.” This is the basic premise that causes feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. We assume that other people are better than we are just because, at the moment, they are
doing
better than we are. We feel that they must be worth more than us. Therefore, we must be worth less than them. This feeling of
worthlessness
sits deep in the psyche and causes us to sell ourselves short. We settle for less than we are truly capable of. Rather than to fail at a new goal, we don’t set it in the first place.

The correct basic premise for you to develop, or belief for you to ccc_tracy_1_1-17.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 13

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have, is that not only are you good enough, but you have the ability to be excellent in any area that is important to you.You have unlimited potential to be, do, and have more than you have ever achieved up to now. As William Shakespeare said in
The Tempest
, “What’s past is prologue.” Whatever you have accomplished in the past is only a hint of what you can do in the future.

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TALK TO YOURSELF POSITIVELY

The most powerful words in your vocabulary are the words that you say to yourself and believe.Your self-talk, your inner dialogue, determines 95 percent of your emotions. When you talk to yourself, your subconscious mind accepts these words as commands. It then adjusts your behavior, your self-image, and your body language to fit a pattern consistent with those words.

From now on, talk to yourself only in terms of what you want to be and do.
Refuse to say anything about yourself that you do not sincerely
desire to be true.
Repeat the powerful, positive words, “I can do it!” over and over. Prior to any event of importance, repeat the words, “I like myself!” Say, “I’m the best! I’m the best! I’m the best!” again and again like you really mean it. Then, stand up straight and strong, put a confident smile on your face, and do the very best of which you are capable. Soon it will become a habit.

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YOU DESERVE THE BEST

As the result of previous destructive criticism, people accept another myth, or self-limiting belief. It is that they don’t really believe that they
deserve
to be successful. This deep inner feeling of undeservingness is quite common among those of us who started off with very little in life, or who came from families that had little money when we were growing up. It can also be caused by people who told us at a young age that to be poor is virtuous but to be rich is sinful.

If you have grown up feeling undeserving of good things, for any reason, and you do achieve success in your field, you may experience what is called the “imposter syndrome.” You will feel that you are an imposter in your success, and that you are going to be found ccc_tracy_1_1-17.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 14

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out. No matter how successful you become as the result of your hard work, you will have a nagging fear that it will all be taken away from you.

If you feel like an imposter, you will often feel guilty for achieving greater success than others. To escape these feelings of guilt, many people engage in
self-sabotage
. They eat too much, drink too much, take dope, ignore their families, engage in unpredictable behaviors, and often throw their money away in extravagant living and unwise investments. They feel deep down inside that they don’t deserve their success. As a result, they often drive it away.

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DEDICATE YOURSELF

TO SERVING OTHERS

The truth is that you deserve everything you can rightfully earn by doing an excellent job, and producing or distributing products or services that improve people’s lives and work. In a market society such as ours, all transactions are
voluntary
. People buy something only if they feel that they are going to be better off as a result. You can therefore be successful in the long run only by providing people with the things they want to improve their lives and work. The more and better you serve other people, the more you both deserve and earn.

The word “deserve” comes from the two Latin words, “de

-”

which means “from” and “servire” which means “to serve.” Therefore, the word “deserve” means “from service.” The people who do the best in our society, with few exceptions, are those who are serving other people better than someone else.Your whole focus in your career should be on serving other people better. Then you will deserve every dollar you earn.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “The very best way to help the poor is not to become one of them.” In our society, the more financially successful you are, the more taxes you are likely to pay. These taxes help pay for the schools, hospitals, roads, welfare, Medicare, military expenditures, and all the important things that our society offers.You can be proud to be financially successful. By making a lot of money, you make a significant contribution to lots of people.You do well for yourself by doing well for others.

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Repeat the words, “I deserve every penny I earn as the result of serving others with the products and services they need to improve their lives. I am proud of my success.”

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YOU ARE AN EXCELLENT PERSON

You are a thoroughly good person.You are honest, decent, truthful, and
hardworking.You treat other people with courtesy, respect, and warmth.

You are dedicated to your family, friends, and your company. You are
strong, confident, and responsible.You are knowledgeable, intelligent, and
experienced.You are important not only to the people closest to you, but
also to your community.You were born for a special reason, and you have
a great destiny to fulfill.You are an excellent person in every way.

The preceding paragraph is a statement of your real personality and character. It may not be true for you 100 percent of the time, but it is a good general description of who you really are inside, and where you are going with your life. When you unconditionally accept that you are a truly valuable and worthwhile person, you will express it in everything you say and do. Over time, it will become true for you.Your ideal will become your reality.

Repeat to yourself, “I like myself and ll love my life. I am a thoroughly good person in every way, and I always do my very best at anything I attempt.”

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THE MENTAL SOFTWARE STORE

Imagine that there was a store that sold mental programming. You could purchase any self-concept, belief, or attitude that you wanted and install it in your brain, and that is the person you would be from then on. If such a store existed, and you could buy any set of beliefs, what would you choose?

Here is a suggestion. Look around you and find out what the happiest and most successful people in your world have developed as their core beliefs, and then get the same set of beliefs for yourself.

Load them onto your mental hard drive and start running the same programs they are running.

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they have developed from an early age. The most important core belief you can adopt for yourself is this: “I am a thoroughly good person and I am going to be a big success in life. Everything that happens to me, good or bad, is simply a part of the process of achieving the great success and happiness that is inevitable for me.” If you absolutely believed that you were guaranteed to be happy and successful, and that every setback or obstacle was sent to you to teach you important lessons that you needed to know to achieve your goals, you would be completely unstoppable. You would be positive and optimistic most of the time.You would set big goals for yourself and bounce back quickly from any temporary defeat. Your belief would eventually become your reality. By changing your thinking, you would change your life.

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Throughout the pages that follow, I will share with you a series of time-tested and proven methods and techniques that you can use to take complete control over every area of your thinking. I will show you how to think so positively and effectively that you will feel yourself capable of accomplishing anything. You will learn how to program and reprogram your self-concept so that your inner world is consistent with the person you want to be and the life you want to experience on the outside. You will learn how to become
unstoppable
.

ACTION EXERCISES

1.
Define your ideals clearly. If you could be an excellent person in every way, what qualities would you have? How would you behave?

2.
You become what you think about most of the time. Identify one or more areas of your life where your thinking is having a major influence on your emotions, attitudes, or actions.

3.
In what area of activity do you perform at your best? How do you visualize yourself in that area? How could you extend this act of visualization to other areas?

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4.
What kind of people do you most admire and respect? Why?

How could you change your behavior so that it is more consistent with that of the best people you know?

5.
In what areas of your life do you like yourself the most? What sorts of activities give the highest levels of self-esteem and personal value? How could you do even more of these things?

6.
You are a thoroughly good person. From this day forth, see yourself as the very best you can be, and refuse to accept any limitations on your possibilities.

7.
Change your self-concept by continually thinking, talking, and acting as if you were already the person you would like to be, enjoying the life that you want and deserve.

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C h 2

a p t e r

Change Your Life

If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy
expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive
to your goals.

—Norman Vincent Peale

The way you think and feel about yourself, including your beliefs and expectations about what is possible for you, determines everything you do and everything that happens to you. When you change the quality of your thinking, you change the quality of your life, sometimes instantly.

You have complete control over only one thing in the universe—

your thinking! You can decide what you are going to think in any given situation. Your thoughts and the way you interpret any event trigger your feelings—positive or negative. Your thoughts and feelings lead to your actions and determine the results you get. It all starts with your thoughts.