In science there is something known as the law of causality. The law of cause and effect states that every material effect must have an adequate antecedent or simultaneous cause ("Tsunamis," 2000, p. 1064).
Most people imagine that the cause of all effects is an action, the physical actions we take and our behaviours. Stop for a moment and ask the question: who’s the number one person you communicate with on a daily basis? What causes us to take those actions? What causes one person to take the kinds of actions that lead to success, whilst others take the actions that lead to failure?
It’s you! Our internal conversations characterize how we view the world and influence every part of our lives- relationships, achievements, attitude and ultimately our degree of happiness. At some point before you take an action you make a decision to take that action. That decision is usually some kind of thought; all actions stem from thoughts. As your thoughts are, so is your life. So thoughts lead to actions, which lead to success or failure. Thoughts are pretty important for getting the kinds of results we want.
You have to be careful of what you think. Thoughts are like a video cassette that is played in the VCR of the mind. What you play is what you see and experience. What you think is what you live. To make changes in your life it is necessary to eject the old video cassette, and insert a new one that you like.
Let's take the thought: "the economy is bad so no one is spending any money". Imagine a business person has this thought running through their mind. How motivated do you imagine they will be to make sales calls? Not very - what’s the point if no-one is buying. How motivated would they be to invest in marketing? Not very! And ultimately how successful are they likely to be? Not very!
Now let’s imagine another business person with the thought: "The bad economy puts me ahead of the game because other companies are marketing less" and "I can succeed no matter what the economy is like, because people will always invest in value". This business person invests in marketing, makes lots of sales calls and takes all kinds of actions that will lead to their success.
The strange thing is that even if you're taking the right actions, if you don't fully believe success is possible, you lower your chance of success. Pay attention to the thoughts you think. Do your best to allow into your mind only the thoughts that bring good, happy, and positive results, and avoid negative thoughts.
Remember, we all make mistakes. We all have set backs. We all experience failures. We all have bad things happen to us. The key is to learn from every experience and to use our self-control to stop thinking about them.
“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” - Dale Carnegie
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