How many times have you heard that hard work alone brings success? If you just work hard enough, you'll be recognized and rewarded for your efforts...



That might have worked fifty or sixty years ago but times have changed.

Hard work alone does not insure success, it only insures that you've worked hard. Many people have worked hard their entire lives yet retire with only a meager retirement, if anything at all.

What, then, insures your success if hard work alone won't?

It all starts with a single thought.

Nothing, absolutely nothing you do from walking, eating, reading, knitting, writing a poem, or putting on your shoes happens until a thought, conscious or unconscious, occurs in your mind.

In order to achieve any goal you must learn a single, basic concept; thoughts BECOME things.

Thoughts are the foundation upon which you build the framework for attainment of your goal. Every thought has a physical manifestation in your body; every thought produces physical substances called neuro-transmitting enzymes that have instant effects on how you feel and who you are at the cellular level.

Don't believe me?

Right now, think of biting into a big, juicy lemon or think about fingernails slowly running down a chalk board and tell me you didn't have an immediate, physical response!

If you can have that kind of immediate response from a simple thought, just imagine what you can accomplish with a focused, burning desire backed by faith and persistence!

Life is NOT fair, there's just life. But that should be a comforting thought. If life were fair all things would be equal and all people would be equal. The logical conclusion is that there could be no social movement up or down, no bettering of yourself nor worsening, no getting healthier, just stagnation. Because life isn't fair it means you have the ability to control whether you improve your life or make it worse but at least you have the ability to make change.

What about external influences which you have no control over? Viktor E. Frankl, a concentration camp survivor, put it best in his book "Man's Search for Meaning,"

"The one thing you can't take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one's freedoms is to choose ones attitudes in any given circumstance."

The only absolute freedom you have is choosing how you react to life. And how you choose starts with a thought.

Who you are right now is the sum total of what you've thought about up to this moment. If you're not satisfied with who you are right now, the good news is who you will be from now on is entirely up to you. Change your thoughts and you can start changing yourself.