You’ve probably heard people say those words many times in your life, but have you ever really stopped to think about what it really means or whether it is really true?
You may be surprised at just how much of an effect your mind and the way you process thoughts and experiences has on your life. There are literally millions of people who only achieve a fraction of what they are capable of, and the only hurdle in their way is their mind.
Napoleon Hill, author of the classic ‘Think And Grow Rich’ said ‘What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve’. There’s a big clue right there in that quote. What if the mind never conceives? What if you never think about the things in life that you really want and how you might go about getting them? That’s the trap that most people fall into. They simply go on with their lives, accepting that what they have right now is all that they are meant to have in life. After all, they were probably told by family and friends that our main aim in life should be to get a good job, work for forty or fifty years and then retire. And if you’re lucky, you might even get a gold watch!
That’s where a second force comes into play that works hand in hand with your mind – influence. A good, though fictional, example of how influence and your thoughts can limit your success is in the film ‘The Truman Show’. In the film, Truman Burbank lives his life, not knowing that he is actually in a very large television set. From his point of view, that television set is his entire world. Truman is influenced by news reports of ‘the dangers of travel’ and other stories about how good it is to stay home. These things work to deter him from wanting to explore outside his small world.
Exploration is one of the keys to success. It’s important to explore new ideas, new social contacts and opportunities. Without that exploration you may very well find yourself on a treadmill – where it seems that you are moving forward when, in fact, you are exerting some effort but not actually going anywhere fast.
Now might be a great time to start thinking outside your current ‘world’. Think about what you would REALLY like to be doing and the things that you might need to do to turn some dreams into reality. Start planning something really big instead of accepting something much smaller than what you are capable of.
After all, life is about enterprise and achievement. It’s about being all you can be!
