An important component of the power of any successful strategy lies in the expectation that it will achieve its goal or objective.
Whatever you expect, from yourself, from your career, from your relationships, from your life, sets the limit of what is possible for you.
Henry Ford once said: “If you think you can do something, or if you think you can’t, in any case, you’re right.”
We invariably rise to the limits of our own expectations in life.
you are what you think
Be aware of the internal dialogue, the internal dialogue, that is going on in your head. There is a direct causal link between how we think about a situation, the words we use to articulate those thoughts, the energetic state associated with those words, and the results we create.
Successful people, in any sphere of life, develop the ability to monitor and reshape their own thoughts:
* They are adept at noticing their own negative self-talk and systematically replacing it with a positive affirmation and vision of their success.
* Refuse to accept limits on your potential.
* Expect the best – from the world and from others.
* They take full responsibility for the decisions they make and the thoughts they have.
So if you want to be successful, start thinking of yourself that way.
The luck factor begins and ends with you
This may sound obvious and it is, but that doesn’t stop many of us from procrastinating. We can (and do) find many reasons why now is not the right time to get serious about all of this.
Why, despite our best efforts, do we resist and procrastinate?
This has been termed as the “knowing how to break through”.
A disturbing illustration of the know-how gap can be seen in research in the US healthcare sector:
“If you look at the people who are prescribed maintenance drugs, the people who should be taking, say, a statin for the rest of their lives to control their blood pressure or high cholesterol and stay alive, you would assume that the 100% of these people would, right?
It turns out that research done here in Massachusetts shows that one-third to one-half of all Americans who take maintenance medications, who understand why they take them, don’t take them after one year.” (Kagan and Lahey)
This behavior has been labeled “change immunity” and provides a compelling explanation for why we so often show such resistance to personal change.
In summary, research shows that in these situations we have an unconscious belief that supports an unrecognized desire that competes with our expressed intention to change.
It is this unconscious belief and the associated negative energy that causes our resistance and consequent procrastination.
The importance of managing your energy state
We live in an energetic world, and how we feel on the inside most of the time, our dominant emotional state, has a great influence on our life experience, especially over time. In other words, we live in a participatory universe.
a personal illustration
I can remember a situation in my own life about 30 years ago when I subconsciously resisted looking within to make some personal changes.
I used to wait for things to change “out there”. I continually scoured the landscape looking for evidence of changes happening “out there” so I could feel better, until I finally realized the following:
I had to feel better for things to change.
Why was it so hard? Basically it was difficult because I was looking for evidence to base my positive feelings on because:
I was grounded and fixed in the circumstances.
It took me a long time to realize that feeling better was an internal state and that my life experience ultimately depended on it.
It took me even longer to realize that I needed to give myself permission to do this, and that in doing so I had to overcome a deep-seated and largely unconscious commitment to the belief that it was somehow “wrong” or self-centered to do so. do this.
I eventually came to understand that this resistance stemmed from my childhood upbringing and religious background and that I mistakenly thought that by changing my expectations I was somehow usurping “God’s will.”
It may sound irrational, and these things often are, but when I became aware of this, I was able to make the desired internal changes by reframing the belief.
Don’t keep looking outside yourself, at circumstances, to find evidence on which to base your expectation: it begins and ends with you.
The science behind the luck factor
It’s so easy to be cynical about all of this and just dismiss it all as confusing, unsubstantiated positive thinking. That makes for a very convenient excuse to rationalize your own resistance to change.
If you feel this way, of course you are entitled to your perspective, but first consider the following.
For more than 10 years, Professor Richard Wiseman examined the behavior of 1,000 volunteers who considered themselves lucky or unlucky.
In short, their findings show that lucky people are people who have consciously or unconsciously mastered the art of generating their own good fortune through four basic principles.
The lucky people are:
1. Expert in creating and noticing chance opportunities.
Lucky people just try things. Unfortunate people suffered from analysis paralysis. They would do nothing until they walked through all the angles and by then the world had moved on. They do not get the benefits of learning by doing. I’m a big fan of starting small, trying lots of projects, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and iterating based on feedback.
2. Make lucky decisions by listening to your intuition
Nearly 90% of lucky people said they trusted their intuition when it comes to personal relationships, and nearly 80% said it played a vital role in their career choices… About 20% more lucky than unlucky used their intuition when it came to making important financial decisions, and more than 20% used their intuition when thinking about their career options.
3. Create self-fulfilling prophecies through positive expectations
On average, lucky people thought there was about a 90% chance of having a good time on their next vacation, (and) an 84% chance of achieving at least one of their life’s ambitions…
4. Adopt a resilient attitude that turns bad luck into good luck
Lucky people are very resilient. I remember talking to one lucky person who had fallen down some stairs and broken his leg. I said, ‘I bet you don’t consider yourself so lucky right now.’ He said that the last time she went to a hospital she met a nurse and they fell in love. Now the two are happily married twenty-five years later. He said: ‘It was the best thing that ever happened to me… So, yes, things may look bad now, but the long-term effect of this could be very, very positive.’ That is a very resilient attitude. Lucky people tend to have that kind of focus.
“The best luck of all is the luck you make yourself” (Douglas MacArthur)
Read more on: The luck factor
