WE GRAVITATE IN THE DIRECTION OF OUR DOMINANT THOUGHTS.

            Let’s spend some time examining how what is on your mind affects what is in your life. Perhaps one of the most important principles you will ever understand about your mind is that you will always gravitate toward what you think about the most.

            I met a woman recently who told me, “When I was young I said I would never marry a man called “Smith”, I             would never marry a man younger than myself and I would never wash dishes for a living. Yet I have done all three!”

            How often have you heard that kind of story? How often have you found yourself in precisely the situation that you said you didn’t want? You said to yourself,”If there is one question I don’t want to be ask… if there is one stupid mistake that I don’t want to repeat… and guess what you got?”

            The principle is,”Think about something and you move toward it.” Even if you are thinking about something you don’t want, you will move toward it. This is because your mind moves toward things, never away from them. If I say to you, “don’t think about a big pink elephant with big ears and purple spots and wearing shades”, what will fill your mind? An elephant!

            Do you ever say to yourself, “I mustn’t forget that” And then go and forget it? Your mind cannot move away from forgetting. It can move towards remembering but only if your thinking is” I want to remember that”.

            This awareness of how our mind works gives us cause to consider what we saying to ourselves and to others. When you say to your little nephew,” Don’t fall out of that tree”. You are actually helping him to fall out of it. If you say to yourself “I don’t want to forget my book”, you are already half way to forgetting it.

            This is because your mind works on pictures. When you say to yourself,” I don’t want to forget my book”, you get a picture in your mind of forgetting. Although you say I don’t want that, your mind still works on the picture and the result…you forget your book. When you tell yourself,” I want to remember my book”, you will have a mental picture of yourself remembering, and you will be in a far better position to remember.

            Your mind simply does not, cannot and will not work on the reverse of an idea. Therefore when the football coach screams out to his players,” Don’t miss it”, he is asking for trouble. When you say to your children, “Don’t break grandma’s ten thousand dollars antique vase”, you are inviting disaster!

            Many frustrated parents could ease the situation by using language which paints pictures of the desire results in their childrens’ mind. Then” don’t scream” becomes” please be quiet” and “don’t spill spaghetti on your best shirt” becomes “be careful when you eat”. These differences may seem subtle but they are very, very important.

            This principle can help explain why you can drive your old wreck for fifteen years and never scratch it… and the first day when you have your shiny new sets of wheels, you manage to remodel the whole front end! Driving around thinking I mustn’t dent this car whatever I do is a dangerous thought. The thought must be I will drive safety.

            The tennis player who wins the big tournaments is the player who is always thinking, “I want this point, and this one is mine!” The fellow who misses out is the one who thinks, “I have better not blow this shot!”

            Similarly, the person who says “ I don’t want to be sick” has an up hill battle to become well and those who fill their minds with thoughts like “I don’t want to be lonely”, “I don’t want to be broke” and “I hope I don’t mess this up” can continually find themselves in the very situation they didn’t want.

            Positive thinking works because positive thinkers dwell on what they want. They then necessarily gravitate toward their goals. Always think about what you want.

Everyone of us goes through times when life seems extremely difficult-we are left alone, we can't pay bills, we have lost our job, we have lost a loved one.At these times we wonder how we will possibly make it through the next week. Somehow we will usually do.

It is possible to lose our perspective, and to paint the picture gloomier than it really is. We look towards a future which seems to be a minefield of problems and wonder how any human being could cope with what we face.

It is not strange then, that many people carry around all their worries for the next 25 years and wonder why life is so difficult? We were designed to live 24 hours at a time. No more. It is pointless worrying about tomorrow's problems today.

Next time you find yourself despairing ask yourself these questions- Have i got enough air to breathe? Have i enough food for today? (If the answer is yes, things are already looking up)

We often overlook the fact that our most important needs are being meet. And another question we can ask ourselves is what is the worst that could happen? And if it did, would i still be alive. So often , be manify things out of proportion. The worst that could happen is probably very inconvenient, but not the end of the world.

The next question to ask yourself is Am i taking myself too seriously? Have you ever notice that you can lose a week's sleep over something that your friends would never give a second thought? This is often because we take ourselves too seriously. We figure that the whole world is watching but it is not. And so what if it is? No doubt you are living your  life the best way you know how.

What else can i do? Probably the greatest way to feel better about yourself is to do something for somebody else. Excessive worry and self pity grow out of self-preoccupation. The moment you start to make other people happy, whether you are sending them flowers or digging their gardens or giving them your time, you feel better! It is automatic. It is simple. And wonderful.

Disasters arent so disastrous if we tactle them a piece at a time. Also, the sooner we recognise what we gain from the experience, the easiler it is to deal with.

Life in itself has no value just because we are here does not mean that our lives have any value. Ultimately only we decide whether our stay on this planet is to be our privilege and our joy, or whether it is to be a sentence of misery and despair.

Life is not dull, there are only dull people who see their world through muddy, tainted glasses. Many people die at 25 and don't get buried till they are 70. It is a mystery to me why some people see beauty and magic everywhere they look, while others remain unmoved.

However much beauty and magic you have enjoyed up till now, you can choose to have more from today, it is choice time, everyday. And today is important, for a big tree as big around as you can start from a small seed; a thousand mile journey starts with one small step.

You are where your thoughts and actions during the last few years have brought you, whatever you will be experiencing in your next 10 or 20 years will be influenced by what you do today. Life is a building process, what you do today affects what you have tomorrow. Today's efforts create tomorrow's results whether you eliminate a nasty habit, whether you spend an hour with your family, whether you set some goals, whether you save or spend, whether you exercise your body, whether you stretch your mind- your decision makes the difference. The ignorant never see it, astute people know it. What we do today is important.

Wherever you are, it is the place to start. The effort you expend today does makes a difference.

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