“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” – Oprah Winfrey
Know what the most important aspect of your success or failure is? Here’s a hint – it’s not what you know. It’s also not who you know. Both of these things might help, but what’s really crucial to your success is your attitude about success. Plain and simple – the attitude you have about success affects everything you do. This isn’t some crazy voodoo though… it’s basic human psychology.
The way that you see success is also the way you see yourself, on a very deep level. These beliefs you hold about yourself can boost you to incredible success, or they can doom you to terrible failure. The good news… you get to choose!
“Just as a master musician may cause the most beautiful strains of music to pour forth from the strings of a violin, so may you arouse the genius which lies asleep in your brain, and cause it to drive you upward to whatever goal you may wish to achieve.” – Napoleon Hill, from Think and Grow Rich
Think about how you understand yourself. What your goals are. What abilities you have. What you list when you answer the question “Who am I?” Each of these beliefs literally defines our identity. And when our mind uses these beliefs to define our identity, at a deeper level, we’re also defining whether or not we have what it takes to be “successful,” however we define that success.
Before you even start a project, you picture in your mind what you expect the outcome to be. If you’re already telling yourself that you’re going to fail… you better not start that project until you’ve changed your mind about that. If you have an unshakable expectation of success… congratulations, it’s only a matter of time before you work out the details of how you’re going to achieve that success!
In psychology, this is called a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” You decide before you begin what the result will be, so all your energy focuses toward getting that result. Which means… if you focus on failure, that’s what you’ll get.
The good news is that it’s possible to build a burning desire for success within yourself that is so strong, success will magnetically attract to you! By building this desire within yourself, you can literally “prophesy” your success, and it will come true.
How do you build this attitude of unstoppable confidence? That’s a big question… more on that to come.