The Power of the Mind

If you encountered roadblocks or obstacles (or just plain backed-up traffic!) on your way home today, would you pull over, put a “for sale” sign on your car and give up? Probably not. Why is it that if you encountered unexpected obstacles on your way home, you wouldn’t think of giving up? It might take you longer, but you’d figure out another way to make it home, wouldn’t you?

Do you think it’s because you have a crystal-clear picture of your goal in mind, so you won’t quit until you get there? Do you know what inevitably happens when you hold in your mind a clear picture of the end-result you want, and you refuse to give up until that picture becomes reality? Yes, you get what you picture.

Here is an example. A young woman was ready to graduate from college, after four long years. More than anything, this young woman wanted to go to Europe after graduation, but she didn’t have enough money to do it and neither did her single-parent mom. She didn’t know how she could swing it, but she wouldn’t let go of the idea. She talked about it, thought about it, read about it. One day she saw a magazine article about international couriers. A few weeks later, she was on her way to London and the airfare was fully paid by a courier service.

It isn’t any different for you. If you expand your goals beyond what you know how to make happen, and if those goals are stronger than current reality – the way we believe things are today – you set in motion a powerful process that will help you with the “how.” You set new priorities, new values, and you start picking up clues that lead you to where you want to go. Yes, your brain is just that smart and just that effective.

One day this week or the next, make a list of goals and see if you can expand them beyond what you know how to do to make them happen. Give these goals a good stretch, to where you aren’t certain how to make them happen. Ask yourself if your goals are stronger than current reality. If they are, then you will set in motion the process that will help you with the “how” of achieving them.

And it isn’t magic. It’s you, using the most powerful instrument on the planet – your brain.