Your progress in life begins in your own mind and ends in the same
place (Napoleon Hill)
Power of the mind: I
read a story about a man who sold his land to migrate to a neighboring town. He
heard that the neighboring town had discovered diamond which induced his
migration. It happens that the man who bought the land later discovered
diamonds which worth millions of dollars.
He sold his land to migrate to another town in pursuit of diamond not
knowing there were acres of diamond sitting right where he was living. As I was
reading this story I figured this unfortunate man is not the only one who will
ever face this situation. This has happened to many people and is still
happening to many people today. There are many people who are wandering from
places to places; from jobs to jobs in pursuit of power and riches whiles power
and riches sit right in front of their noses. Power and riches are not anywhere
far from us friends it is right in-between our two ears. In our mind lie great
powers and great riches. Our mind is the most powerful tool on earth. Today one
can move from one country to the other in minutes. You can talk to a friend in
another continent and watch him as he talks. People travel to the moon and other
planets. All these are done through the power of the mind. Look around you
everything that you see excluding the natural things like the sun all the other
things like the jet, cars, roads computers all these things were made by the
human mind. The human brain can store 100 trillion facts and it can handle
15000 decisions a second. If man were to
attempt to create a human brain it will cost billions of dollars and it will
require electricity of thousands of cities.
The mind is that powerful. One unfortunate thing I have discovered in
life is that men don’t often visit their mind, men simply don’t think. Every
single problem that man can face can be solved by his mind. I don’t know who
you are or where you are or the challenges you might be facing but I can
promise you one thing if you can sit down and decide who you want to be and
what you want to achieve and device a plan to achieve those goals then you’ll
realize nothing truly is impossible. If you can sit down and think through your
problem then you’ll see that there is no problem that the mind cannot solve.
There is no difference between a man and his mentality (Felix Boakye
Yiadom)
The mind as a garden: cultivating
the right mentality is the ultimate key to success but to achieve this there is
one thing we must know- that the mind
work like a garden you reap the fruit of the seed that you sow in it. This
means that if you are reaping bad fruit that means you sowed bad seeds in your
garden (your mind). This is what the most wise man ever to grace the earth
apart from Jesus meant when he said “as a man thinketh in his heart so is he”.
For example if you plant mango seed in your garden and make sure you control
the weeds, fertilize it and water it, what would you expect to reap at the end of
the day? Mango fruits, right? No doubt about that. So is your mind, your
thoughts are like the seed which you plant and your thoughts sums up to be your
mindset and your mindset determines the outcome of your life which is the
fruit. Your mindset is simply the way you think and it is the sum of your
thoughts so if you can change your thought you change the way you think and
this will change the way you live and therefore will change your life. In
numbers chapter 13 Moses sent 12 spies to spy on the land that God promised the
Israelites. Ten of the twelve came back and said they cannot take the land
because the people in the land are giants and therefore they are like
grasshoppers in their site. Two came back and said to Moses lets go and take
the land it is full of milk and honey. Is this not amazing both group went to
the same place but saw different things. The ten think the land is full of
giants and therefore concluded that they cannot take the land but two think the
land is full of milk and honey and therefore they should go and take the land.
The point here is that their mindset determined their conclusion. Such is life
we all live in the same world but whiles others see milk and honey and go for
it others see giants and get stuck in their poverty. Most of the millionaires
that we have today were born poor, some were born in poor countries and poor neighborhood
but their mindset was that though they were born in poor families they can
still become whoever they want to become, they believed in their dreams and
opened their mind to the good things the world has to offer and therefore they
became rich. Some people also think that they were born in a poor family or a
poor country and therefore they cannot be successful in life and even if they
try to they will have no one to support them, they even think the world is
cruel and therefore has nothing good to offer. People who think like this
automatically end up poor. The secret here is that if you see milk and honey
you’ll be encouraged and if you see giants you’ll be discouraged. I always say
that you’ll never make effort or attempt to be successful until you think you
can be successful and must be successful.
The one who invented incandescent bulb tried it over
thousand times till he eventually succeeded. When he was asked why after many
failures he continued he said he did not fail over thousand times but he
discovered over thousand times how not to invent the bulb. Someone tries to do
something in life about three times and fails and that is it he stops and say
it is not meant to be or it is the devil. You see different mindset different
mentality. If Thomas Edison had stop and said it is the devil or it is not
meant to be because he failed over thousand times do you think he could have
succeeded inventing the bulb. The difference between the rich and the poor the
successful and unsuccessful is not money is their mindset
There is no handicap
except that of our minds. There is no limit to our potential except that which
is self-imposed. (Dr. Myles Munroe)
The key therefore is to cultivate the right mindset. If I
say right mindset I mean positive mentality towards life. The bible says that “do
not conform to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”.
Romans 12:2. You see God knows that to be transformed you must renew your mind
and as long as you think the same way you always think you’ll do the same
things you always do and therefore get the same result you always get. Your
actions are the result of your way of thinking and the outcome of your life are
the result of your actions. Your actions are directly under the influence of
your mindset.
Let’s take the lion and the buffalo for example, the buffalo
is stronger than the lion, he is heavier than the lion, he is taller than the
lion and he is more powerful than the lion. Most of the buffalo’s even out
numbers the lions and yet with all these advantages when he sees the lion it
flee. When the lion sees the buffalo it attacks it. So the question is how the
lion get the courage to attack the buffalo regardless of all the disadvantages
it has compared with the buffalo? And why do the buffalo flee whenever it sees
the lion regardless of its advantages over the lion? The answer is mindset. The
lion thinks it can eat the buffalo and therefore when it sees the buffalo it
attacks it. The lion does not consider the size of the buffalo or the strength
all that it thinks of when it meets the buffalo is food. This is why the lion
is the king of the jungle, not because it is the strongest or the tallest or
the fastest or the most brilliant but because it knows what it want and go for
it regardless of what stands in its way. Some people always consider the
negative things in their life, like, I don’t have money, I was born in a poor
home I was born in a poor country, I didn’t go to proper school, I don’t have
anyone to help me and so on and so forth no be like the lion figure out what
you want device a plan for it and go for it. It doesn’t matter what stands in
your way. The lion behave the way it behaves because of the way it thinks. If
it should start thinking about how big the buffalo and how strong it is, then
it will be discouraged and therefore will not attack it. If you begin to think
that you can be successful and begin to realize how important you are to the
world and you begin to think in terms of adding value to the world and solving
her problems that will be the beginning of a healthy and abundant living. The
same way, the buffalo flees whenever it sees the lion because it thinks the
lion can eat it. Even though the buffalo is stronger, taller, larger and more
powerful than the lion, it flees from it because of what it thinks about it. You
see it is not about how big you are or how small you are, it is not about how
intelligent you are or where you come from or how rich you are or how educated
you are it is about how you think about yourself and the world. It is not your
family nor your educational background nor your country nor pocket that makes
you small it your mentality that makes you small.
I read an interesting and enlightening story about a lost
lion cab (infant lion) that was found by a shepherd. The shepherd raised the
young cab with the sheep and therefore it grew up to believe it was sheep. One day
the shepherd sent them to the river bank to drink and they were attacked by a
lion and the flock flees but the most interesting thing is that the young lion
fled with the flock. This happened again and again from time to time until one
day the lion which was raised with the flock was drinking and saw his image in
the water. The lion was very surprised at what he saw in the water because it
looked exactly as the beast he has been running from. So the next day the lion
from the forest game again to attack the flock but this time the young lion
didn’t run but stood to face the other lion. From that day the lion left the
flock and joined the other lion to the forest. He then started attacking other
animals and did not run away from other lions. The light I got from this story
is that you can behave like a sheep even if you are a lion if you don’t know
you are one. It doesn’t matter how great or how intelligent or how powerful or
how many gift and potentials you have if you don’t have the mentality of these
things you can never be so. Until the lion discovered the right image of itself
in the water it never behave like one and therefore never became one. Again the
lion behaved like a sheep because it thought it was one. These two statements tell
us that you eventually become the image you hold of yourself and what you think
you are. If you start thinking and believing you are rich and successful you’ll
eventually become one and it doesn’t matter where you are born or your family. I
can therefore say with confidence that you are who you think you are. And you
can only change who you are only when you change who you think you are.
So now the question is how you cultivate the right
mentality. The best way to cultivate the right mindset for successful living is
reading and meditating on the word of God the Bible. The Bible has the power to
change and transform you to who you really are. If I give you an apple phone
and you don’t know how to use it and what to use it for, whom or where do you
think is the right place to go. I believe the right people to go to is the apple
producers or to use the manual of the phone. Why? Because it is only the
producers of the phone who knows what it can be used for and how it can be
used. They therefore give you the manual to guide you use the phone
effectively. God is the creator of all mankind and therefore if we want to know
who we are and what we can do then we will have to read and understand the
manual which is the Bible. The Bible will give you the right picture or
mentality of who you are and what you can do. Reading and meditating on the
bible will bring you to the great and wonderful you that God created and change
all the negative thoughts you have to positive. In fact the bible put it this
way, “but we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
lord(the word of God), are changed into the same image from Glory to glory,
even as by the spirit of the Lord(2corinthians 3:18). Also read books and
articles that will inspire, motivate and challenge you to be the best that you
can. Befriend people who have high self-image people who believe in themselves.
People like this can motivate and inspire you to develop a higher self-image. Never
befriend people who don’t believe in you but rather people who will believe in
you even when you do not believe in yourself. Always pray to God for guidance
and have faith in his word. Success cannot be rushed or fast forward but it can
be guaranteed and the best way to do that is to program your mind for success
by feeding it with the right information and exposing it to the right
environment and people. You have all the potential and the ability to become
successful but you need the right mindset to back it. When you cultivate the
right believe and mindset, failure becomes an
