One single, "mental move" has the power to create incredible success...
There is a single mental move you can make which, in a millisecond, will solve enormous problems for you. It has the potential to improve almost any personal or business situation you will ever encounter, and it could literally propel you down the path to incredible success. We have a name for this magic mental activity ... it is called DECISION.
Decisions or the lack of them are responsible for the breaking or making of many a career. Individuals who have become very proficient at making decisions, without being influenced by the opinions of others, are the same people whose annual incomes fall into the six and seven figure category.
However, it's not just your income that is affected by decisions; your whole life is dominated by this power. The health of your mind and body, the well-being of your family, your social life, the type of relationships you develop … all are dependent upon your ability to make sound decisions.
So, how is a person expected to develop this mental ability? Quite simply, as the commercial says, "Just do it." Decision making brings order to your mind, and of course, this order is then reflected in your objective world ... your results.
Indecision sets up internal conflicts that can, without warning, escalate into all out mental and emotional wars. Psychiatrists have a name to describe these internal wars - ambivalence. My Oxford Dictionary tells me that ambivalence is the co-existence in one person of opposite feelings toward the same objective.
You do not require a doctorate degree in psychiatry to understand that you are going to have difficulty in your life by permitting your mind to remain in an ambivalent state for any period of time. The person who does permit it to exist will become very despondent and virtually incapable of any type of productive activity. It is obvious that anyone who finds themselves in such a mental state is not living; at best, they are merely existing. A decision or a series of decisions would change everything.
A very basic law of the universe is "create or disintegrate". Indecision causes disintegration. How often have you heard a person say, "I don't know what to do." How often have you heard yourself say, "What should I do?" Think about some of the indecisive feelings you and virtually everyone on this planet experience from time to time. Love them; leave them. Quit, stay. Do it, don't do it. Buy it, don't buy it. Tell them, don't tell them.
Everyone, on occasion, has experienced these feelings of ambivalence. If it happens to you frequently, decide right now to stop it. The cause of ambivalence is indecision, but we must keep in mind that the truth is not always in the appearance of things. Indecision is a cause of ambivalence, however it is a secondary cause, it is not the primary cause. I have been studying the behavior of people who have become very proficient at making decisions for over a quarter century. They all have one thing in common. They have a very strong self image, a high degree of self-esteem. They may be as different as night is to day in numerous other respects, but they certainly possess confidence. Low self-esteem or a lack of confidence is the real culprit here. Decision makers are not afraid of making an error. If and when they make an error in their decision, or fail at something, they have the ability to shrug it off. They learn from the experience but they will never submit to the failure.
There is one cardinal rule with respect to decision making: decide right where you are with whatever you've got. This is precisely why most people never master this important attribute. They permit their resources to dictate if and when a decision will or can be made. When John Kennedy asked Wernher Von Braun what it would take to build a rocket that would carry a man to the moon and return him safely to earth, his answer was simple and direct. "The will to do it." President Kennedy never asked if it was possible. He never asked if they could afford it or any one of a thousand other questions, all of which would have ... at that time ... been valid questions.
President Kennedy made a decision ... he said, we will put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before the end of the decade. The fact that it had never been done before in all the hundreds of thousands of years of human history was not even a consideration. He DECIDED where he was with what he had. The objective was accomplished in his mind the second he made the decision. It was only a matter of time ... which is governed by natural law, before the goal was manifested in form for the whole world to see.
The greatest stumbling block you will encounter when making important decisions in your life is circumstance. We let circumstance get us off the hook when we should be giving it everything we've got. More dreams are shattered and goals lost because of circumstance than any other single factor.
Let's consider money with respect to our decision making process. You should never let the lack of funds determine whether you will or will not do something. Think about it for a moment. When you decided to buy your first home, did you just happen to have a couple hundred thousand dollars sitting in the bank? I don't think so, I know I didn't. But, the minute you made the decision to buy the home, the money seemed to appear - just like unadulterated magic. Somehow you came up with the down payment; you may have had to scrimp and save every extra penny … but you did it. And if you were honest with yourself, you probably had enough money to buy new curtains and a bevy of other things for the new home. The minute you make the decision to do something, you will attract to you all that is requisite for the realization of that goal.
Whether you can afford it or not should never be a consideration. Whether you want to or not is the only consideration. You can afford anything; there is an infinite supply of money. All of the money in the world is available to you, when the decision is firmly made. If you need money, you will attract it.
How often have you caught yourself saying, "I would like to do or have this but I can't because ..." Whatever follows "because" is the circumstance. Circumstances may cause a detour in your life but you should never permit them to stop you from making important decisions.
Napoleon said, "Circumstances, I make them."
The next time you hear someone say they would like to vacation in Paris, or purchase a particular automobile but they can't because they have no money, explain they don't need the money until they make the decision to go to Paris or purchase the car. When the decision is made, they will figure out a way to get the amount needed. They always do.
Many misguided individuals try something once or twice and if they do not hit the bulls-eye, they feel they are a failure. Failing does not make anyone a failure, but quitting most certainly does and quitting is a decision. By following that form of reasoning, you would have to say when you make a decision to quit, you make a decision to fail.
Take the first step in predicting your own prosperous future. Build a mental picture of exactly how you would like to live. Make a firm decision to hold on to that vision and positive ways to improve everything will begin to flow into your mind.
Your life is important and, at its best, life is short. You have the potential to do anything you choose, and to do it well. But, you must make decisions and when the time for a decision arrives, you must make your decision where you are with what you've got.
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