Tame Your Mind and Release the Dragon

The other day I was helping my fifth grade son with his math homework and every time it looked like he understood the work whenever he tried the next problem it seemed like he never learned the mathematical concept.  What should have taken no more than thirty minutes to complete ended up taking four hours and a lot of frustration.  Fortunately for me, being an educator, I knew exactly how to show him what he needed to do and we got through it.  My son has always been very bright and has done well in school until recently.  It is not that he lacks intelligence or talent to become a successful student, but he has an uncontrolled mind.

"A man without an organized system of thought will always be at the mercy of a man who has one." — Edwin Louis Cole.

How many people  have big dreams to do wonderful and incredible things, but never manage to make those dreams become reality.  I believe one of the reasons most people never achieve their dreams are due to having an uncontrolled mind.  The key to achieving any kind of success is learning how to tame your mind. When your thinking process is brought under control you can then begin to create wonderful ideas and bring them to completion.  When a person creates and idea and is not thought through to completion the idea is not worth anything.  A fact that most people are not aware of is that thinking is a skill that is taught and not caught and so as a result there are many people who do not have control of their minds.  There are several ways to develop the ability to think in an organized fashion.  Some ways are reading books on a variety of subjects, playing an instrument, learning a technical skill such as how to build things for home improvement projects and games such as solitaire.  Once an uncontrolled mind is tamed it can then be released to be a creative and powerful force because we are not held back by others, but we are held back by our thinking.

Know What You Don't Like

Finding that place in your life where you are doing what you want to do and are successful at it can be tough.  Especially when you hear or read about someone who is successful and they just enjoy what they do so much.  Quite often people will live their lives in a reactive fashion and end up taking jobs out of necessity with the results being that they are miserable.  The key to avoiding this pitfall is to do what you are passionate about and as you may have heard when you do what you love it is not work.  But how do you find out what you love and are passionate about? 

A good place to start with is to find out what you do not like.  Doing this will help you to eliminate things you are not willing to do and help you to focus on finding your passion.  For example, if you are looking at working with children as a passion you can look at the age groups you know for sure that you do not want to work with.  You can also look at subjects, grade levels, setting and many other things to eliminate.  When you discover these non-negotiable things you know what to avoid because wouldn't it be such a waste of time to prepare for something you do not like?  Here is one thing to keep in mind.  Sometimes you might have to do what you do not like in order to do what you do like.  There are times when sacrifices have to be made in order to get to where you want to be.  It might mean going back to school even though you hate school to get the required credentials or you may be at the right company but have to work hours that you do not like until the right moment comes along.  This is where having a vision or a goal in place will keep you motivated in doing what you need to do.  At the end of the day in order to be happy and do what you love find out what you like and what you do not like.  Then focus on getting rid of what you do not like so you can focus on what you like. 

Managing a Negative Environment

We have all heard people say that it is important to surround yourself with the right people if you are looking at becoming successful.  This is absolutely true!  You must find people who are like minded, positive, and creative people who are either where you want to be or are going to where you want to be.  This would be a wonderful scenario if it were a perfect world.  The fact of the matter is that we have people in our lives that we cannot easily jettison because they may be siblings, a spouse, parent or even our boss.  The key is to learn how to navigate our path to success even with negative people in our lives.  Here are some tips on how to do this:

1.  Learn how to encourage yourself-   It is important to learn how to speak positively to yourself in spite of any negative influences.  You can to keep a daily journal where you can actually keep track of  your inner conversation.

2.  Stay focused on your vision-  By keeping your eye on the prize, your vision, this will help to keep you motivated.  Post your vision where you can see it constantly.

3.  Read, Read, Read-  By immersing yourself in books you will always find someone who can motivate you to achieve your dream. 

4.  Learn how to handle negative people-  The problem with negativity is that it is contagious.  It is important to know that people negative views are theirs and theirs alone unless you buy into it.  Listen but do not take ownership and do not try to change their view point.  Remember that negative people are people too and it is more to them than their negativity.

While it would be nice if we could distance ourselves from everyone that does not add to our lives in a positive way, in reality it is just not possible.  Negative people are people as well and are more than their negativity and in reality negativity is driving by some type of fear.  Love them anyways but remember that if you are going to reach for success you have to keep your eye on the prize.

The Reward for a Vision

If we all were willing to admit the issues of life can become overwhelming at times.  These experiences can make us want to give up at times or they can cause us to take our focus from our goals we are trying to accomplish and instead place it on the issue at hand.  The issues of life cannot be avoided because they can be compared to storms since sooner or latter a storm will come.  The key thing to remember is that storms do not last always!  Knowing this it is so important to keep your vision first and foremost so that you do not lose sight of what you are working towards.  A vision will motivate you and keep you encouraged even through difficult times.  The reward for the vision is seeing become reality.