A Success-Driven Mental Attitude - The True Key To Success

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This article has become longer than I wanted or expected. Here's an index to the topics...

Before I begin this article, I need to share something because for some people I'm going to step on your toes or you're likely going to read things you may find uncomfortable. Here's what you need to understand...

Now, having said that, let's begin...

Success Is NOT A Mystery!

There are a lot of studies to show why some people are able to create great financial success in their life and why others aren't. It's not a mystery any longer.

We've watched kids who were raised in terrible environments who by all statistics should've either ended up in a gang, in jail or another dependent of the government create great success in their life. How did they do that?

We've watched kids who were raised in a great home with successful parent as role models become a bum and do nothing and forever live in their parents basement waiting for the parents to die so they get access to their money and assets. Why do they have no ambition to make something of themselves, or create their own success?

Success, however you define it, is a choice. It's fully mentally driven. It's believing you can, it's wanting more out of life, it's not being happy with your life and wanting to change your life, it's wanting to be financially stable and more. 

We're all individuals who have lived our own individual life and have our own individual experiences. All of this molds us and creates our belief system of what we belief to be true and possible. 

Unfortunately, many because of their upbringing and the beliefs they've created throughout their life believe they'll never be able to create measurable success in their life. They believe their life currently being lived is the best it will ever be.

Bull crap!

They are so wrong, but because this is their belief their brain will make sure they're right. People have no idea just how powerful their brain is and what's capable when it's reprogrammed for success.

You've heard the old saying, "Whether you believe you can or can't, you're right." If you believe you can your brain will help you find a way to make it happen. If you believe you can't even if you make an attempt you'll give up at the first obstacle.

Creating "your success" comes from having what I call a "success-driven mental attitude".

Your Brain Is Being Programmed Whether You Realize It Or Not...

There are numerous things which affect our brain, what goes through our head, how we look at things, what we focus on, what our beliefs are, what our values are and much more.

The problem is, how our brain has been "programmed" over our lifetime controls what we believe to be true, how we'll react to things and the actions we take. 

The other problem here is the high majority of people don't realize our brains are like computer which can be programmed. Then, to add to this, there are organizations who are intentionally programming people but this programming isn't to better your life but instead to push an agenda which also affects you as an individual and how you live your life.

If you don't even realize your brain can be programmed then you're not doing anything to protect how it's programmed by others and are being controlled by the things around you which are subtly and without your knowledge programming you. It's like not putting virus protection or malware protection software on your computer.

And, in continuing to use a computer analogy, there's a lot of "malware" out there messing with your programming so you conform to what these people want you to believe which affect how you react to things and what you do.

Why they're doing this isn't significant here, nor do I want to get that far into the weeds on that in this article. I just want you to be aware that organizations who have the ability to affect our programming are doing it for reasons to serve them, not to serve us individually.

First Thing To Know...

The first thing to know is you can reprogram your brain to create the life you desire. This includes cleaning out the bad programming installed by others for their own self serving reasons. (Below I show you the main ways your belief system is created, and I also show you how to reprogram yourself.)

Everyone who takes on this journey to create the life they desire is faced with needing to reprogram their brain so don't think you're alone here. This is just part of the process! 

Second Thing To Know...

The second thing to realize is if you're not taking control of programming your brain then others are programming you to support their agenda. One way or another you're being programmed. The key question you need to ask yourself is, "Do I want to have control over how my brain is programmed or do I want to leave that to others?"

If You're Not Programming Yourself Then Others Are...

What are you feeding your mind? Are you putting positive things in or negative things in? Are you increasing your love of people or are you increasing your hate for people?

Your brain is like a computer and we're all born with a blank slate to become whatever those around us help us to become. All your brain knows is what it's fed and from influences around you. "We only know what we know, but it's what we don't yet know that can change our lives dramatically."

Because of how the brain works is why I was so protective of my children and what they would "see" and what they'd "hear". I managed the TV they were allowed to watch and the music they were allowed to listen to, but different from a lot of parents is I explained why because unlike most parent I understood how things you see and hear influence you.

Once you start taking control over the programming of your brain to reprogram yourselves for greatness and to create success in your life one of the challenges we all face is we're going to go up against beliefs we've believed for a long time which will make us question the new information we learned which is disputing the old belief showing the old belief is not based on facts.

Read what I just said again because what I just stated is important for you to understand.

Many will fight changing their beliefs (even good change is tough) and how they look at things because of being wedded to tradition, "This is how and what I've always believed" (we're creatures of habit) with very little consideration to why they believe that way or that maybe what you currently believe is holding you back from becoming who you were born to become, to create greatness in your life!

God Designed Us To Be Happy & Successful...

Side Note: I'm aware there are some who don't follow God or even believe in God. The majority of people do believe in God so they will appreciate what I'm sharing here. If you don't, just move down this article. The Biblical side is very minimal in this specific article.

Side Note 2: There's a lot we can do to help our children create their best life and protect them from the negativity of this world which will suck the life out of them and interfere with their ability to be successful. This is why I offered additional information throughout this article. Our children are our future and it's up to us parents to make sure they're on the right path.

God didn't design us to be weak, to be slaves to anyone, to not have a great life. It's the "influences" around us which mold us away from what God intended for us. There are many scriptures around creating success in our lives in the Bible.

Proverbs 13:18 Poverty and disgrace come to him who ignores instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is honored. (ESV)

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Psalms 20:4 May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. (NIV)

Prov 15:22 Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. (NIV)

In fact, about every book on success is based upon Biblical scriptures and principles. The Bible is filled with so much information to help us create an amazing life. To teach people how to be successful and not also bring in the Bible and scriptures means you're not getting the whole explanation and teaching.

Many have asked if God wants us to be successful or to be rich. Here's just one scripture supporting our having wealth...

Deut 8:18 Always remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you power to become rich, and he does it to fulfill his promise to your ancestors.

As you can see, absolutely yes. You just need to know regarding being rich we're not to allow money to be our god or to worship it. (This is just one thing you need to know. The Bible teaches us what we must do and what God will do for us.)

These things and so much more are also in the Bible. I'm also writing an article called, "Success, Business and the Bible" where I'll dig more into the scripture side of success and some of what the scriptures tell us about creating a successful life and how to create it.

Let me just end this point with this. What God want for us is in Mark 11:24 it says... Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. (KJV)

There's a lot to unpack in that scripture which we'll do in the other article.

In each of our own lives we each get to determine what "success means to us".

• For some it might be just having a great relationship with your spouse filled with lots of love and creating great times;
• For another it might be financial success (just be careful not to make money your god);
• For others it might be traveling and seeing the beaches of the world; and
• For yet others it may be they want their freedom where they can spend their days with the people they love the most and not at a job 9 hours a day 5 days a week. 

The options are many of how we choose to define what "success" means to us individually. This is an individual decision.

Remember, the world is Satan's playground and he uses everything he can to separate us from God and to stop us from achieving the greatness God intended for all of us which is why there are so many things out in this world which are influencing what we believe, how we look at things and the things that go through our mind. 

This is why people who want to create success in their life need to first clean out the programming they've had over the years by (everyone goes through this, it's just part of the process)...

• Cleaning up your stinking thinking... this is actually a huge task and takes time.
• Remove disempowering beliefs and program in empowering beliefs.
  • This includes re-evaluating long-term beliefs you've had
• Understanding your values and determining if your values are holding you back or moving you forward, and then if necessary making changes to your values as needed to move you forward. 

It's a process which will take numerous lesson's and your involvement to fix. 

To start the process let me first share with you the main ways on how you've been programmed over your life. This is the beginning to understanding why you look at things the way you do and why you believe what you do...

How We've Been Programmed Throughout Our Lives

Throughout our lives things are happening which are molding (programming) our beliefs and how we look at things that happen around us. The things which have had biggest impact in your life are...

The foundation to how you view life and the things that happen around you is your beliefs and what you focus on both of which control how you view things.

What you believe to be true has tremendous control over you, what you'll do or avoid, how you'll live your life and much more. Your belief system and your values plays a huge role in molding you into your "individual" you.

Let's take a look at the things which have had the biggest impact in your belief system, values and other parts that make you you...

1) Your Upbringing & The Environment You Grew Up In

This right here is the foundation to what you believe and how you live your life. Your parents played a huge role in molding you. They were the first people you totally trusted and deeply loved.  

Everything you learned in the first 5 years of life was by modeling your parents and older siblings if you had any. You learned to talk listening to family members, you learned to walk watching family members and your behavior started being molded by observing family members.

Once you started talking your beliefs start developing from listening to conversations of people around you which is predominately your parents and siblings, but also from what you watched on TV. You listened to the people you love the most, your parents, talk to others.

• Things the parents talk highly of and appreciate and like the children will like.
• Things the parents criticize and speak negatively about the children will not like either.

For example...

• If the parents talk about how God has blessed them and the importance of God in their lives they'll want a relationship with God too.
• If the parents are against God and talk down on God, this too will influence the children on God.

Keep in mind, we're only talking about a child's initial beliefs. Some of their childhood beliefs will be replaced with other beliefs as the years pass and others they'll keep for a lifetime.

What you have to remember about children is they have immature minds so it's far easier to influence children. They can't separate fiction from truth like adults can so most everything feels more real to them.

Because of this children take what they hear differently than adults, things affect them differently, they take things more emotionally. 

Because of how our brains mature, this is why there are so many restrictions on what a child can do, and for good reason.

It's said a persons brain isn't fully mature until 25-27.

Our upbringing and parents play a huge role in who we become. Only being raised by one parent and not benefiting from both a dad and mom is also very impactful to a child growing up.

Our parents had great influence in our life because we trusted them. After all, they're our parents.

However, very few of us had success driven parents to teach us how to deal with things in life that we faced. There was very few to teach us how to use our God given gifts and how to deal with things that molded us to who we became as an adult, some good and some not so good. (The good news is you can reprogram yourself.)

Once a child becomes an adult they own their life, beliefs and values. As an adult they have total control over their lives and have the ability to clean out all of the stinking thinking and beliefs put in place with no fact based references to hold it up.

The problem is, most have not been taught how to reprogram their brains from all of the negativity, false beliefs and everything else they've accepted as truths that are nothing more than just things they heard they accepted as a truth. There is so much of this with all of us.

Once you've cleaned out all of the "malware" and "viruses" in your computer brain and reprogrammed your brain with empowering beliefs (clean "code") you'll be blown away with how great life is and what's possible! You'll be excited about life, and it will help you make far better choices to live the life you desire. You'll love the life you're living. 

Remember this, your parents did the best they could under the circumstances of their lives, based upon their beliefs and based upon the people they chose to associate with.

The Bible has all of the answers but not enough people are really digging into this part of the Bible, and very few pastors teach success principles based upon the Bible. Fact is, the Bible is massive with lessons for many parts of life.

I will be writing an article which starts introducing "Success, Business and the Bible". Those who have already learned how the Bible guides us to create great success in life are amazed with the roadmap to success found in the Bible and how God has shown us how to create great success in life.

Just remember, Satan is the master deceiver and liar and will do anything to separate us from God, keep us feeling miserable, take away our joy in life and if there's a way to make you hate God he'll do it!

Once you start middle school a whole new variable plays a huge role in your life...

2) Peer Pressure and Who You Associate With

I've told all of my kids and grandkids that middle school and high school will be their toughest years because of peer pressure. They're going to face a lot of tough things and be faced with having to make tough decisions.

Most kids aren't prepared for what they have to face in middle school and it catches them completely off guard. I'm just going to be blunt here... middle school kids who are trying to compete for "status" or were raised in a negative home can be really mean.

In middle school we experience a lot of new things. It's here where kids start getting into clicks (groups of alike people like the jocks, stoners, nerds, etc.) and where peer pressure starts playing a big role in our lives. They're trying to figure out where they fit in.

People want to be part of something and accepted which makes clicks so powerful. It's here where people will change their beliefs to be accepted by the group. This is common. It takes a strong child who's more of a leader than follower to not get pulled into these traps.

We all want to fit in so we take on the core characteristics of the people we hang around with. We want to align with people, not take opposing views which would make us stand out from our peers where they'd alienate us. This is why we will take on the values and beliefs of the peer group we hang with over the values and beliefs our parents may have taught us.

This could be either good or bad depending on the beliefs and values of the peers we're hanging with. I've watched it go both ways over the years.

This is a form of peer pressure. It's peer pressure which is causing people to change their beliefs so they're more aligned with the click and with their closest friends. I've said for years and it's very true, "You are who you associate with".

One of my sons admitted to me on a road trip he and I were on a year after he was out of high school that I was 100% right, that you really are who you associate with. He understood why I ended some of his friendships, although he also admitted he was furious at me for doing it at the time. But he also admitted on our road trip I was right to end them.

From middle school for the rest of our lives, the #1 thing which influences us the most is the people we hang around with. 

Peer pressure is extremely powerful at changing people...

• If you hang around negative Nellies you'll become a negative Nellie.
• If you hang around people who refuse to take responsibility for their life, actions or circumstances you'll do the same.
• If you hang around smokers you'll start smoking.
• If you hang around people who drink or do drugs you'll start drinking or doing drugs.
• If you hang around people who play the blame game you'll play the victim and blame others too.
• If you hang around success driven people you'll be driven to success also.
• If you hang around people who are kind hearted, you'll become kind hearted.
• If you hang around people who play sports you'll want to play sports too.

This isn't 100% true or true for 100% of the people, but it's true most will be influenced. There are always exceptions to every rule.

We mimic the people we look up to and admire in our sphere of influence. We adapt their likes and dislikes, beliefs and values. 

It's also common to see children take on the outward characteristics of celebrities and athletes they admire and look up to. They want to be like their role models.

In other words, you're rewiring your brain to be like others you're associating with, admire or want to be like so you take on their beliefs, values and habits many times without even realizing it. It's human nature!

If you socialize with a group of positive, success driven people through high school who believe anything is possible and talk about how they're going to pursue their dreams once they get out of school, you'll take on the same beliefs and be that much further in life once you get out on your own.

I took every business class available from Retailing to DECA and hung around other kids interested in business, for example. I also played sports but knew I wasn't good enough to take it all the way to College and Pro sports so I knew business was my best option.

You can see the significant role your friends and peer groups play in our lives. "You are who you associate with." Knowing this, what I've told all of my children, "I'd rather you have no friends than the wrong friends." As their parent who loves my children very much, I'm very serious about this.

By the way, I went beyond what I wanted to cover for #2 here because I'm anticipating some parents with kids in elementary school to high school will be reading this so I wanted to provide some additional information to help with guiding their children and give some ideas for parenting.

3) Things You Personally See And Experience

Another thing which has great influence in your beliefs is what you actually see with your own eyes or personally experience.

It happens all of the time. You believed something for a long time and then you see or experience something which completely blows up the old belief.

Like I shared earlier, so much of what we believe as true is simply things we've heard from others. Hardly anyone does any research to confirm what they heard really is true or not. It's more of a 'if it makes sense based upon your experiences and beliefs'. But if you personally see something or experience something which goes against a belief of yours you'll believe what you personally saw or experienced over the belief you once had.

But here's something you need to know... once something starts shattering long held beliefs there will be those who will dig their heals into the ground and not want to believe the new information learned because they just want to continue believing that long held belief. They won't do the research to confirm the new information because they just simply want to keep believing what they've always believed (wedded to tradition).

I've also watched people hold onto a belief because it's the basis of their income. In fact, they'll double down on the false belief, even gaslight people, because they don't want to lose their income source. Here they're putting their income above facts and truth. Many people do this!

Just understand you're not likely going to be able to convince these people of the truth because they just simply aren't interested in the truth because they've put their income and lifestyle above it. All you can do is walk away from these people or not engage with them on the topic they've dug their heels in on.

I'm just going to tell you, holding onto beliefs based upon lies or because someone you trust or love were behind the the belief is mainly going to hurt one person... YOU! However, if they try to force their false belief on others it could hurt those around them too.

You do not want to live a life or hold beliefs based upon lies or incorrect information. Even if you don't want to accept the truth, you need to accept it. It can be the difference between living a life of joy and happiness, or living a life of sadness and misery. Not accepting things based upon facts means you'll be living life on a lie!

There are a lot of people out there who do not want you to be successful or to have great joy and happiness in your life. One of the ways they attack us is by dividing us and pitting one group of people against another group of people. Hate sucks the life out people, along with being very consuming of our thoughts.

Satan knows all of this and he does not want you to love or be happy, but instead to hate so dividing us helps serve Satan's plans. People with a lot of hate and anger in their life just don't succeed because the hate and anger consumes too much of their life and really messes with a persons ability to focus.

Like I shared at the very beginning of this article, "Everything I'm sharing with you here in this article is to help you create the greatest, happiest, most successful and fulfilling life you can." I know I'm sharing some things which may be tough to accept or that may be stepping on toes, but please understand I'm doing it out of love and trying to help you live your best life!

Along with this, to help you be the man or woman your children need who will also teach them how to maneuver through life and help set them up to achieve great success in their lives. What parent doesn't want their children to be successful and happy?

4) The News Media You Watch/Listen To

The media can be addictive and destructive both, and it's very one-sided so you don't ever hear the whole story or get all of the facts. All you get is the facts which support the narrative they've created to push the agenda they're pushing.

Since we went to 24 hour news the media companies have completely overhauled how they report the news. Just like TV series need to keep you hooked and will use cliffhangers at the end of the show to make you anxious for the next show, the news medias use strategies to keep you glued to their broadcasts too.

In a normal 24 hour day there's not enough news to keep people's attention. So instead of doing what they did years past where they'd just rattle off fact after fact so they could get everything out in their 30 min or 60 min broadcast which also included the weather and sports, if you remember those days, now it's news 24 hours a day.

In today's 24 hour news cycle they have to make everything stretch out, and they've got to keep you hooked so you'll continue tuning in. Not an easy objective.

They use two key approaches (there's much more to this than what I'm going to be sharing here, but for this article I'm covering the very minimum to make my point only what needs to shared to help you start to see how the media is controlling you, your thoughts and your beliefs)...

1. They use what I call "fear porn". 
2. They use "narrative based, agenda driven" reporting.

1. Fear Porn.

Fear immobilizes people. People need to know more... "What's going on?", "How will this affect me & the people I love?", "How is solved?" And so on.

When you hear a story which invokes fear in you, you become pinned to the TV. You need to know what's going on and how it affects you. 

If it's something that can kill you or a loved one, people lose all reasoning and rationality. At this point they can tell you anything and you'll mostly believe them. At this point you're very receptive to anything you're told by the media since, after all, it could be a matter of life or death.

It's not until you take a step backwards and use critical thinking before you start logically thinking it all through and put the pieces together. 100% of the time the media has pushed fear it's never as bad as they make it sound, but you never get to this point until you take a step backwards, research it and use critical thinking on it.

The media's objective is to keep you hooked to the TV along with pushing the agenda further forward.

The media has an incentive to keep you glued to the TV... viewership equals advertising dollars. The more viewers they have the more money the network makes, and the more money the network makes the more money the reporters make.

It's always "all about the money".

Another emotion they use is anger. If they can build a story which makes you angry this will also keep you glued to the TV to learn more about this story. 

Angry viewers just like viewers in fear keep people glued to the TV and that means more money to the network and reporters.

Here's one tactic they use...

2. Narrative Based, Agenda Driven Reporting.

This will take a bit more to explain. I'll try hard to simplify this.

When creating a marketing piece one of the most effective ways to pull people into your marketing piece is by telling a story. Story's are compelling.

News media are creating "narratives". For example, they know that if they can make you angry about a topic you'll be more glued to the TV. One of the most effective topics to keep people angry is with the topic of racism. Have you noticed how so many things that happen is "racist" or has "racism" built into the narrative?

They build racism into news events because this invokes anger and that keeps more people glued to the TV and that makes the network more money. Was racism actually a factor in the event?

In the high majority of events, no, there was no racism involved at all. But that doesn't matter because their narrative is based around racism so they'll build racism into the story to invoke anger to keep you watching.

Remember what I shared about anger above and how it sucks the live out of us, and how Satan uses it to keep us from pursuing the life God intended for us?

We want to avoid things which create anger.

See how it works?

The problem with narrative based reporting is they're not fact driven. Commonly a narrative will be based on a single truth, but the rest of the narrative is made up like how I just showed you. 

I'm strongly against "narrative based, agenda driven" news media which most are. You also need to understand I've got an extensive background in marketing so I see clearly what they're doing. Most people don't see it because they don't have the knowledge in this area.

Just Avoid The National Media.

My best advice is to avoid it so you don't get sucked into their propaganda thinking it's true. There's already enough happening around you on a daily basis influencing your beliefs you don't need the media adding to it.

But what if you have friends who are constantly repeating crap they heard from the media?

If the topic is important to you or will influence you or your actions, then research it, but not with Google. Hear both sides so you're basing your decisions and what you choose to accept as true on real facts and the full facts.

Just be aware both side will try to convince you that the other side does nothing but lie to discourage you from hearing both sides and only hear one side on the topic. Don't fall for this trick and hear both sides.

You should also know, since around 2014 when a law regarding the news media was rescinded the news has changed dramatically! If you're watching the news you're being bombarded with primarily propaganda based upon fear to influence you, to make you hate groups of people and to control you. 

But most people don't realize this and think it's still the news and therefore hang on to every word they say as if it's the gospel truth. Just be aware, excluding the local news to some degree, national news media's are using their platforms to push an agenda and they're using fear porn to pull you in and control your thoughts and then your actions.

Also be aware that the media and big tech like Google, Facebook, YouTube and a few others are doing a lot of censoring of people and information which doesn't fit into what one side wants you to believe. This in itself should scare you because history shows us with 100% accuracy that the side doing the censoring do so because what they're telling people and the agenda they're pushing are all based upon mostly lies and they don't want the truth out there to shatter their lies.

Never forget this... "The truth never worries about being questioned or challenged, but lies never want to be questioned or challenged." 

On your journey to have beliefs based upon the truth and facts, anyone who stops one side from sharing their facts and truth should never be believed. It's only the corrupt or the evil people with ulterior motives which are never for our benefit that try to shut down and censor the other side. Don't allow this!

Summary Of 4 Ways Your Beliefs Are Created

We just got done sharing with you 4 ways your beliefs are created and where they come from. Knowing what's causing the problem or creating the solution, depending on how you're being influenced and the beliefs you're taking on is key to your journey.

You need to understand what's influencing you and programming you if you're going to beat it. You also need to be aware of that there are things around you influencing you all of the time. By becoming consciously aware of these things they start losing their power of influence. You want to control what influences you and what doesn't.

Do be aware, there are many techniques to program people and I've only presented 4 of those ways. 

Protect your brain by being selective of what you see and what you hear. Instead of watching the news which will do nothing to help you improve your life (but will do a lot to make it harder to create success), start listening to podcasts or videos on personal development. I've only scratched the surface of it.

Or you can learn a new skill. The more skills you have the more successful you'll be and the more valuable you'll be to employers or the better equipped you'll be to start and run your own business so take your free time to learn more skills. 

Just do something which will help you move toward your desired life!

You need to know all of this so you're aware of the things which influence you and create beliefs. You need to protect the coding of your brain.

Just keep in mind, there is far more information than what I've shared here and will be sharing next. I'll be pointing out a book and a course further down which can help you to dig far deeper into this very important topic and help you take total control over your life and what you achieve in life.

Now we move to the next step... removing the stinking thinking, bad beliefs and the disempowering beliefs.

Taking Control Of Your MIND And Creating A Success-Driven Mental Attitude...

Most people prior to going on their journey of creating great success in their life are faced with thoughts going through their heads (because of their beliefs) which will sabotage their journey. So the first thing that needs to happen is we need to clean our minds of our stinking thinking.

I should also point out, if the people you hang out with are negative people and people who have no interest in improving their lives they are not going to be supportive of your desire to improve the quality of your life. In fact, it's more likely they'll shame you or attack you once you start working on yourself and making changes, and they'll challenge you on your new beliefs or your corrected beliefs.

Sadly, this is normal!

You'll find, most of your friends just aren't interested in your journey. They just want things to stay the way they've always been. This is why it's common for those who want to create a better life have to walk away from their friends to stop the shaming and attacks from them, and to get away from their negativity.

You need to be prepared for this. And by the way, this includes family.

I was faced with this too. I walked away from my drinking buddies and friends who were negative because I didn't need that negativity in my life any longer. As for family, I just didn't tell my family what I was doing to avoid the comments and cut-downs.

You know your friends and family best. You do what's best for you and what will help you achieve the results you're after.

Learning Personal Development Is Key To Success

Part of my journey and everyone else's is learning what it takes to be successful and creating a success-driven mental attitude. At the beginning of my journey I learned very quickly that your mental attitude is 99% success so I knew I needed to make sure my head was on right and thinking the right way.

Making a long story short since I get into more detail in another article, "My Mission To Answering, “How Do You That?", I was very blessed to learn about Tony Robbins. Between his book "Unlimited Power" and his CD training course "Personal Power" I learned what it would take and how to create a success-driven mental attitude.

What I'm sharing next comes from these two sources. If you want to dig far deeper into them and really learn what I'm going to be sharing following you need to get the book and the course.

1) Your Beliefs... What You Believe!

A belief is a feeling of certainty about the meaning of something. Your beliefs determine whether or not you feel like you’re meeting your values – they can either limit or liberate you.

There are two basic kinds of beliefs:

Beliefs come from:

Let me share a funny belief I use to have. In grade school with boys being boys, we all believed girls got pregnant from kissing. We had no clue, so this sounded good to us. Obviously as I got older I learned the truth and with that my belief on how a girl got pregnant changed.

You'll be amazed with how many of your beliefs will change once you learn the truth behind it.

For example, it's common for groups of people to get together and shoot the breeze sharing information "they heard" and then passing it off to the group as a truth. Pretty soon everyone in the group believes what they heard to be true because they have no reference to believe it wasn't. A lot of beliefs are created this way, and later change once they learn the truth behind it. Be aware of this.

Beliefs can have an incredible impact on our lives. For example...

• If you want to make $1,000,000 and believe anyone has the ability to make $1,000,000 this will affect what you do and give you more confidence to learn how to make $1,000,000.
  • If on the other hand you believe only lucky people make $1,000,000 and you haven't been very lucky in life you likely won't even make much of an effort to make $1,000,000. If you do make an attempt, the first time you hit an obstacle you'll likely quit saying, "see, I'm just not lucky".
  • By the way, there's no such thing as "luck". Luck is created from hard work and continuing to learn. Luck is what the uninformed believe was the key to one's success because they didn't see the long hours, late nights, struggles, their learning new things, etc. a person goes through to create success in their life.

What you believe controls the decisions you'll make and the actions you'll take, and ultimately how you live your life and thus what you get out of life.

This is a journey and there's going to be work you'll need to do and things you're going to need to face. You're going to be challenged because you're going to find many of your beliefs are based upon either a lie or faulty information. It's hard to accept that something you've always believed to be true isn't true after all.

I had a number of long held beliefs I found weren't based upon facts I had to let go of and I found others which were disempowering (like believing it takes "luck" to be successful) holding me back from achieving my true potential I had to let go of. It's not easy, but necessary if you're going to create the life you desire!

So you know, this too is a choice. You don't have to let go of any beliefs at all, but you're also not going to live your best life if you don't. The things you believe create such an impact in what you do and how you live your life, if you want to change your life you need to make sure your beliefs are empowering beliefs which'll help propel you forward.

Here's how you take control over your core beliefs...

To gain full control of your life, you must discover your core beliefs, change those that are limiting you, and resolve any conflicting beliefs.

To change a belief you must do the following:

1. Identify the belief you want to change.
2. Link enough pain to your current belief so you automatically move away from it.
3. Identify a new, empowering belief.
4. Link massive pleasure to the new belief.
5. Condition the new belief by “rehearsing” (mentally picturing and feeling the effect) over and over again how your life will be better with this new belief, and how painful it would be to keep the old belief.

Two Simple Yet Valuable Core Beliefs to Adopt:

1. “The past does not equal the future.”
2. “There is always a way if I’m committed.”

Find two core beliefs that have limited your life and use the “Dickens Pattern” to change them.

1. Identify the two beliefs you want to change.
2. Close your eyes. Think about and feel the consequences—past and present—you’ve experienced because of these beliefs. Feel the emotional costs these beliefs have had on your life. What have they cost you in your relationships, your finances, your physical body, your level of happiness and fulfillment? What do you regret most as a result of these beliefs?
3. Step five years into the future and drag these limiting beliefs with you. What is the cost?
4. Step into the future 10 years. What is the cost?
5. Step into the future 20 years. What is the cost?
6. Come back to now and recognize none of this has happened yet. You have a chance to change it. What happened was a painful gift to move you to change your entire destiny right now!
7. Change your body radically-move as if you felt totally energized, excited, and passionate (e.g.. breathe, talk more rapidly).
8. Decide what your new beliefs should be and write them down, stated in the positive. Close your eyes and think about how these beliefs will transform the quality of your life. What will you gain by these new beliefs? How will you be happier? How will you be more successful financially and in your relationships? How will your physical body be transformed when these beliefs begin to guide your daily actions? Again, associate. How is your life greater now, more fulfilling, richer emotionally, physically, financially?
9. Step into the future five years with your new beliefs. Where are you now in your life?
10. Step into the future 10 years. Where are you now?
11. Step into the future 20 years. Where are you now?
12. Look at both destinies and decide which one you’re committed to living, and then return to the present.

Y O U R  A S S I G N M E N T :

You may find it useful to write down what your old beliefs were and what the consequences have been or would have been all your life in order to remind yourself of the leverage that will guide you in maintaining your new beliefs. Write down how your two new beliefs will enhance the quality of your life now.

Again, if you need more instructions and a more thorough explanation of beliefs pick up the book "Unlimited Power" or Tony Robbins CD training course "Personal Power". They both dig deep into beliefs which we just discussed and on values which we're going to discuss next (along with a lot of other topics key to your journey on Personal Development).

A Short Cut To Validating Or Removing Beliefs

We hear a lot of things. We unknowingly allow many of these things to become a belief.

To quickly validate or remove beliefs ask yourself, "Why do I believe this to be true?"

What you're looking for is the "references" that hold up the belief. If you're answer is, "because so and so told me this", and so and so is just someone you associate with this is not a legitimate reason to accept this belief. The next thing you have to figure out is how so and so heard it.

Here's what you need to understand... references hold up the belief. Look at the belief as the table top and the references as the legs holding up the table. What are the references holding up your beliefs? "WHY do you believe that belief", which is to determine what the references are holding up the belief.

Then you want to make sure the references are based upon facts, not simply because someone told you, unless the person telling you is the source of the information. 

For example, if you're working on your car and a friend tells you the problem is your regulator how would the friend know if they haven't even looked at your car and diagnosed the problem?

If a mechanic working on your car says the problem is your battery that it won't hold a charge any longer he's an authority on the topic and can be believed.

So even if your friend who never diagnosed you car gets the answer right he's still just "guessing". The mechanic who diagnoses the problem is an authority so he can be believed.

This is just a simple example, but things can get a whole lot more complex than this. What if the person with authority has a self-serving ulterior motive to push people a different direction?

This could skew his position and feedback on the topic. You have to look to see if there's an ulterior motive the person providing the information is falling back on which would cause this person to not be 100% honest.

Over the years I've watched and caught many people of authority use their position of authority to push people in the wrong direction for self-serving reasons. Be aware of this. If the belief is important enough to you then you'll need to research it and dig into it.

References hold up beliefs. Just make sure the references come from truth and a source of integrity.

2) Your Values In Life

Values are emotional states that, based on our life experience, we believe are most important for us to experience (move toward) or avoid (move away from). 

The moving-toward values, or ‘pleasure’ values are emotions like love, happiness, success, security, adventure. These are known as ends values. It's important to make the distinction between means values, which are simply ‘vehicles’ or ‘instruments,’ and ends values which drive all of our behaviors as human beings.

Some people say that what they value most in life are their cars. Well, its true they may value a car (ie. Its important to them), but they value it as a means, a way to get what they are really after. The end a person who values a car might be seeking is a sense of convenience or a sense of freedom or, depending upon the type of car, maybe a sense of power or fun.

Likewise many people say they want money. But money is merely a means to an end. The don’t want pieces of paper with pictures of ‘deceased notables’ on them. They want what they think money will give them. For some people, they believe that’s security or the ability to take control of their lives. A feeling of choice. The secret in life is to know what you’re really after, the end values.

All decision making is nothing but values clarification. If you know what you value most, what you truly want most out of your life, then you’ll find you can make decisions much more effectively and rapidly.

Determining What You Really Want In Life

Tony Robbins teaches an exercise to get people thinking about what they really want in life. Here it is...

Y O U R  A S S I G N M E N T :

The subject of values is critically important because our values guide all our decision-making. I would like to give you a six-step process which will require a significant amount of your time and energy, but I think the rewards are remarkable.  

You might want to complete the first two of the six steps today and divide the rest of the tasks over the course the next week. I know how challenging this can be, but there are few things in the world more rewarding than being absolutely clear about what’s important to you. So set yourself up to win on this assignment today by breaking it down into doable chunks. And be sure to have fun!

1. Ask yourself this question: What’s most important to me in my life?  Make sure you write down the feelings you’re after, the states you value most, such as love, passion, happiness, as opposed to means valued like money or business success. If you think you want money or business success, ask yourself, "if I had that additional money, if I had that business success, what would it ultimately give me? How would it make me feel?" Those feelings are the true driving force in your life, your ‘moving-towards values’.
2. Rewrite your moving towards values in the order of their importance.
3. Make a list of all the negative feelings or emotions you’d do almost anything to avoid. For some people this list might include rejection or overwhelm or loneliness. Discovering what you want to avoid will help you understand more about your drive. We are not driven just to get what we want. We’re also driven to avoid those feelings we link the most pain to, our ‘movingaway-from values’.
4. Rewrite your moving-away-from values in the order of their importance, starting at the top of the list with the one you would do the most to avoid feeling.
5. What has to happen for you to feel these emotions? For example, if success is one of your values, what has to happen for you to feel successful? (For some individuals to feel successful, they have to have a million dollars in the bank. For others to feel successful, they have to wake up, look down, and see the ground because they believe every day above ground is a great day!) Similarly, on your moving-away-from values, what has to happen for you to feel them? (For some individuals, if they don’t achieve a goal one time, they feel like a failure. For others it’s impossible to fail. Their rule is, “I would fail only if I were to give up. As long as I keep trying, I’m successful.” It’s important to understand the rules you have for feeling bad, because often we make it too hard to feel good and too easy to feel bad.
6. Have you discovered any rules which limit the quality of your life? If so, which rules are you willing to change now to improve your life forever? 

This isn't an easy assignment, but it will really open up your eyes to those things that are driving you, that are holding you back and what you're willing to do to create the feelings you want.

Like Tony points out, "People will do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure". This right here is one of the biggest things stopping people from achieving greatness in their lives. To understand this better read the article, "Your Comfort Zone Plays A Key Role In Your Journey To Success". 

One of the things which creates pain in our lives when we're trying to change our lives and become successful is the attacks and shaming from friends and family saying things like, "That's stupid, you can't do that", "You've never achieved much of anything in life, what makes you think you can do this? It's just a waste of your time", and numerous other things like this.

My advice is to not share your journey with your friends and family and do it quietly. That's what I did with the friends I kept around and my family (excluding my wife, she knew what I was doing), and by the time people around me had noticed I had changed I was so far into my journey it really didn't matter what they said, I was going to continue on with it.

There's More To Creating A Success-Driven Mental Attitude Than Just Beliefs & Values

I started with beliefs and values because of the impact they'll have in your life and how important they are to your journey to success.

There are many more areas and topics to learn, study and apply to your life. 

Studying personal development has been a life long journey of mine.

Still to this day the only person who answered the question, "how do you do that?" was Tony Robbins. Everyone else told me "what to do", but not "how to do it" which made what they were telling me to do very hard.

Many others I've talked to say they had this same problem. You see...

... when you were raised in a negative environment (this wasn't me) and have a lot of stinking thinking to deal with, or
... you're a person who needs step by step instructions on how to do something, or
... you're an over thinker who makes things way more complicated than they need to be (totally me),

... having someone teach you "how to do it" is pretty important.

Do you, your family and your financial future a huge favor and pick up the book "Unlimited Power" or Tony Robbins CD training course "Personal Power" which is based off of his book. Share them with your kids and help them create their best life. 

I've read many books on success and I've never read anything that came close to teaching what Tony teaches in the two courses I just shared. God knew what He was doing when He created us, but it took someone like Tony Robbins to really show us how to harness a lot of this power to create the life God wants for us.

There's Another Side To Success & Life, The Spiritual Side

If I didn't share this with you I wouldn't be sharing another key piece to creating a life of success and happiness.

Continuing on from the previous topic, the rest of the power comes from have 100% faith in God and letting Him guide our lives, open up doors for us and protect us. You see there's one more side to all of this which is best described in this scripture...

Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (KJV)

Whether you believe it or not, there is a spiritual side to life. If you choose not to believe it then you will not be able to protect yourself from it.

You've got to understand how Satan works and how he wants to separate us from God and put people under his control to push his evil agenda globally.

He does not want you to have a great life. Instead Satan wants you to live in fear, to feel insecure, for you to be lead astray and for you to fail, and of course for you to walk away from God and have absolutely nothing to do with God to include denying His existence. Satan absolutely hates God.

Without God you lose His shield, armor and angels to protect yourself from Satan and the evil spirits under Satan's control to destroy lives.

God gives us free will to choose the path we go down. Believe and trust God, or not. It's your choice.

Right along with this, all of our choices and the actions you take in all areas of life have consequences, either good or bad. Just understand, you alone own the consequences to your choices and actions.

It's YOUR life and you get to live it however you choose to live it. This all starts with "what you believe".