The Master of Your
Own Destiny

"The first and best victory is to conquer self.
To be conquered by self is, of all things,
the most shameful and vile."
-Plato

In the timeless book, Think and Grow Rich, first published in 1937 during the Great Depression, author Napoleon Hill notes that the only thing you have absolute control over is your own thoughts. Your thoughts provide you with the ability to have some control over your own destiny. Hill calls the mind "your spiritual estate" and he urges us to protect and use it with the utmost care.

In his bestselling book, Hill shares examples of how great minds have achieved great things by tuning out the negative thoughts of others:

• Many negative minds tried to convince Thomas Edison that he could not build a machine that would record and reproduce the human voice.
  
  
• F.W. Woolworth was told that he'd go broke trying to run a store selling items for five or ten cents. He did not listen and went on to accumulate a fortune of more than $100 Million.
  
  
• Many people scoffed at Henry Ford when he rolled out his first automobile, telling him that nobody would pay money for such a contraption.

Napoleon Hill says "there is no halfway compromise.  The most practical of all methods for controlling the mind is the habit of keeping it busy with a definite purpose, backed by a definite plan.  Study the record of any man who achieves noteworthy success, and you will observe that he has control over his own mind, moreover, that he exercises that control and directs it toward the attainment of definite objectives. Without this control, success is not possible."

The things that we manifest in our lives are as a result of our subconscious. The subconscious is not capable of creating thoughts.  It simply processes whatever the conscious mind sends it, producing the emotions that go with those thoughts.  The more one focuses on the emotions of a thought, the stronger it will imprint on the subconscious. 

Our conscious thoughts inform our subconscious, whether we send it positive or negative thoughts.  We live in a negative world, where 87% of the information our conscious mind is exposed to is negative.  Unless we choose to focus our conscious thoughts on the positive and we carefully filter out the negative, our subconscious is constantly bathed in negativity.

Those who do not succeed have one particular trait in common. They focus on negative thoughts, which show up in the form of excuses for their own lack of achievement.  I call this "victim language." Here is some common victim language people use to excuse their failures:

• If I had been born into a rich family…
• If I didn't have a family to support…
• If I had married the right person…
• If I had more money…
• If I didn't have debt…
• If I could get a job…
• If I had more time…
• If I didn't have to work so hard…
• If I had a good education…
• If I had good health…
• If I had better self-esteem…
• If the economy was better…
• If I had been given a chance…
• If I was not so misunderstood…

Buying into these beliefs is one of the most damaging of all habits.  Do you sabotage your own success by using victim language that excuses your failures?  Jim Stovall tells an amazing story and I encourage you to click here and listen to it.

If you are in the habit of saying any of the things listed above, you may be feeling very defensive right now, or even angry at what I just said.  I invite you to simply consider the possibilities available to you if you were to let go of your list of excuses and focus on what is positive in your life and adopt an "I can do it" attitude.

"Destiny is not a matter of chance.
It is a matter of choice."
--William Jennings Bryan

During the recent Olympic Games in London, we were introduced to South Africa's "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius. Born with missing fibula (one of the bones between the knee and ankle), his parents decided to have his legs amputated when he was eleven months old. Pistorius learned to walk on prosthetics, and eventually he learned to run. Although he had many road-blocks to over come, nothing stopped him from fulfilling his dream, and he became the first-ever amputee runner to compete in the Olympics.

I am inspired by hearing stories about the incredible successes—against seemingly insurmountable odds--of those living with disabilities.  Click here to watch a video clip of Nick Vujicic's address--titled No Arms, No Legs, No Worries--to a group of junior high girls.  Most people would say that this man has every reason to excuse his failures.  After all, he has no arms or legs.  Once Vujicic found his purpose—to love people--he let go of excuses and began his life transformation. 

I invite you to watch the video, and then consider how you may be limiting the possibilities in your life, simply because you've allowed yourself to make excuses.

If you want to change anything in your life, it begins with the thoughts that you think and the language you use with yourself and others.

I grew up in a family that had enough money to live very comfortably. When I was a child, my parents would say, "When you go to college . . .," so there was always the assumption that my siblings and I would go to college. Because there was plenty of money and my parents told us they would support us through college, none of us established college savings accounts. Whatever money I earned in high school was spent on clothes, makeup, contributions to a child I sponsored in the Philippines, donations to my church, and entertainment.

Just before entering my senior year of high school, I learned that my parents had not saved any money for our college educations and they were filing for bankruptcy. I also learned that they were getting a divorce. By the time I was eighteen, I was completely on my own. Unfortunately, because I had been declared as a dependent on my parents' tax returns the year before, their income disqualified me from receiving any financial aid.

Despite the fact that I had no financial support from my parents and I did not qualify for any financial aid, I decided that I was going to college no matter what. I got busy figuring out how to make it happen. My first year in college, I took out regular bank loans since I did not qualify for need-based scholarship assistance, student loans, or even work-study programs on campus. Although it was a challenge, I supported myself through four years of study at a private college and got my bachelor's degree.

In Jack Canfield's book The Success Principles, this is Principle #1: Take 100 percent responsibility for your life. Although Jack's book had not yet been written, I believe that it was this fundamental principle that supported me in deciding to attend college.  Jack shares a powerful equation:

E + R = O
Event + Response = Outcome

In order to change the sum (what comes after the equal sign), you must change a variable. We often cannot change the events that take place in our lives, but we can change our response to those events. By doing so, we can change the outcome.

Here is an example of how the response I chose (response #2) affected the outcome:

Event:  My parents filed for bankruptcy and got a divorce.
Response #1: I can't go to college because Mom and Dad can't pay for it.
(victim response)
Outcome: No college education

Event: My parents filed for bankruptcy and got a divorce.
Response #2: I'm going to college, no matter what it takes.
(100% responsibility)
Outcome: Earned a college degree

"Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from
people who have a habit of making excuses."
—George Washington Carver

If you've been in the habit of focusing on your limitations or on what you don't have (such as the list of excuses provided above), shift your focus and start thinking about what you do have…what is good and right in your life right now.  Besides focusing on the positive, another powerful way to anchor positive thoughts is to begin your day in gratitude.  Revisit my article, The Power of Gratitude, and commit to beginning your day for the next 30 days by expressing gratitude.  Experience the power of gratitude as it transforms your thoughts and your life.