How to align your thinking for progress and success

“All progress and success springs from thinking.”

Edison

Before exploring this topic further, it’s important give a brief description of what thinking is all about. Thinking is the mental manipulation of information stored in form of concepts, images or proposition. The ability to think frees us from the confines of immediate present. In his book on thinking course, Edward De Bono, had this to say about thinking:

“Thinking is the operating skill through which intelligence acts upon experience.”

In the book he mentioned that intelligence is a potential; and, thinking is an operating skill. Therefore this preamble is clear on the link between intelligence, thinking and experience.

A lot has been written concerning thinking, success and making progress in life and the conclusion is that:

Successful people think differently than unsuccessful people

Thinking is a skill that has to be learned, developed and mastered. The reason that most people don’t realise it is that they are not aware and moreover, thinking is not easy.

“Thinking is hard work, and that is why few do it.”

Albert Einstein

But like any other skill if you put your heart to it you’ll master it and the reward is tremendous in terms of you being able to achieve your potential and make progress in life.

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you. You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”

James Allen

Your thought is your blueprint for success

Every experience you’ll ever have begins in your mind. Most people look outside of themselves to get inspiration as to what they can achieve or not achieve. Your whole life experience for the future is locked in your imagination. You can unlock this potential through changing your mind or rather the way you think. Whatever you do; you still have to belief in being to able bring this trains of thought of possibilities locked in your imagination to fruition. Our thinking is to be based on value.

“Whatever things are true . . . noble . . . just . . . pure . . . lovely . . . are of good report, if there is any virtue and if thee is anything praiseworthy, think on these things.”

· Paul the Apostle

The values of your thoughts process will ultimately determine your destiny and therefore your legacy in life. It is a choice you make daily.

If you have the freedom to nurture good thoughts wouldn't it be rewarding in the long run if you make it a habit?

The key to becoming a success is to develop the thinking habit of successful people. It’s important to realise that your character, your thinking, and your beliefs are a critical part of want determines the level of your success.

Success is thinking in action

“... A lot of people know what to do, but few actually do what they know, knowing is not enough! You must take action.”

· Anthony Robbins – Author of Unlimited Power

Imagine that you thought of planting a seed in your garden and never had a practical plan of action to actually execute it. What will such a mental activity profit you without a corresponding and effective action for its accomplishment? Most people look at success in one level where there are two sides to it: the mental (thinking) and the physical (action). The former takes place in our head but later in our immediate environment. According to one coach:

“Mental is to physical what four is to one.”

Taking action is the manipulation of the physical environment so as to make our idea a reality.

To make progress in any field you have to take action. But the success of the action you take depends entirely on how you think before hand.

“The successful people in industry have succeeded through their thinking. Their hands were helpers to their brain.”

· Claude M Bristol – Author of the Magic of Believing

Therefore success is thinking and doing!

Create your blueprint for success – craft your TFA script®“

The beginning of a habit is like an invisible tread, but overtime we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, and add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and bind it irrevocably, thought and action.”

Orison Swett Marden

The TFA script is my own acronym which I created to amplify the fact that we write our own story be it a success or failure based on our thoughts, feelings and actions. It seems as a very bold statement but experience shows that we can change our outcome by changing the way we do any three of these.

One of the greatest advices we’ll ever have on the working of the human mind is that Paul the Apostle gave in the book of Romans 12:2

“. . . Be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . . “

The key ideas here are:

· You can be transformed

· Your mind can be renewed

Hence transformation comes from the renewing of your mind. The result of this transformation leads to increased awareness of Divine purpose.

Therefore, you can change your mind so as to change your life. How is this possible?

Remember that your thinking has to be based on value. In our waking day we do three things: we think, feel and act and these impact on the results we get.

The idea of TFA script is that we can choose to nurse those thoughts, feelings and action that empower so as to create the results we desire.It is a learning and change process that requires dedication and commitment on our part.

.The basis for creating this TFA script is based on the understanding that we create the results we have based on our thinking, feelings and actions.

We need to become aware and responsible for our thoughts and actions. Taking action is thinking in motion which is a cause and effect relationship that sets particular cause in motion leading to a resultant effect with time.

Change your thinking to change your life

“As a man thinketh in his heart so he is.”

Proverbs 23:7

If you want to move to the next level in the ladder of life, you need to become more effective in the way you think and act. Good thinking lead to confident and competent performance and therefore to better rewards from life. Well, you’ll say to me how is it so? Just look around you, among the successful people you've come across in life. They have the knack of being able to think differently. They think about abundance when others are thinking about scarcity, solution rather than problem, how to contribute rather than what to get, leading rather than needing, and possibility rather than impossibility. They believe that they are the one able to bring the change they need by first of all changing themselves to what they want to become. Therefore success is who you’ve become. You can learn to be successful in any endeavour if you commit yourself to it. For example, you can learn to create wealth, manage it and invest it. Most successful people went though a process of failure before they learned how to be successful in their areas of expertise.

If you change your thinking you change your belief and if you change your belief you change your expectation, and when you change your expectation you change your attitude, when you change your attitude your behaviour changes and when you change your behaviour your performance is changed and ultimately your life is changed.

The key thing here is that when you want to move to the next level in life you have to raise your standard; change your limiting beliefs and change your capability.

In his book”Leading the Field”, Earl Nightingale had this to say:

“Successful people are not people without problems. They are people who have learned to solve their problems by thinking. Thinking bridges the gap between our present point and our goals. 92% of our worries are useless. Of the remaining 8%, half pertain to problems we can’t solve and half to those we can solve if we’ll learn how.”

You can read and learn more on this topic by reading my article on this topic here:

http://lemmyc.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-improve-your-life-and-change-your-performance-7-steps-to-a-new-you

You can also read the article- Lead the Field by Earl Nightingale here:

http://www.martingover.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Earl-Nightingale-Lead-The-Field.pdf

to learn more about these success concepts

© 2011 Benjamin S C Ugoji