Success—It’s All in the Mind

Here are three laws that can help put you on the road to career and life success.

Successful people, no matter what their forte in life, always have a positive mental attitude. I have never known a successful person to be a negative person, and I’ve never known a negative person to be highly successful. In my opinion, the foundation of any achievement or success is developing a positive mental attitude.

Just to reinforce what I’m saying, here are some statistics I got from a magazine a number years ago: A Harvard University survey among executive recruiters revealed that 90 percent of everything a person achieved after leaving the university, such as money, prestige, power, authority and overall success, was based on attitude and only 10 percent on aptitude or ability. They also found there was no correlation between school results and lifetime earnings. The only characteristic that determined a person’s results or how far he could go was a positive attitude.

You don’t learn it in school
Imagine that next week you’re going to start a new business, and you’ll devote all day Monday to interviewing prospective employees for your open position. I guarantee the characteristics you’ll be looking for in these people are things such as a positive attitude, enthusiasm, a good personality and pride in performance. The amazing thing is that there was nothing there that you had to be born with or you learned in school!

This is probably one of the most encouraging things you can learn. So many people hold themselves back because of something that happened in their very impressionable years. Every day they remind themselves of all the mistakes they’ve made, which lowers their confidence and self-esteem. Everyone has done things that they wish they hadn't; it’s only normal. If you are holding yourself back with negative self-talk, please get rid of it. It’s very important to let go of the past.

Another important point to remember is that it’s normal to change between a positive and negative mind-set throughout the day. If you hear some very positive comments about yourself, you jump over into the positive mind-set for a while. If you hear some criticism or some negative talk or someone reprimands you, you go over to the negative frame of mind for a while. Everybody does that. But the people who succeed—the achievers in life—spend a lot more time in a constructive or positive mind-set than they do in a negative one.

Understanding the three laws
There are three powerful laws at work that have a great deal of control over your life and are “happening” all the time without you realizing it. These laws can help you better understand how your mind-set influences your success.

Law #1 is the law of expectations: What you expect to happen usually does. If you are in a positive frame of mind, you expect favorable outcomes; if you are negative, you expect the reverse to happen. If you are positive, you expect to win the race; you expect to win the game; you expect to make that sale. If you are negative, you expect to lose and not be successful.

Law #2 is the law of attraction: How you attract things depends on your attitude. It has been said that the human being is like a living magnet. If you are positive, you attract good things: better relationships, better health, more money, more happiness, etc. You look and feel better if you are in a positive frame of mind. If you are negative, you attract the reverse: illness, loss of money and poor relationships.

Law # 3 is the law of vibrations. Everything is vibrating all the time. The windows in your office are vibrating, so is your chair and desk--everything is vibrating all the time. That’s why sometimes when you go to a function, you do not feel like being there. You feel uncomfortable because you are picking up negative vibrations. Other times you go to a function or a party and have a fantastic time. That’s because you are picking up the positive vibrations. You have an obligation to your colleagues and yourself to always contribute to creating good, positive vibrations wherever you are.

Using these three laws to your advantage can help you achieve great success in your career. Remember: If you are positive, it’s amazing how good things will happen to you, including success.