Anything you say to yourself repeatedly will actually influence your reality. What we say to ourselves starts with our thoughts. And our thoughts are the direct results of our words. The changing of words changes the thought. Thought leads us into either positive or negative action. Needless to say, the right words produce the right thoughts which produce the right action which produces good results.

According to the law of cause and effect, every effect must have an originating cause. In the thought world a thought, (the cause), creates a feeling, (the effect). Feelings can eventually materialise in the physical world because they create actions or behaviour – which then cause further thoughts, and so on.

There are lots of things that will want to work their way into our minds. The important things is that we filter those things and sift out that which is going to do us good from that which is not going to do us good.

As human beings we are different from animals in that we live by choice and not by instinct. So we can purposefully choose to put good material into our brains on a regular basis. When considering what to let into your mind ask yourself firstly, is it positive – will it build me up, will it make me a better person and will I grow from it? Will it lead me to the positive goals I have for myself?

Filter out junk – and to do this you have to be acutely aware of what is junk. Take for example a fellow employee who gripes or a neighbour who gossips all the time. It is impossible to listen to this – wilfully putting junk into our minds, and then to expect to be tuned for success. Evaluate everything you put into your mind – that is, pay careful attention to what you listen to, what you watch, and what you read.

So the thing to work on is not so much your behaviour as the things that are causing your behaviour – that is, the originating thought and the resulting feelings. We cannot change anything in our lives without first changing the originating cause. The important thing is to realise that it is totally within our power as thinking human beings with the power of choice, to do so.