Thursday, January 1, 2009

Predict your future!

You can predict your future. You really can predict your own success or your own failure. “Nonsense!” you say? It really is true.

Consider this. If you have absolutely no control over your future, then why worry about anything? Whatever is going to happen to you is going to happen anyway, right? That’s called fate. And believe it or not, that in and of itself is a prediction.

It is true; we have absolutely no control over many things in life. I cannot control the stock market, can you? I cannot control the housing market, can you? So many things are simply out of our control.

But, one thing is very much in your control, your own mind. You can choose to think about anything that you want to, at any given time. Right now, for example, you could choose to picture a skiing elephant.

If you did indeed, just now, picture a skiing elephant it is because you decided to think that. I may have made a suggestion, but you made a decision to think it and picture it. The same is true if you chose not to think about a skiing elephant.


So what does this have to do with predicting our future? Because we are always talking to ourselves, it has a great effect on our future. The words we speak to ourselves will either cause new things to happen in our life or they will help to perpetuate the road we are on.

Years ago, I used to go bowling once in awhile. It was just for fun with friends and I would go once or twice a year. The scores on my first three frames were always horrible. Do you know why? As soon as I would grab the ball when it was my turn, I had the thought, “Don’t throw it in the gutter; don’t throw it in the gutter!” That was my self-talk. And, I didn’t know it at the time, but that was my prediction. Almost always in the first three frames, I would have at least two or three gutter balls.

But, once the game got going, I would shift my focus from the ball not going into the gutter to hitting the pins. I didn’t know it, but again, that was a prediction. And even being a very inexperienced bowler, my scores increased. I even got a strike once in awhile.

Now I know there are people who say, “Oh I’ve heard all this positive stuff before and it just doesn’t work for me.” That is self-talk and that is a prediction. I have also heard people who say other things, like, “Nothing ever goes right for me; I never catch a break.” Or, “I knew that was going to happen.”

Self-talking becomes future predictions. These predictions always produce results.

Those who are successful in life don’t dwell on what they don’t want to happen, but instead they dwell on what they do want to happen. They don’t dwell on their past failures and losses. Instead, they remember past successes. These memories, whether they are successes or failures, will evoke feelings and emotions. These feelings and emotions leave an imprint on your subconscious mind which is just as vivid as a reoccurrence of success. And, these thoughts are a prediction of what is going to happen.

Many of those who teach self-help and self-esteem courses say to see yourself as though you have already achieved what you desire in life. They encourage people to positively remind themselves over and over of where they want their life to go. So much of this is based on the dynamic truth, “as he thinks in his heart so is he.”

You cannot control nor can you predict many things going on all around you. But you can control what you think about. And most importantly, you can control what you tell yourself about yourself; your self-talk.

You really can predict your own future. You can set your own course regardless of the situations and conditions of the world around you. The Creator gave you free will so that you can choose your thoughts and thus control your own self-talk.

So, what’s in your future?

By: Michael A. Verdicchio

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