The Success Gap

So often our minds oscillate between success and failure. One moment we feel successful, the next moment we feel like a failure, and then other moments our mind thinks we are making progress or not making any at all. When we are chasing success, these are just a few of the thoughts that fill our mind.

The other day I listened to the John Maxwell podcast as he interviewed Dr. Catherine Self who conducts research on the mind. She stated that we can go 20 days without food, 3 days without water, and 3 minutes without oxygen, but we can’t go 3 seconds without thinking. I have to agree. My mind races from one thought to the next. So if this is true, a good question we must ask is this.

Are Your Thoughts More Positive or More Negative?

The fact of the matter is this. Our minds are filled with thoughts, feelings, or choices. Have you ever thought about ice cream? Then suddenly your can taste the ice cream, and then all the sudden you‘re buying ice cream. That is how the mind works. It gets a thought, turns into a feeling and then a choice to act on it. The problem is that negative thoughts unregulated can lead to negative choices or negative perceptions, while positive thoughts lead to positive choices and positive perceptions. In short, if we allow negativity to permeate our brain, it will shape our outlook in a negative way, and thus failure is on the way to our world.

The Success Gap

The reality is this. The gap between success and failure lies in between our ears. Our minds will determine ultimately if we will succeed or fail. If we want to be successful, then we must train or retrain our minds to be filled with positive thoughts, feelings, and choices. Failure may not always be a choice in our lives, but accepting it in our minds as who we are definitely is.

Close the Gap

This week, challenge yourself to start filling your minds with positivity. Remove the negativity influencers from your eyes and hear. When you start to have a negative thought, stop, address it, and remove it from your mind. Fill your mind with positive music, podcasts, videos, and my personal favorite, scripture, and see how you begin to transform the negativity from a failure mindset into a success mindset filled with faith, hope, and optimism.

Verse to Ponder

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4:8‬ ‭NLT‬‬