Ever since James Allen wrote “As A Man Thinketh” people have asked that question.  do you lay in bed every morning and think about how bad your day at work will be?  Do you stay awake at night because you think about how bad it will be to get up in the morning?  Or, do you Spend time at night focusing on the possibilities that lay ahead of you the next day?  Do you take time every evening to lay out the things that need to be done the next day and think about the success you will have when you accomplish them?

All the examples above focus on thinking about your work, but two focus on the bad and two focus on the possibilities.  If you spend your time every day thinking about how to get out of work or how bad your job is, that is what it will be.   You will always get what you think about.  I’m not talking manifesting millions of dollars.  I’m talking about just changing the way you view your life and career.

1.  Change the questions you ask .  If you are asking how can I get out of this, or how can I kill time this afternoon.  You will get the answers.  Ask those questions enough you will get to answer them from the house, and then you will be asking how do i pay my bills.  Instead of asking questions that will get you out of work ask, “How can I make this fun,” or “How can I get better ideas for this job.”  You can get all the answers you want if you ask the right questions.

2.  Finish an important task.  When you spend time focusing on how to get out of work you tend to leave the things that really need to be done until the last-minute.  Stop procrastinating and do the things that need to be done before the deadline.  When you get an important project off your desk you feel better and a great weight is lifted from your soldiers.  Don’t say if I do the work they will only give me more.  That is bad thinking.  If you want to succeed you will have to pay the price and if it means doing more work you can handle it because you are asking better questions.

3.   Don’t focus on the past.  We all work with someone who has gotten under our skin at some time.  You can not dwell on those past arguments or on people who have gotten promoted before you.  If you focus on why she said this or why he got promoted and you didn’t you will never get promoted and possibly not keep your job to long.  Focus on what can be.  focus on that next promotion opportunity.  focus on who is in charge of that promotion and begin to find out what he or she is looking for in a candidate for promotion.  When you look to the future, the past will become very dim.

4.   Don’t focus on your critics.   “Just Drop it.”  Have you ever  said that, well us it to your advantage.  Just drop it.  If you focus on people who criticize  you are going to become angry and they will gain power over you.  Think about it.  No one can make you mad, unless you let them.  When you let them make you mad you give them power over you so they can come back at any time and change your whole attitude.  this will make your work poor and your focus from the good to the bad and how to get out of work.

5.   Focus on Others.   Giving back is a vital key to a successful life.  when you turn your focus off of yourself and begin to look at how you can reach out to others you begin to see success in a different light.  When you work with anyone who is handicapped in any way, you begin to see that success is not just having things. some times it is just seeing, or standing, or just listening.

If you follow these five steps you will begin to see your mind focusing on what it takes to succeed more and more and on failure less and less.

On April 14 1865 two men made decisions to walk into a bar.  One wanted to just have a drink because he was bored and the other needed a drink because he wanted to calm his nerves.The bored man just wanted an escape.  He just wanted a break from his thankless job.  The other man knew he had a job to do but wanted to kill time.  He was working with others and they had planned on a certain time to fulfill their obligations.  While the bored man continued to drink and talk with patrons the other man paid his tab and left.

We need to understand that what ever we do and say today is the direct result of what we have thought about for the last five or ten years. It is a result of the books, magazines, T.V. Shows, radio programs, mp3’s, and websites that we have spent time feeding to our mind. The seeds planted deep in our souls are where our words and deeds come from. If those seeds are planted in a fertile field they will grow to their full potential. But if those seeds are planted in bad soil they will drag us down and we will never see our God-given potential.

In the bible we are told to think on the good things of life. Philippians 4:8 says, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” When we think about the best things we see our God-given purpose lived out in our lives. But when we switch those things around, when we begin to think about things that are false, poor, wrong, dirty, hateful, unworthy, bad, and blaming. We can literally destroy ourselves beginning with our mind first.

You are the master of your mind. You are the gate-keeper of the information that flows in and what thoughts are developed. By analyzing every thought and by governing what you put in your mind you can quite literally make a conscious decision about your thoughts. You can decide what you think about . Once you decide what you are going to think about you will begin to move in the direction of your thoughts.

So What Happens? What happens when we begin to see some small success then poof we are back doing the old job we swore we would never do again? When we snatch defeat out of the jaws of success it means that we have started thinking about why we can’t do something. We begin to see all the reasons not to make the phone call or not to write what needs to be written, or do what need to be done.

How do we stop the bad thinking?

Start reading and turn off the T.V. Find good books and immerse yourself in them. Buy Success videos to watch when you are working with the T.V. on or buy cds or mp3s to use if you have the ability to use them instead of your T.V.

Get motivated. Listening to the right things and reading the right books will help you get and stay motivated. Get away from negative friends. If they do not believe in what you are doing then you don’t need to be around them. You know more people than you think and those people who may be on the fringe of your friend list may be the people who you need to be around.

Think about what you are saying to yourself. Really ask the better questions. Don’t ask, “Why do I always fail,” ask “How can I succeed at this” or, “What do I need to do to succeed.” You have everything in you to succeed at what you are meant to do. Don’t give up and you won’t fail.