Your thoughts shape your life, and you have the power to control your thoughts. Every action you take, begins with a thought. Everything you know, is filtered through your own unique set of thoughts. Do your thoughts build your life or do they keep you in prison? Thought is the starting point for everything you do. It takes no more effort to think positive, creative, uplifting and inspiring thoughts than it does to think negative, destructive, depressing thoughts.

A thought may seem like a small, insignificant thing. And yet, one thought builds on another, and another thought builds on that, and so on. The power of thought comes from the cumulative effect of all those seemingly insignificant thoughts. Success and achievement in any undertaking come from constantly controlling all those little thoughts, keeping them focused on the desired goal. Anyone can do it. You can think whatever thoughts you want to think, and they will take you wherever you want to go.

Hold one hand out in front of you, look at it carefully, and then use it to pick up some object—a pen, a piece of paper, your coffee cup. Watch your hand as it holds the object. Then set the object back down and release it. Though the object is not a part of you, you can pick it up and use it when needed, and then set it aside when you’re finished. Now, in the same way that you’ve just observed your hand, observe the thoughts which race through your mind. Take a figurative “step back” and see each thought as it comes into your mind. Detach yourself from the thoughts and see them as things which your mind picks up, holds, and then discards.

Realize that although they are very useful and influential in your life, your thoughts are not you. If there’s a negative, limiting thought occupying your mind, you have the ability to set it aside. You can fully control your thoughts. You do not have to permit negative thinking. Thinking negative thoughts will work against you no matter how well justified those thoughts may be. You may have every reason in the world to hold onto angry or hateful thoughts toward someone else. Even so, those thoughts would mainly serve to harm you. You'd be the one experiencing the stress, the high blood pressure, the burning sensation in the pit of your stomach and all the other physical manifestations of your anger. The person whose actions triggered your rage would feel just fine.

The next time a frustrating, angry or despairing thought finds its way into your consciousness, step back, observe yourself thinking it, see how pointlessly destructive it is and then move it out of the way. Put something positive and uplifting in its place. Hold on to the thoughts that serve you and set the rest aside. Control your thoughts, and you control your world.