Your mind creates your destiny

I have seen a documentary "The secret" which is based on the concept of Law of Attraction (LOA). I have personally seen people achieve their dreams, through positive thinking and hard work. I believe in this concept, but I haven't tried it in my life. To implement this "secret" you have to be positive all the time. However, I do know that negative thoughts ruin my day and mood. And any positive thought is much stronger than a negative thought. I don't know it it is because of LOA, but whenever I come across certain fact or thing that fascinates me, I see something related to it in the next day's newspaper.

Everything in life is mind. Your mind creates your destiny. Let me explain how. Suppose you are working in an Organization. There you are getting 1.0 Million per annum (MPA) income. Now you think you are capable to get 1.3 million per annum. So you started searching for job and got the job of 1.3 MPA and settled there. Now if you think you have the capability of getting only 1.3 MPA. you will stuck there and you will only focus on work rather than focusing for next move. But if you think (Let me emphasize the word think) you are capable to get 2.0 MPA then you will make your resume, you will upload, you will re skill yourself , you will start preparing for it. catch the point and you will do this everything just because you think you are capable to get the job of 2.0 MPA. If you think you can the next step mind thinks how. But if you think you cant your mind tells you why.

Now lets take another example. Suppose you want to prepare for UPSC but you think you can not clear this exam, then your mind will give you many reasons why you can not. like you have not good academics, you have not studied in IIT, IIMS etc, you belong to rural area, you have to take care of your family etc. But if you think you can clear UPSC then your mind will give you many reasons like you are in better position than others, many poor people clear it. many village people whose academics is bad also cleared. you can get material online. your mind will remind you many instance of life where you did better.

If you think that beautiful girl can come in your life then only you try on her. Then only you start flirting her. If think she is out of your league then you wont even try. Sometime people complain despite their best effort they couldn’t achieve is just because they dint have full confidence. They used to think that beautiful girl can come in their life so they started trying on her. But somewhere there was in mind that they can not get her. so they were not trying with full effort. It was like you go 5 steps forward and 2 steps backward. So if you try and don't get means you were not completely sure about your thought so you were not trying with full effort.

So every action starts from your mind. Before making large building architecture makes a plan in his mind. He thinks how can he design a beautiful bungalow etc. Before making Apple Steve jobs would have thought that this is possible then his mind would have given signal, how? So the famous line whether you think you can or you cant you are right is always true. This is an oversimplification. The idea is that one is more likely to achieve a goal by focusing attention on being that goal, as opposed to the reasons why the goal is unattainable. It's a way of saying that positive thinking tends to lead to a positive outcome; self-confidence enhances chances for success; and other familiar concepts.

Nor does such thinking change the fact that one achieves goals through hard work, and learning from setbacks. It does help you through the rough times. I often tell new attorneys at my firm who ask how often we've lost cases, "We never lose, but there are occasional and temporary obstacles in our path to victory." That success is a self fulfilling result of our mental orientation is bullshit. This is the self serving story of the elite, "I succeeded through my own efforts alone and those that didn't succeed fail through their efforts, or lack thereof", victors justice.

This is the Fundamental attribution error which justifies racism, eugenics, etc. Watch shark tank. Those folks are all trying hard to break out, but only some will. This story ignores the reality of the odds, and ultimately also ignores the illusion of free will, that the successful get a blessing of advantages, disadvantages, nature or nurture that is behind their success, including forming their mental perspective.

The prescription isn't good teaching, because by setting expectations, it's sets a person up for dissonance and failure when results don't meet the promise and progress isn't made. It's too narrow and broad, ignoring the other realities. These "successful" people may also find in the end they had focused on the wrong things, and squandered their lives. One can't have a trusting relationship with such people, because any difficulty you encounter is "just an excuse".

The danger is the truth in the story, which since that's also true, hides the subtlety. Goals do promote focus, intention and success. To succeed beyond one's current circumstance, one must focus on circumstance beyond the current. Attitude and positive outlook does help enormously in becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. See the science in Learned Optimism. Being fully aligned with our goals, rather than dissonance, and being "willing to pay the price", makes possible the paying of dues in long term success.

The formula for the success of giving, or "value creation" as the entrepreneurs call it, before expecting a return is well know. The formulas of being disciplined in mind and money do support steady progress. I made a list of 50 life goals in my twenties, and almost all of them, even some in the outlier or outrageous, were fulfilled. Habits do become us. And this is translating to children going to the best schools and also "succeeding" according to their own definitions.

Now what? I'd tweak his prescription by focusing more on the concept of ancient wisdom of focusing on's intent, but leaving results to the fates. The caveat to everything of the serenity prayer, Islam's "god willing" or Hindu's "Krishna owns the results". One can have the intent of being an entrepreneur, and whether success or failure result, a great adventure and much learning will be had. We each should have intent to become something great or small, feel free to change that intent and have acceptance for the results that come. The four agreements describes this as "doing your best" (which may be not your best best, but whatever your best is at the time) because this makes it easy to live with the results, come what may. Joseph Campbell proscribes "following your bliss" (maybe only part time) and whether the works catch fire works or not, you will be having a great adventure. Cheers!