How To Improve The Quality Of Your Life

“Can you improve your life?” What would your answer be that question? Can it even be considered to be a fair question? Or have you made peace with the idea of “what’s meant to be will be”? Have you given up on all your dreams and have you accepted the fact that you will never achieve any of your goals?

Well, the answer to the question “can you improve your life?” is a very definite “Yes, you can”! And it all starts with a decision! Nobody else can do that for you. You have to make the decision that you want to change your life. Everything starts with a decision. You have to be sincere about it though. You have to make up your mind that you are going to improve the quality of your life, no matter what! And it must be because you want to!

Improve The Quality of Your Life Because You Want To.

It is extremely important to realize from the outset, that you will only be able to improve the quality of life, if you do it because you want do it. If you decide to start this journey because you think someone else is expecting it of you, or someone else just told you that you can do it, chances are that you will never achieve any goals. Whatever you set out to do, it must be because you want to do it. Once you have made the decision and you have the desire to achieve it, you also have to believe that you can accomplish whatever you want to achieve. You need to realize how important it is what you think and how you think.

“Change the way a man thinks, and you change the man.” — Dr. Creflo A. Dollar

The Impact of Your Words and The Cycle of Words and Thoughts

It is crucial that you understand the impact of your words and your thoughts, and the effect they have on your life.

1. It all begins with words:

• By other people (often in childhood — through parents), such as “you are great” or “you are worthless, good for nothing” or “there’s no money”.
• Then follow your own words (not only “self talk” such as affirmations), but general things you “declare” about yourself…such as “I can easily do this or that…” or “I just can’t do it”

2 . Second point to remember: these words form a picture in your subconscious mind. At this point it is necessary to be aware of the fact that the conscious mind is responsible for only 20% of our daily actions, while the subconscious mind is responsible for 80% of our actions. In other words, only 20% of the time we consciously think, concentrate or make conscious decisions as to what our next action is going to be and 80% of the time we act on “auto pilot”.

We live in two worlds: Internal and External

• External: the physical world and environment we live in.
• Internal: your mind — How you think about things, your perception of your physical environment and circumstances, and how you respond to it.

The words you first hear, and later statements you yourself are making, form beliefs. You either form positive or negative beliefs. The subconscious mind cannot distinguish between right or wrong, true or false. Whatever it hears (on a continuous basis) will be accepted as fact.

As soon as information has been absorbed in the subconscious mind, you start acting on “autopilot”.

E.g. when you learned how to drive, you consciously had to think about every action. But now you never consciously think about using indicators, changing lanes, changing gears, taking turn-offs etc….. you do all this without thinking.

Let me give you another practical example of how your subconscious mind works. As quickly as you can, give answers to the following:

How much is:

• 2 x 2=
• 3 x 3=
• 10 x 10=
• 57 x 63=

I bet you got stuck at the last one and had to stop and consciously think for a while (lol). Why? Because the others got drilled into you at school by repetition…..2×2=4, 3×3=9, etc. etc.

So firstly you need to consciously decide what kind of words you are going to listen to (or pay attention to), then, equally as important, you need to decide what words you are going to speak (positive or negative). If you have any negative actions or habits, you need to make a conscious effort to change it (normally starting with what you say, which will affect what you think).

Then the cycle starts and continues as follows:

You Have To Consciously Take Action To Improve The Quality Of Life

As you can easily see from the diagram above, it all starts with words. This obviously influences what we believe, leading to thoughts which eventually manifest in various forms in life which cause either success or failure. Proverbs 18:21 says “Death and life are in the power of the tongue….”

Words influence your thinking. Now that you have the facts and you know the process, you know that you have the power to consciously take charge and change your thinking. Change your thinking and you will change your life!

Still following the process from the diagram, you will notice that by changing your thinking, you will have a positive impact on your emotions. But in order to accomplish this, you first have to make that conscious decision.

These are extremely important principles to know! Positive thinking and the use of positive affirmations are widely taught these days. I am not shooting it down, but without the proper knowledge of how to influence/change your thoughts and emotions, knowing what you really believe and the impact thereof, you might end up saying your affirmations a thousand times a day and end up with no results. Without really knowing what you believe, you might find it very challenging to think positive thoughts anyhow.

Now It Is Time To Change Your Habits

You should by now realize that you don’t have to accept any negative words spoken by other people. You should also realize that you should stop talking negatively about yourself and your circumstances. By this I do not mean act as if a problem doesn’t exist. If you face a difficult or challenging situation acknowledge that the problem exists, but deal with it. Focus on finding a solution, then keep focusing on the solution and speak about the solution, not the problem (shift your attention from focusing on the problem to focusing on the solution). This will have a very positive impact on what you believe, which will lead to more positive thoughts and eventually pleasant emotions, and ultimately…success.

I want to point out that this is by no means an easy process (especially if you have been exposed to negativity over a very long period of time). But with conscious effort and willpower, you can do it!

Making that conscious decision (and deciding that failure is no option), it will eventually lead to healthy habits which will have healthy, positive results! This will build a new, strong character within you and you will realize that you can achieve anything you set your mind too.

Conclusion

You can change the way you think, and by changing the way you think, you can improve the quality of your life.

I hope this information is helpful to you. Please leave a comment below and let me know how you have improved your life, or if you have any questions, also leave a comment and I will get back to you doing my best to assist in any way I can.

Originally published at jacoalberts.com on February 3, 2015.