As You Think, So Shall You Be

*The bible tells us in Proverbs 23:7 that as a man “thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius concluded “We become what we think about.” It is about this, I want to share with you today.*

If life is a series of doors that must be unlocked and opened, it follows that one must have the requisite keys to do so. To get through to the other side requires getting over or under or through whatever impedes you. No matter the case, a key is required, and because of this, you must choose wisely. The key that turns the locks for success and failure are indistinguishable from one another yet the results that come from the two couldn’t be more different.

You become what you think about.

The first time I heard that was from a very wise man named Earl Nightingale. I credit that sentence with planting more seeds of success within me than almost any combination of experiences I can recall. If only I had come across this knowledge earlier–that remains my only regret. As the years of my life unfold like pages from a novel, I now begin to grasp the life lessons that come with being carried away by the silent artillery of time. Our thoughts, being those invisible connective tissues that bind us to either success or failure.

Throughout my mid-to-upper 20’s I couldn’t figure out why I continued to operate with so much instability. Some ten years later, only then, did the answers begin to shine upon the paper of my mind like light in the dark because that’s where I was. Not until relatively recently did I realize that once I thought nothing, I became nothing. I’d taken almost every probability for success and unknowingly swept it to the perimeter of my existence. My lack of purpose resulted from my lack of direction; that, resulting from my long battle with what was (at that time) a negative self-image.

Shifting to the present, I find myself not desiring for anyone to spend much of their life as I did my own. Better to be famous for something than known for nothing. I used to shudder at treading upon the sacredness of my sorrow, for parts of me were still consumed by grief. The delusive daydreams of my childhood were rudely dissolved by the stern, sad realities of actuality, and thereafter, forced to exist inside a toxic bubble composed by my very thoughts from adolescence well into adulthood.

You are only as good as your last positive thought.

That shine behind my eyes as a young man found itself eroding with each passing year. My compact upright carriage with every step I took in my early 20’s slumped down to a creeper crawl with every crumb of stress that mounted my resolve. I stopped believing in the goodness of what was. My countenance, betraying the solemn desperation of a man who lacked his purpose in life. I continued to tell myself that years later, I would see more clearly what at the current time can only be seen in imaginative conjecture.

Having reached the end of my time with my interminable battle with depression, once again, I felt the light of life and the warmth that comes with hope, each, making their way through the cheeks of my soul which began to smile once again.

Day and night, I work to turn my prior lapses in judgement into a pixelated blur of sorts driven by and beholden to the omnipotent force of immediate positive change. In life, one must rise to overtake the great tasks laid out before them which result from obstacles that have devolved upon them.

To remain positive and focused on a progressive pursuit toward a worthy ideal is to be committed to acquiring the means that conclude into the desired ends.

The choice is yours. Don’t ever forget that. I’ll tell you that as a youngster (after my parent’s divorce), I suffered from severe bouts of anxiety. I trace that back to my poor self-image that resulted from not having a man at home show me the way. Being a teen of a single parent mom led to some tumultuous times during the formative years of my young life. As much as my mother did for me and loved me, I still missed out on much more from my dad not being under the same roof.

In terms of maturing into a man, I was forced to make many mistakes and learn nearly everything the hard way. Imagine a boy teaching himself how to be a man. A responsible, dignified, clean, honorable, faithful man. How ever successful I may or may not be in this, I leave that up to those that know me to decide.

One of my goals with my posts is to create a guidebook of sorts for people who want more and demand more from themselves and life, but have no blueprint as to how to accomplish that. I am uniquely qualified to do such a thing because I’ve been doing this all my life: Messing up. Making mistakes. Getting my proverbial teeth kicked in. Something most unexpected, is, I’ve come to see it was my negative self-image which correlated with my negative thinking, which threw me down countless emotional cliffsides with no harness.

Through the vice like grip pull of time, eventually, our dreams are sealed inside a chest of drawers, slowly forgotten amidst the accumulation of “realities” that make up a life, never again, to see the light of day. This is what happened to me. It’s hard to have a purpose when you stop allowing yourself to dream. I could always tell you what I wanted, but I could never tell you how I would get there. For the majority of my life I had no blueprint.

Picture a car with a driver, a full tank of gas, and a destination in mind. 99 out of 100 times that car will arrive to its destination unperturbed. This, is what I call a successful trip. Now, take the same car with a full tank of gas, but this time, instead of a driver with a destination, we’ll just put the car in drive and “let it go.” Doesn’t take long to realize, that even if the car made it out the parking spot unscathed, it wouldn’t be long before the car found itself at the center of an accident. This, is a fail. And that is also how I was operating my life (or rather, not operating) for far too long. On automatic “crash-pilot.”

As you’d imagine, when living your life in such a manner, it’s very hard to maintain a sense of stability. When you don’t feel in control you probably aren’t in control, therefore, anxiety will almost always be the dominating knee-jerk response. One of the things I do to this day which works for me is I “practice” being in control daily. By doing this daily, I’m able to reinforce it in my routine thereby automating the entire sequence. When you automate something as you would with a machine, you make it habitual and unobtrusive all at once. You’re able to do something good for yourself every single day regardless of the day you’re having. It’s surprising how vastly the quality of your life improves with just this one change. Make your investment daily–I don’t miss a day. Ever.

Rummaging through the deep reserves of my memory is my best resource for this refuge. Many men of wealth and power I’ve read about like to build elaborate dwellings or vacation to the farthest ends of the Earth when they’re ready to “get away from it all.” For those of us without unlimited means and the access to private air travel that comes with it, I offer to you the many mansions of your own mind. I often like to think of a time in particular when I was in complete control of something and on top of the world from the results I was getting. When you reinforce these positive good-feeling moments repeatedly, over time, you build up a steady reserve of happiness that spills over into every aspect of your life. The bonus is the deeper and steadier this reserve is, the less likely you are to be tripped up in less fortuitous times, thereby lessening significantly the possibility for retrograde degeneration with regard to your pursuits. In other words, the happier you are right now, the happier you will be tomorrow. And so on.

To arrive where you truly want to be, you have to operate as if you are already there.

Think about it. Give yourself a goal or a task. Doesn’t even have to be a hard one. Just assign yourself any task. Now, regardless of whatever your goal is, give yourself the choice of performing it one of two ways: The first way is you to keep your head up and shoulders back–have as upright a carriage as possible. Present your body in a way where you position yourself to look like the splitting image of confidence. If you take your physiology, and make it synonymous with power and courage, even if you haven’t the slightest clue of what you’re doing, you’ll probably feel good doing it.

Now this time take the same task or goal. Don’t change a thing except your posture and your presence. Just try and attempt the same task with your head down and shoulders slumped forward like putty in a hot mold. Instead of gliding across the floor with the precision of a Japanese speed train, drag your feet as would a car at a green light with the emergency brake applied. Even if you manage to succeed in completing what you set your mind to, I guarantee you won’t feel as good while actually doing it. If you want to know why, the answer is simple–you weren’t in the ideal frequency.

You see, a human body is a mass of energy. And with this energy, there are frequencies that permeate from us. Without going into massive detail about this–You know how it is when something is felt long before it’s seen? Ever walk into a room and you felt absolutely amazing right away? How about a room where when you walked in you immediately walked out, for fear of being sucked in a black hole like everyone else in there? This is the energy I’m talking about. Some refer to it as a vibe. The great Bob Proctor says that to change your life, change your frequency. The way I go about changing my frequency is to change my thoughts. Here’s how I see it: If you want to feel good, practice feeling good. If you want to feel more confident, practice being more confident. If you want to rid yourself of anxiety, practice being in control. I want you to picture in your mind exactly who you would be if you had everything you truly wanted in life–everything. How would you look? How would you walk? How would you speak? How would you dress? How would you treat others? Be that person! You get what you’ve always wanted in life by operating from that very frequency.

To practice being the person you truly want to be: This is an absolutely essential life skill.

Back in the second grade when I was being taught to learn my multiplication tables, I also needed to be learning and practicing that law every bit as much as my arithmetic. This is less about making you feel good and more about giving you the tools you need to head off any and all destructive thoughts you impede yourself with. So much of what we do and how we perform is reactionary. Moreover, our thoughts often dictate precisely what happens not only next, but further down the road.

We are equipped, but we do not even know to equip ourselves against the worst parts of ourselves for life.

As rough as it is out there it can be more so within. Oftentimes, the roughest seas can be found within the disorders of our own thoughts.

Sometimes you have to prepare yourself against obstacles you throw in your own path. We can never be too vigilant when it comes to our thoughts. The mind is a super complex world of world’s. One such as myself is stubborn and impatient all at once–I want perfect results NOW! I get it. Waiting is hard. So we go after that head full of steam and go full speed ahead until we perform the inevitable; Bam! We run straight into a wall. The waiting period for success is just like cutting onions. No one wants to do it so we rush through it. We don’t even stop to smell the roses that bloom with all the little victories along the way. Please… don’t do what I did….

Don’t cut the onion. Slice the onion.

In my last post here, I talk about it not being the failures nor the successes which define us, but rather, the Reboot‘s. Don’t just turn the orange juice up like a shot glass–squeeze the orange, getting every possible nutrient you can out of it. You want to consume not just some of the power, but all of it. Your mind communicates via processes like a machine. This is divinely inspired machine language composed of flesh and blood. This is how your mind truly programs without you even noticing–perfectly unobtrusive.

When you want something that isn’t the easiest thing in the world to obtain, too fast or too soon, it is you and you alone, whom is putting undue stress on yourself, that will impact everything from your thoughts to your body. Can you see yet how just one thing, no matter how innocuous it may seem, can impact your entire life? Remember earlier when I referred to how changes in your physiology can affect how you feel when attempting a task?

You have to be the one to step in and take charge, because if the pressure is getting to you, you are the one responsible for it. Dial back the intensity. Don’t ever construct for yourself expectations that given the circumstances you are under could not possibly be met. When you do that, you tend to point the finger at others when you fail, yet take all the credit when you succeed. One thing I had to learn was to stop being so outer-directive. I had to practice taking responsibility for the negative thoughts I not only fed myself, but designed and constructed for my own consumption and thereby my own demise. What’s so dangerous about this is I was doing it to myself, without consciously sitting down and planning out/mapping out ways to fail (I don’t see anyone out there doing such a thing). Problems would show up to my doorstep and I’d lament to myself, sputtering out phrases like, “Why does this always happen to me?” Well… now I know. As you think, so shall you be.

It is so important for me to get messages such as this out there because if I’ve gone through it, other’s have too (maybe even you). Life doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be miserable. I will always be of the mindset that life is an exciting adventure where each day is better than the last. No matter where you sit, whether it be the top of the mountain, or amidst the foulness of a slum–It’s never the scale or scope of what you were given. It’s what you do with what you were given. And what is it you’ve been given?

Well… that’s not for me to say. But I can say this: You were given something no one else has. You have a job to do. Choose your thoughts wisely.

As you think, so shall you be.

–Daniel Cousin

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