Mind is Master

One of my friends challenged me to read James Allen’s book, As A Man Thinketh every day for a month. This was a few years back, but I still remember the impact that little book had on my thinking. The book opens with the following.

“Mind is the master power that molds and makes,
And man is mind and evermore he takes
The tool of thought and shaping what he wills
Brings forth a thousand joys or a thousand ills.
He thinks in secret and it comes to pass.
Environment is but his looking glass.”

The power of even the opening statement to shape our experience of this world is incredible. The more I read and study about the human mind, the more I realize that what we are seeking in this world is a feeling, not an outcome. The reason I say that is because I have known lots of people on every spectrum of the traditional success scale. I have known happy people and very sad people. Some are rich, and some are poor on every part of that success continuum. This means that the feeling a person accepts about themselves has more to do with their happiness or lack thereof than their circumstances do.

James Allen brought himself out of negative circumstances through the power of thinking himself into a new identity. As he describes in the book, he felt a new reality before he experienced it. This is the same thing we are capable of doing. We are capable of creating a new reality in our minds and then allowing our actions to take us to that place. What we accept as real, we behave our way into. Unless we think it, though, we can’t experience it.

What can you imagine today that would shift your perspective? What can you imagine as an amazing experience of the day, the week, or your life? Then, what does someone do that has that experience? Allow your mind to create the ideal life. Then allow your actions to make that life come true.