Poverty Thinking embraces limiting beliefs, negative thinking, negative emotions, doubt, habitual worrying and the notion that the poverty circumstances you were born into are the cause of your poverty. Those who embrace this thinking transform their poverty circumstances from short-term to permanent. Make no mistake, it is a Faustian bargain. Poverty thinking becomes a crutch that allows those who embrace it to rationalize their poverty for the rest of their lives. They see themselves as victims of their long-term impoverished circumstances and not the cause. This is why poverty is generational. Poverty Thinking becomes a habit passed down from one generation to the next. Those who accept this thinking have programmed their minds for failure and poverty.
Wealthy, successful people embrace Rich Thinking. Rich Thinking accepts no limiting beliefs and forges positive thinking, positive emotions, absolute faith in the outcome of your endeavors, living in the present, practiced optimism and gratitude and the overriding notion that you are the cause of your circumstances in life, not a victim of them. Those who accept this thinking have programmed their minds for success and unlimited wealth.
From my five-year study of the daily habits of the wealthy, I discovered several independent strategies the wealthy used to help them break free of Poverty Thinking, enabling them to then accumulate an enormous amount of wealth. By independent I mean you can choose just one and it will end your Poverty Thinking forever. If you choose to do all of them, that will end your Poverty Thinking much quicker:
- The Rich Habit of Practiced Gratitude – Every day give thanks for any good things that have come into your life in the past or the present. Try to find at least one good thing that happened yesterday and give thanks for it. Practiced Gratitude is like software that reprograms our brains. Once this programming is accepted by the brain, through repetition, it becomes a daily habit and will actually create new permanent neural pathways inside our brains. These new neural pathways then go to work directing our behavior in such a way as to cause the creation of more things to be grateful for. It changes our behavior from bad behavior to success-oriented behavior in order to draw in more things to be grateful for. We become a success-seeking GPS.
- The Rich Habit of Practiced Optimism – Practiced Optimism means not allowing any doubt thoughts even a second of life. It requires that you monitor your thoughts and when one flashes in your mind you stop yourself and replace the doubt thought with an optimistic thought. “I can’t” become “I will”. “Nothing ever goes my way” becomes “everything goes my way”. When you Practice Optimism every day you are creating new neural pathways that will eventually become habits. Once they become habits, they then go to work directing our behavior in such a way as to create success. Much like the Practiced Gratitude Rich Habit, we become success-seeking GPS.
- The Future Letter – Write a letter to yourself from the future about how incredible your life is. Be lavish in your details about the home you live in, the car you drive, the ideal job you have etc. Read this letter every day for a month. After a month revise it and repeat the process of reading it every day. The future letter works by agitating the brain into altering your behavior in order to create the ideal life you persistently think about every day.
- Visualization – Create a pictorial Vision Board of all of the things you hope to accomplish and have in life. Keep adding to it every so often. The brain thinks in pictures. The Vision Board is the perfect software to feed the brain. By viewing your Vision Board every day you are reprogramming your mind and creating new neural pathways. Once these pathways become habitual thinking, the brain will then go to work to alter your behavior in order to obtain those things that are on your Vision Board.
- Daily Affirmations – As if all of the above were not enough, I give you more. Daily Affirmations are repeated daily software programming that agitate the brain by asserting something that is not true about yourself. Saying “I weigh 135 pounds” every day, when you clearly weigh 180 just pisses off the brain. If you keep repeating this affirmation the brain will eventually seek to alter your behavior in order to get down to 135 pounds. You may find yourself eating less, eating healthier, exercising more. Once the brain accepts the affirmation as reality it then forces you to change your behavior. You don’t have a choice. In order for affirmations to work they have to be tied to some goal. Goals are only goals if they are 100% achievable and require some action. Otherwise they’re wishes and the brain cannot make wishes come true. The brain isn’t magical. It doesn’t manifest things out of thin air. It’s an organic computer. It’s real magic is in altering your behavior, by directing you to perform an action that will allow a goal to be realized.
- The Rich Habit of Living in the Present – Have you ever been at a party or on vacation, on a golf course or in a bar and thought about nothing but work, family problems, financial problems etc? If you have, you’re not alone. Many people fall into this Poverty Habit. When you allow worries to intrude in on what should be a Happiness Activity, you lose the Happiness Event forever. It’s just gone. Happiness Activities are the key to overall happiness. The more you have the happier your life will be. It is critical, therefore, to make a habit of Living in the Present. When you find yourself worrying about something while engaged in one of these Happiness Activities you need to stop yourself and tell yourself “just enjoy the moment”. If you make a habit out of this, eventually you will find yourself worrying less and you will also find yourself happier. Not worrying and Living in the Present gives your brain a breather. Living in the Present is good brain management and will allow you to employ all of the incredible powers of the brain. It relaxes your brain and you are able to think clearer when you have to.
About Thomas C. Corley
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