What does it take to succeed?  How can you move forward - take a quantum leap forward - in your achievements, in realizing your dreams?

According to some research, a person who grows up in an average, reasonably positive home is told "no" or told what he or she cannot do over 148,000 times before they hit their 18th birthday! The number of "yes'" or encouragement on what they can do is far smaller than the "no's", "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" (which are all "no's").

So why is this important?

Well, think about it. The results you achieve in your life are a result of the actions you take. So what determines the actions you will take?

Let us first discuss the power of practice and repetition.We all know that repetition creates habit. Our brains and physiology learns through repetition. We are pattern-making and pattern-following creatures. Practice makes perfect.  Whether you like it or not, the more you repeat something, the more it becomes part of you.

Repetition is programming.  And 148,000 "no's" is a lot of programming!

Repetition creates programming, which in turn creates beliefs, which in turn determine your thoughts and emotions, which in turn determine your actions, which in turn determine your results.

Have you noticed how you tend to think the same kind of thoughts over and over again? Studies show that we have about 50,000 thoughts per day, and a whooping 90% of them are repetitive! Like an old, tired record. And remember, repetition creates patterns, habits. You are literally
hypnotizing yourself with your repeated thoughts.

Other research shows that 77% of everything that most people think about is negative, self-damaging, hindering, and counterproductive. Now, remember, your results come from your actions, and your actions come from your thoughts, and your thoughts come from your beliefs, and beliefs come from your programming (what you repeatedly tell yourself or get told).

It goes even further than that. Your subconscious mind controls almost everything about you. For example, it controls your autonomic nervous system.  Your Autonomic Nervous System, invertebrate anatomy, one of the two main divisions of the nervous system, supplying impulses to the body's heart muscles, smooth muscles, and glands.  Your hormones, energy levels, actions and so forth are controlled by the subconscious mind. If you have told yourself that you are clumsy, the subconscious will work with your hormones, motor skills, and so on and make you act, move and talk stupid. If you have told yourself that you don't fit in social situations, you will find yourself standing in the corner not fitting. Whatever you say, you are the boss.

Your subconscious is like a computer. Whatever you program into it, it makes happen. No questions asked.

Your imagination, your thoughts, what you perceive, what you don't perceive, what you see and what you miss, how you act, what you feel... these are all determined by one thing: your programming, what you repetitively tell yourself (and what you repetitively got told or observed during your youthful formation years).

So how do you take the quantum leap, how do you step out of the box of your own thoughts and see beyond it. How do you program yourself for success? Well, the same way you create all programming: practice. Repetition. You have to not only find what works positively for you, but you have to practice that new positive way over and over until it becomes part of you. Positive thinking and self-help advice will not work unless you make it permanent for you by practicing it over and over. Your entire physiology has to be rewired; your neural pathways (which create pattern and memory) have to be redrawn. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Practice. Then one day, like with everything else you ever learnt through practice, you just find yourself automatically doing it! It becomes you!