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This week’s column:

This morning I had one of “those” mornings — you know, where everything seems to go wrong. You wake up in a good mood, but then the dog is sick, the Internet doesn’t work, and you spill your coffee. You start dreading the day to come.

What if spilling your coffee meant good luck? What if locking yourself out of the house meant you had great riches coming soon? What if getting stuck in traffic was a sign that you were about to have a great day?

I know this may sound slightly absurd, but, really, when you think about it, so is attaching a bad day to any of these things. I know people who decide how good their day is going to be by the weather — now that’s crazy. The more you say, “I know it’s going to be a bad day,” the more you are ensuring that it’s true.

I’m not suggesting that we all go around with insane grins on our faces and believe that the world is full of rainbows and puppies. Even I’m not that unrealistic. I’m saying that our thoughts create our world, and different thoughts can change our outlook.

I believe in positive thinking; after all, what harm can it do? I believe more in positive action. It’s fine to stand in your yard repeating the mantra, “There are no weeds. There are no weeds.” But, unless you actually do something about the weeds, they will still be there.

The point about thinking positively is that it leads to positive action. Thoughts and beliefs are powerful because they dictate how we act. Changing your actions starts with changing your thinking. Changing your thinking starts with being aware of what it is now.

Listen to what you say to yourself. What do you tell yourself before you go into a meeting, before you meet a client, before you go on a date? Are you being kind to yourself, or setting yourself up for failure? Do you say critical things to yourself that you would never say to anyone else? You might want to stop that!

So this morning, I decided that anything that went wrong before 8 a.m. just means that something amazing is going to happen later. If I look for it, I will find that amazing thing. We always get what we look for.

Have you ever thought about buying a certain kind of car and then noticed that model everywhere? I swear I was the only person in Lafayette with a VW Beetle before I got one, and now they seem really common. We get what we focus on.

Our subconscious notices thousands of things every second, but it only brings them to our attention when it thinks they are important. If you spent your day looking for elephants, you would find them everywhere, even in South Louisiana.

Our brains are amazing things. Let’s start using them deliberately — for good.

First published in The Advertiser

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