They say actions speak louder than words, but there is also something to be said about deliberate action, driven by deliberate thoughts and words.

Don’t wait until the iron is hot to strike, instead, strike the iron to make it hot.

To be successful we need a sense of deliberation. Success is not about dumb luck or chance, although both of these can happen. Success can be broken down into a 5-step procedure.

1) Success begins with a thought that we wrap our heart around and partner with. Dreaming is the first step to success, but we must be deliberate in our dreaming. It is imperative when we have the thought that we don’t shoot down our thinking immediately.

The mind is wired for sense making. If something has not been done, it is natural for the mind to immediately fire back with a thought, “but that hasn’t been done. It’s impossible.” The key is for you to just accept the thought and then say, “why not me?” Wrap your heart around your thought and make it a dream by…

2) Deciding to accept the challenge. Our wild and crazy thoughts are just that. They are wild stallions running through our minds. You can capture and tame or you can learn to run with it and experience the exhilaration of freedom of thought through dream manifestation.

When you decide to do something, it is a deliberate act. You take action. You strike to make the iron hot rather than waiting around for dumb luck, chance, or the classic excuse, “if it’s meant to be, things will fall into place.”

Excuses are a time thief. Have a goal, accept responsibility, and take action.

3) Taking action will breathe life into your dream. When we decide to put forth action so that we can achieve, we make a deliberate effort toward success. You can only fail if you do not try or if you give up. Well done is better than well said.

Develop your dream through a series of actions and steps that you believe will get you closer to achieving your dream.

Take action to see reward. Do nothing and be ignored.

The action step supports steps 1 and 2 wherein you develop what you will be doing, including how you will communicate to others and yourself your dream. This includes telling others what you intend to do and deciding to not let any negative thinking from others influence your dream. What’s cool about negative opinions is that someone might introduce a potential challenge that you may not have thought about and you can use this step to develop a work around- thank you negative person for helping my dream development process!

4) Of course action means that you must be persistent in your implementation, which is step 4. We can develop and conceptualize all we want but until we actually implement and become persistent in our implementation, nothing happens.

Authors Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen were rejected more than 150 times by publishers and spent more than 18 months taking action, selling books out of the back of a car until Chicken Soup for the Soul became a hit. Most people would have given up. Which leads me to step 5…

5) Never give up! You might need to make major revisions to your original plan; learning and growing until you finally achieve your dream, but never give up. Initially, you may not have known or understood many aspects that fit into the puzzle, but as you gain that additional knowledge, integrate it. Again, this is a deliberate action- choosing to continue learning, tweaking, until finally IT HAPPENS!

You deserve success. The key is to not rely on luck or happenstance but instead to be deliberate about being successful. Success doesn’t come to you, you need to deliberately seek it out and deliberately take steps to get there.

This week, practice being deliberate in everything you do, no matter how small a thought. Use this 5-step framework, if even to clean your desk at work or get the laundry done. Believe me, you will see results! Now have a deliberately awesome week!

Jolene Church is currently finalizing her doctoral research on critical thinking in organizational leadership. She is an accomplished motivational speaker, success coach, and the co-author of Thinking 101: Fundamentals of a Successful Mindset- available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle or at www.successfulthinkingmindset.com . Watch for her new books to be released in 2016/17, Dreams Exist and How to Write a Book in 30 Days.

On this day, two years ago, my friend received a fortune cookie that looked like this. If you are like many, you would be a bit upset. Not only was the fortune “missing,” but a chunk of the cookie was gone. If we remove our emotions and our naturally inclined thinking, we can get quite a bit from this cookie. What an amazing peek into the future. Rather than a “missing” fortune, the fortune, according to the cookie, was unwritten, and although a chunk was torn out, it remained intact.

The mind naturally looks for what’s missing- because its job is to put pieces together and make sense. Our mind goes straight to what’s wrong with this picture- the cookie is jacked! Yet this is the same fun game tool that provides us with a fun little conversation- a fortune. Okay, it’s usually not a fortune, it’s a random statement or fact, but it’s called a fortune cookie for a reason.

Even if we were to look at a fortune cookie as just that, insight into the future, what is the mind supposed to make out of the missing fortune that is supposed to be there? Look for what’s wrong. The cookie then becomes an omen. No fortune = bad sign. Missing chunk of cookie = even worse.

A chunk of my heart and soul was indeed ripped out this past year, yet I am missing nothing and I am still in one piece. Just like the brain tumor I am facing to have removed, sometimes it’s necessary to remove toxicity that prevents you from being at your very best.  

There may not have been a fun little piece of paper to help provoke the development of a thought that might be birthed into an idea, dream, and reality, but what wasn’t there was even better. The entire middle was gutted- gone- wide open. WOW!

Nothing is in the way to an amazing future- why?- Because our future is unwritten. There is nothing in the way, not even a blank slip of paper.  The only influences on our dreams are our own thoughts.
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Think about this- excuses are the mind’s way of making up stuff- to fix the puzzle of why you don’t have something- why you haven’t achieved a dream. The beauty is that we have been awesomely created to override the autocorrect function of the brain. Yep, our brains are like our iPhones- when something stupid comes out, you have the power to correct it.

You will never have an empty fortune- you only have an awesome future. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

#MakeItHappen this week! Have an amazing week.

,Those who embrace successful thinking are not without down days and disappointment. Rather, those of a successful mindset realize that being in a state of mind that is unappealing can be changed through new thoughts. “The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire, the size of your dream, and how you handle disappointment along the way” – Robert Kiyosaki.


A few weeks ago I had an MRI to help my doctors try to figure out why I had suddenly experienced strange nerve damage in my ear that resulted in 50% hearing loss. The MRI picked up a tumor. Let me tell you, to be told that you have a brain tumor is not what anyone wants to hear. Although it was a relief that the doctors found  the cause of my migraines and hearing loss, it was unnerving.
 
“We don’t fear the unknown. We fear what we think of the unknown”- Teal Swan.
For weeks I have chosen not to focus on the fact that I have a brain tumor, but instead on the fact that had I not had a crazy ear infection and sudden hearing loss, the doctors would not have been looking inside my head in the first place.
 
Today I was transported onto an emotional ride that I did not see coming. Following a phone call from the neuro surgeon to set up my pre-op appointment, I couldn’t help but feel anxiety come over me. This is important, because many people that I talk ask me how to push past anxiety and fear and into a successful mindset. I’d like to assure you, you already have a successful mindset, you just need to operate from there.
 
It’s like having a high performance sports car, yet never getting in and driving it. You are afraid that you will wreck it, someone will steal it, or some other self-defeating thought- that’s okay and normal, but acknowledge that those aren’t thoughts that will get you to where you want to be- behind the wheel, driving your high performance machine, feeling the wind in your hair and the power beneath and all around you.
 
I don’t know why the call from the neuro surgeon threw me off so bad, but it did. In the past year I have transitioned from a 10 year victim of domestic violence (while married to a deputy sheriff) to a survivor. I also was the victor when the criminal justice system wrongly placed me, the victim of domestic violence, in the defending seat. Never did I waver in my belief that justice, the truth that I stood so proudly behind, would prevail.
 
It’s been a tough year, but I’ve maintained a successful mindset. So how was I so upset by a phone call from the neuro surgeon? As I sat in line at Starbucks, I began to cry, overcome by the emotions I was feeling. I quickly grabbed a napkin dabbing away the tears, as the car in front of me would be finished ordering soon.  I gained my composure, pulled forward, and ordered my drink.
 
When I got to the window, the cashier informed me that the car in front of me paid for my drink. Had the driver seen me crying? Or had a force in the universe touched the heart of this person to “pay it forward?”  Who would have known that the person that they just bought a drink for, out of a random act of kindness, just found out they needed surgery to remove a brain tumor?
 
As I thanked the barista and pulled away, tears streamed down my face. I whispered a silent, “thank you.” I needed to be reminded of goodness and joy in that moment. That simple act helped me shift back to a place where I could operate successfully.
 
It’s not that we won’t have disappointments and setbacks it’s how we CHOOSE to be that will determine our success. I challenge you to consider this as you face challenges to your successful mindset. It’s okay to get upset. Acknowledge your feelings, but don’t dwell in a place that you don’t wish to be. If you want to dwell in success, get in the driver’s seat.  Opportunity awaits. DRIVE!