How to Use This Book

This book is structured in a user -friendly, easy-to-read format. If you wish, you can start with Day 1, or you may prefer to pick the word best suited to the challenge youre facing on that particular day. You could also let the book fall open to a page, allowing circumstance or coincidence guide you, or you might want to read a little bit at a time in sequencewhatever works best for you is best for you.

No matter where you start, as long as you read and reread the page of insights out loud you will reprogram your attitude. Choose a word or a chapter, review the related section called Say It, Believe It, and Receive It (each part of this section is explained in further detail below), and youre on your way to acquiring the attitudes that contribute to a more successful life!

Say It

You may not be aware of this, but the statements you use define you, because they express your underlying beliefs. Its vitally important that you understand the power of the words you use with others and yourself. Your words define your reality, and you ultimately act on what you believe. While positive statements elevate and enrich you, negative statements deflate, undermine, and injure you. They hold you back from achieving what you desire by actually stealing your power. Words chosen and spoken wisely transform, empower , inspire , nurture, and healwhile carelessly chosen words undercut success, sabotage progress, and limit your reality.

Think about something in your life that you thought you wanted to do or achieve but never did. For example, I know a woman named Barbara who told me that when she was young, she wanted to become a veterinarian. She loved animals and felt sure that she knew her calling from a very young age. However, she had difficulty understanding mathematical concepts, and she soon fell behind. As a result of losing out on the basics of math in grammar school, she found the subject a mystery at every level, and she barely squeezed by in algebra and other forms of mathematics in high school and college. Since Barbara knew that she needed high math scores to get into veterinary school, she never even took the required prerequisitesinstead, she went on to major in journalism, where math wasnt a big issue. Why did she miss out on becoming a veterinarian? Because she told herself she wasnt good enough in math. She heard the little voice in her head saying, Youll never get into veterinary school with your low math skills, so youd better find some other way to make a living.

Was the culprit really her poor math skills, or was it her self-talk? You guessed itit was the latter. If Barbara had simply changed her inner dialogue to statements such as, I can learn anything I set my mind to, she would have found the tutors and books necessary to help her raise her skills to the required level. Instead, she said, Ill never be good in math . . . and she wasnt. Fortunately, she found a calling elsewhere, but a deep lesson lurks in the fact that she listened to her negative voice instead of replacing it with a positive one.

Now, lets go back to the thing you wanted when you were younger , but never achieved. What types of negative self-talk kept you from your goal? If you had it to do over, how would you change that self-talk so that you could achieve your desire?

Ive got some good news for youits never too late to start! A great place to begin is with positive affirmations, which Ive assembled into three parts in this book: I acknowledge . . . I possess . . . and I am. You see, I statements such as these put the responsibility for your feelings, actions, and successes right where they belong: on you. Each I statement, when said with belief and authority, positively affects your attitude, focuses your thinking, and leads you to a course of productive action that will help you become the person you want to be and have the things you want to have.

Repeat these affirmations several times a day, every day, to reprogram your subconscious and set firmly in your mind each divine statement of truth. At the moment you first say these words, you may not feel or believe what you say, but follow the advice in Romans 4:17 and . . . speak those things that be not as if they were. Think about the first time you rode a bike, skated, drove a stick-shift car, or used a computer: At first you probably felt awkward, uncomfortable, unnatural , and even a little fearfulyet with practice, you acquired the skills you needed to overcome your initial awkwardness. Soon you performed well, easily, effectively, and almost automatically. By the same token, positive affirmations for success may also feel awkward at first, but just like learning to ride that bicycle, once youve repeated the right words and quotes out loud long enough, youll feel comfortable with the procedure.

Continue to repeat the statements for the next 30 days, and watch the change in your thinking and your attitude. Ultimately, youll experience success in whichever way youve defined it.