Powerful Ideas About Thinking

By Billy Arcement—The Candid Cajun

Copyright 2021

 

I’s like to share something from a great book, Thinking for A Change by John Maxwell. It’s one of the best books I’ve read on the subject of thinking. What to genuinely appreciate the power of thoughts? Read Thinking for A Change. Here are twenty ideas I gleaned from the book. As always, consider looking at your habits and determine if you “think” this way or if, as Zig Ziglar said, you practice “stinking thinking.”

 

  1. If you change your thinking, your thinking will change you.
  2. Good thoughts and actions cannot produce a bad result. Bad thoughts and actions cannot produce a good result.
  3. We think we can change others. The truth is that in order to change others, we have to change ourselves.
  4. Thinking is the hardest work in which you will ever engage.
  5. Changed thinking results in changed beliefs. Changed beliefs result in changed expectations. Changed expectations change your attitude. Attitude changes result in changed behavior. Changed behavior changes your performance. And changing performance changes your life. What a different life? Change the way you think!
  6. Work on creating one good thought a day.
  7. Identify the environment where you can do your best thinking.
  8. Hang around people who think the way you’d like to start thinking.
  9. A conclusion is a place where you get tired of thinking. (Edward DeBono Quote)
  10. Focus your thinking on your highest priorities that give you the greatest return.
  11. While hope is the magic motivator, hope is not a strategy. Only realistic thinking leads to excellence because it forces people to face reality.
  12. Extraordinarily successful people have long term thinking and can delay gratification. The least successful people think about now and instant gratification.
  13. When you think strategically, you have the ability to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
  14. If you want to achieve something, give yourself permission to believe it is possible––no matter what the “experts” say.
  15. Engage in reflective thinking where you reflect and review the activities you undertake so that you can continue to grow and experience victories in your life.
  16. If you wish to be successful, think about what is best for you, not what might be the most popular thing to do.
  17. Continually question your thinking. Stretch your comfort zone.
  18. Use the power of two or more. Form a mastermind group in order to take advantage of the thinking of others in addition to your own thinking.
  19. Use your thinking ability to help others.
  20. Think about the bottom line every day.

 

Let me close by reminding you that every single thing you see around you as you read this article began with a thought.  How’s that for a powerful idea on thinking!