Think It: Why Mindset is Everything

How to Train Your Thinking to Get Exactly What You Want

This is an excerpt from my new mindset book, Think It -How to Train Your Thinking to Get Exactly What You Want. Read chapters here before the book is released when you become a paid subscriber.

Preface

I’ll never forget the first time I heard the that “You can change your thoughts,” it was coming from Louise Hay on the Oprah Winfrey Show. This must have been 2006 or ’07 and I remember thinking, “What is she talking about? How is that even possible?” I was so unaware at the time, with no interest or exposure to personal development, or the concept of self-help. It wasn’t mainstream popular then, the way it is today, there were no social media #thinkpositive #mindsetiseverything hashtags or T-shirts. Honestly, I probably found that episode and conversation a bit over my head and boring, yet somehow the idea stuck. It nagged at me.

How could I change my thoughts? I wondered. Why would I want to? Didn’t my brain just think thoughts on its own? The whole idea was baffling, it made no sense to me. Maybe I’m just stupid, I remember thinking. Maybe big esoteric ideas like trying to control your mind is for people a lot smarter than me.

At the time I was a stay-at-home mom with infant twin daughters and a five-year-old son. I was married to my high school sweetheart and trying hard not to collapse under the pressure and exhaustion of three little kids and a husband had suddenly grown distant. I was forty-pounds heavier than a few years before and hated how I looked, all day every day the voice in my head ripped me apart, told me how fat and gross I was. Financially our life was imploding. We’d lost our house in foreclosure the previous year, car had been repossessed, we’d just filed bankruptcy, the unpaid bills were piling up, it felt like life was swallowing us whole. Again, the voice in my head constantly reminded me what a failure I was, insisted there was no hope, predicted that things would only get worse.

And of course, they did. In September of 2007, I read a text message that forever changed my life. It was from my husband’s mistress, and it ended our marriage in about 10-minutes. He was in the shower, soap covering his face when I turned the water off and told him to, “Get the fuck out.”

If I thought life was rough before that shower, nothing prepared me for how bad it got after. We hadn’t kept up on bills with his income, so how could I survive without it? What was I thinking? Now I had no income, no savings, no job, even the bank accounts were in his name, how could I possibly take care of my babies? I felt so trapped and helpless.

And the voice in my head screamed at me the way it always did… YOU’RE A FAILURE. YOU DESERVED THIS. THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU WERE BETTER AT MONEY. IF YOU LOST THE BABY WEIGHT YOU WOULDN’T HAVE LOST YOUR HUSBAND. NOTHING GOOD EVER HAPPENS TO YOU. And on it droned.

Ever had a voice in your head sound like that? It’s not helpful. It doesn’t inspire you to greatness. It doesn’t give you energy to get out of bed, or to pick up the pieces of your life, let alone the motivation to start over from scratch.

But something pivotal happened to me a few hours after my husband left. That night, when I laid on the floor crying my eyes out, thinking of all the ways I could never make this work, how I just couldn’t do it alone. I heard a new internal voice; one I’d never heard before. It said… “What if you CAN?” It was like being tossed a lifeline on a capsized boat in the middle of an angry sea, and I clung to it ferociously. That tiny voice brought hope and possibility, a shred of positivity that sounded so utterly foreign, yet so desperately needed.

In all the chaos and darkness that followed the next several months, Louise Hay’s words kept coming back to me. You can change your thoughts and your thoughts can change your future. I still didn’t know if that was true or not, honestly, I was skeptical, but the possibility it represented, haunted me.

I started paying more attention to what my head was telling me, and let’s just say, it was depressing. I was soooooo mean to myself, all day, every day. Like, WTF?

I will never forget my first conscious experiment to change my thoughts, I had no idea what I was doing, or if there was a “right way” to do it, but I figured whatever I tried was better than nothing. I was beginning to see the correlation between my continuous negative self-talk and my real life, and that realization stung. I didn’t want to feel like shit anymore, something had to change. So, I went into the bathroom and looked myself in the eye and said out loud, “You are beautiful!” “You are stunning!” “You look and feel incredible!” “You are sexy!” “You are loved.” “You are doing a good job.” “You are a good mom.” “You are good with money.” “You are successful!”

I looked at my reflection and sobbed with each affirmation. With every single one, that nasty bitch voice in my head tried to scream and argue. YOU ARE NOT BEAUTIFUL. It tried to point out. LOOK AT YOU, YOU’RE A MESS. NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU. YOU’RE FAILING AT EVERYTHING. But I just repeated those damn affirmations louder each time, and I showed up in that mirror every morning and every night and told myself all the things I WISHED I felt, wanted to believe, or dreamed of becoming.

And slowly, I started to feel better. I started walking on my lunch breaks and using the apartment gym. When I felt tired and weak, I told myself, I can do it I am strong! I started putting some effort into my appearance and imagining myself as a boss babe. Then one day… I was finishing my make-up about to go out with a friend, and I took one last look in the mirror, and without prompting, I automatically had the thought, for the very first time in my life… Damn girl! You are beautiful, you look sexy tonight! The magical transition from thought to reality had taken place somewhere along the way, and in that moment I FELT beautiful. It was no longer a lie.

I was like…. Holy shit! Did I do that? Did it actually work? I honestly never thought it would, I’d just wanted to feel better, I never imagined it could genuinely change how I saw myself, or how I felt. I was shook.

And then I had an idea… what if I could use this trick to change other things about myself and my life? Maybe I could use it to change my financial situation (that seemed completely insane btw), or lose weight? Or use it to get a better job? Now I was getting excited!

That began my quest to find the hacks, the simple and easy ways to get my thoughts to start creating a new future. It’s a journey that has completely changed my life, my children’s lives, and the lives of thousands of clients and readers worldwide, and it’s about to change your life. And trust me, that’s not cocky, that’s facts. If you take the advice in this book seriously, do the journal work in each section, and practice the four tools daily, it WILL change your life forever. I’ve seen it work unfailingly with anyone who’s put in the effort to apply it. ThinkIT is one of 9-steps I teach every client, and it is by far the most important. It is the one that will have the most dramatic and near instant impact on all aspects of your life.

So… let’s get to it!

If you’d like to participate in my book launch team for this book and receive FREE group coaching on the tools in this book, join our Facebook group.

P.S. Please take a second to tap the heart at the top or bottom of this post, it’s a simple FREE way to support writers on this platform so that more readers will find our work. Thank you in advance!

Become a paid supporter of my work and get instant access to all my content plus new posts every week. Thanks for your support!

About the Author: Sarah Centrella is a multi #1 best-selling author, master life coach, executive coach, speaker and the Founder of VIVIAMO.

Want to work with me? Schedule a 15-min consultation to see how my coaching can help you create and live your dream life!

This work is copyright protected 2025 Centrella Global LLC