Think It Chapter 1: Train Your Thoughts for Success

Mastering Your Mindset: The Predictive Power of Our Thoughts to Constantly Create Positive and Negative Outcomes in Our Lives.

*This is an excerpt from my upcoming book THINK IT -How to Train Your Thinking to Get Exactly What You Want, become a paid subscriber to get the remaining chapters. Read the Preface to this book first: Think It: Why Mindset is Everything

Chapter 1: How Your Thoughts Create Results

Goal of This Chapter

The goal of Chapter 1 is to establish why your thoughts are the foundation of everything you experience. By understanding the critical role your thoughts play in shaping your reality, you will recognize the importance of training your mind to align with your goals. This chapter introduces the concept of "brain training" and sets the stage for practical tools you can use to consciously create the outcomes you desire.

What I’m about to teach you is not rocket science. It’s not positive thinking. It’s not New Age feel-good fluff, or a cool slogan like "mindset is everything" on a yoga shirt. This is common sense. You’re about to learn a logical process for training your thoughts to start getting what you want and stop getting what you don’t. In other words, this is HOW you change your mindset. I call it brain training, and you’re about to create your very own mindset training lab.

Just like every other muscle in your body, your mind needs training and regular workouts to stay on track and deliver peak performance. But most people are like I was in 2007, with no idea how to control all the conscious and subconscious unhelpful voices in their head. Yes, we all have them—layers and layers of voices telling us all kinds of crazy BS that isn’t true or beneficial to our mental or physical well-being. They say humans have, on average, 60,000-80,000 thoughts a day. That’s a lot of internal voices trying to tell us what to do, what to believe, who to be angry at and why, what to be worried about, how to feel about ourselves, etc. It’s a lot.

Our mind is a muscle that needs to be exercised, shaped, and instructed to get desired results, but most of us were never taught how to do this. Back in grade school, most of us had PE (physical education), but no ME (mental education). And most of us didn’t have parents who knew the tools for mental wellness/toughness. So, what’s a person to do? If our arms are flabby and we want them toned and buff, we know that going to the gym, lifting weights, hiring a trainer, or changing our diet will, over time, likely result in our desired buff-ness. So, as a rule, we know what to do about all the other muscles. How did the most important one get left out of our education? It’s not your fault; we didn’t know better. But moving forward, we will.

When I first started trying to learn how to change my thoughts well over a decade ago, I did what most people do… I went out and bought a few books. I started with the ones Oprah recommended (because she is my guru!), the Louise Hay, Esther Hicks, and Eckhart Tolle books on the Law of Attraction and the power of our thoughts. And I quickly felt very mentally deficient. I could not understand a thing they were trying to say! To me, it seemed like they talked in circles, or in a foreign language my brain couldn’t comprehend or translate into practical application in my life. And no disrespect to any of those amazing thought leaders, they just didn’t speak my language. I needed the concepts broken down in a way I could understand.

I quickly became frustrated because everyone was saying things like, “Just think positive!” Or “Change your thoughts, change your life.” Or “Positive vibes only.” What even is that? The slogans and soundbite quotes were endless, but where was the HOW? I kept thinking, HOW do I think positive? Does it mean I just go around all day saying, “You’re fine. Everything’s fine”? Because that wasn’t working; it hadn’t solved any of my problems or changed how I felt. It was like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, a surface solution at best.

I wanted REAL answers, real solutions. I wanted to know exactly what to do and when so that things in my life would begin to change. And so, I hacked the system. I figured out how our thoughts work on my own by breaking down the process into simple, incremental, tangible steps that anyone can understand and use to get results. I tested them, coached them, lived them, and tracked their results, both for myself and with my clients. My goal has always been to keep this simple, applicable, and results-driven. Even a child can use these tools. I’ve taught all three of my children, starting at a very young age, how to talk to themselves and how to change their thoughts as they’ve gotten older. I’ve witnessed the power it has given them.

And before your inner skeptic kicks in, let me say that I’m confident you’ve already used ThinkIT throughout your life to get things you’ve wanted in the past. Unknowingly, of course—most people don’t understand the process they’ve unconsciously gone through to achieve a goal or get a desired outcome, therefore they struggle to replicate it. But when we stop to analyze any past success, we will see that it always started with a thought, also known as an idea. After reading this book, you’ll have the formula, which you can cut and paste to get anything you want—or onto any thought you don’t want.

Our thoughts create actions, and action delivers results. They are continuously creating future outcomes, both good and bad, positive and negative. The process is exactly the same either way. I realized long ago that my negative thoughts looked exactly like my reality. The correlation was impossible to ignore. Everything I’d been telling myself for years kept happening again and again in real life, which, of course, created my belief system.

Whenever you’ve experienced a similar outcome after taking similar actions, you begin forming and solidifying your beliefs about any given topic. And what you believe to be true will always find a way to become true.

Take dating, for example. How many times have you seen a friend (or been that person) who consistently dates the same type of “wrong” person? Over time, you begin to form beliefs like, “All men (or women) are jerks!” “There are no more quality single people out there!” “Everyone is a cheater or out for themselves!” “I’m gonna be alone forever.” “I’m never going to find the right partner.” “I’m not lovable or wanted,” etc.

We can see in this example how quickly those beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies. When my inner dialogue is telling me that I’ll never find the type of partner I’m seeking, and that everyone in the dating pool fits my previous experience, I can only manifest that same experience in the future. It becomes a vicious cycle where our thoughts (there are no good partners out there) become our reality (I continue to manifest a “bad match” partner). That reality becomes undeniable “proof” in our mind that our assumptions were correct, which solidifies the negative belief, and the whole cycle repeats once more.

We’ve all been there, and it’s the worst! We start questioning ourselves and thinking, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I change this pattern?”

The only way to change it is to change your thoughts.

Now that you understand how powerful your thoughts are in shaping your reality, it’s time to explore the deeper layers beneath those thoughts. In Chapter 2, we’ll uncover how your subconscious beliefs—often formed without your awareness—drive your thoughts and actions. By learning where these beliefs come from and how they operate, you’ll gain the clarity needed to start reshaping them in alignment with your goals. Let’s dive into the root of it all: how thoughts become beliefs.

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.

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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!

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