Here's the question: Are you doing it? Are you doing what it takes to get everything you want on a daily basis? It's a simple matter of choosing one set of actions over another, right? So, if you still find yourself stuck, it's time to start asking yourself who's running the show.

This may be a new idea to you, but around eighty to ninety percent of your actions are unconscious, or habitual. The thoughts that control these actions - that choose for us what we will do - are unconscious - programmed over the years and often deeply ingrained. The famous quotes about "as within, so without" and "as a man thinketh, so is he" have a lot of truth to them. These proverbs and more suggest the power of one's thoughts on how one's life is shaped. If you can change your thoughts, you can change your life. But most of these thoughts are so deep that they are rarely changed simply by consciously deciding to do so.

Here's a little experiment: Fold your arms in front of you. Now, look to see if your left arm is over your right, or vice versa. Did you consciously decide to put them that way, or did it happen automatically? In all the workshops I've done, I've yet to meet anyone who did this consciously. Now - try to fold them the other way. For most, this feels rather awkward. I've even seen folks who just couldn't do it. Why is that? Because over the years your body/mind has learned which way is more comfortable, and has stuck with that. So, without you having to waste any precious time thinking about it, it acts out of habit. This is a necessary function - if we didn't learn to do most of our behaviors habitually, we'd never get anywhere. Imagine having to think through the process of putting one foot in front of the other each time you wanted to walk across the room...!

Just for fun, let's say that you fold your arms right over left. And let's say you decided, come January First, to start folding your left arm over your right...because it is a well-known fact (one that is mentioned in several self-help books and seminars) that left-over-right people make more money, have more friends, shoot in the low sixties on the golf course and have the body of an athletic eighteen year old. So - you consciously decide that, from now on, you are a left-over-right person - and state this in affirmations. If over the course of a day you fold your arms ten to twenty times, how many of those times do you think you will remember to do left over right? Truth is, not many...maybe a couple at best. So, after awhile (say, by January Second) you say, "Well, I'm a right-over-left kind of person - that's just the way I am." And, that's okay. But is it what you want...?