Success on any level and with regards to any human being is defined by only three things – your mental state, your emotional state, and the actions you take. If you want to master your life and be successful, these are the only things you MUST concern yourself with. Of course there are other factors in life, but these 3 are an absolute must!

So let’s break this down and look at each one, so we can go beyond merely thinking about it and get to really living it!

First and foremost, your mental state stands as the beginning point and crux of the entire tripod. If you don’t get this part right, the rest of it cannot maintain itself and you’ll find yourself in a downward spiral.

Your mind is where everything begins, because it’s the first point of your experience of life. The mind is synonymous with your thoughts and your perceptions, which lead to your beliefs – and it’s beliefs that carry the weight of producing our emotional states and carrying us to action…or inaction as the case may be.

Understand that your thoughts and perceptions are fluid concepts; nothing about them is fixed or permanent. Our habits and eventually beliefs are formed from these being repetitious in nature. The more you repeat a thought the more it becomes a habit, and the more it becomes a habit the further it goes to being driven into a belief. This is how we grow into the people we are today.

Take a moment to really think about this. Everything you think and believe yourself to be is a product of the thoughts that you repeated over the years that became habits and eventually beliefs – about who you are, what you’re capable of, what the world around you is like, what is good and bad, acceptable or not acceptable, and a myriad of other aspects of our lives.

To believe is simply a function of thoughts deeply ingrained into our personal way of thinking. Now this must be understood to be a purely subjective arena. So start to be more mindful of all the thoughts you entertain. Pay particularly close attention to the self-talk you constantly engage in. Because it’s our self-talk that most affects our perceptions and that is where we form our beliefs.

So to keep it simple and practical, pay close attention to the conversations you have inside your head with yourself. Start to notice the patterns of the ways you talk about yourself and the life that is happening all around you. When you get good at this you’ll start to notice how closely related your way of internal thinking (or self-talk) is to the life that is unfolding for you every day.

Now once we get a grasp on our thinking patterns, the next step is to understand our emotional states. How do you feel on a consistent basis? What are the predominant emotions you tend to feel day to day? These feelings you will notice are always a direct reflection of the specific thoughts you are consistently having. That is why the mental state is the crux of the whole tripod.

Emotions are a powerful tool if utilized properly – though they are crippling and destructive if not properly adjusted. But once again, this all begins with your state of mind. The feelings we all have reflect the thoughts in our heads. Think well about yourself and you will feel well about yourself. Think negatively about yourself and your emotions will reflect that negative perception.

Now beyond this, emotions are the core drivers to our actions or lack there of. Basically, you can think about doing something, going after a goal or achieving some end result, but if you are not emotionally charged to do it, you won’t act on your thoughts about it. Or if you manage to make yourself act, you won’t last long or follow through. Because as I said before, our emotions are the drivers to action; they are in essence the enactment of our willpower.

So this now leads us to the actions themselves. Actions cause the changes in our lives. We can think and feel all we want, but if we do not act, we achieve no goals. So making your life in terms of the course you want it to go on, starts with thinking about what you want (NOT WHAT YOU DON’T WANT), finding a powerful emotion inside us that compels us towards that goal, and finally taking direct action in achieving it.

It really is that simple. Yet most of us find it difficult to make our dreams come true… Why? The main reason I’ve noticed among all of us is that we simply do not apply all three aspects in driving towards our goals. We may think about them but aren’t really feeling the emotional charge of achieving them. Or we can feel the emotional charge but we think in negative terms. Or we get thinking in the right direction and emotionally charged about it but then find ourselves paralyzed by our fears to act.

Get passed these stumbling blocks! Get your mind in the right state, allow your emotions to be filled with the power they convey in terms of achieving your desired end and then finally take actions in accordance with the prior two. Fear is an imaginary act – don’t let it stop you from reaching your dreams!