Our thoughts can be our most important ally. Our thoughts can work for us or they can work against us. In the minute that you read this, choose to hold on to those thoughts that work in your favor and use them to your advantage.

We need to choose thoughts that give energy to our most cherished values and most treasured goals. We need to choose thoughts that resonate with achievement and success–not despair and failure.

If we plant the seeds of success in our mind, positive outcomes will sprout. If we plant the seeds of failure and despair, what do you think the result will be?

To hold a certain specific thought requires no physical effort, no special training and no permission from anyone other than our self. Our thoughts are precisely what we allow them to be, as soon as we allow them to be.

Those thoughts set the stage for the way we experience life. They serve as a lens through which we see the world, and they control the way we respond to every situation.

When we develop a strong habit of filling our mind with positive, uplifting thoughts, we are well-positioned to successfully meet the challenges that come our way. Empowering thoughts equip us to take effective and appropriate action.

Thoughts can come and go in an instant and have no physical dimensions, yet they exert enormous influence. If we strengthen our thoughts then we strengthen our lives.

James Allen, the 19th century author, who some say was the inspiration behind Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking, said “You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” Where do you choose to go?