Our minds are all we’ve got. They are the source of who we, both personally and professionally, are. They determine our success or failure. They are our strength and our weakness.

With the quality of our entire lives resting on our minds, it’s unbelievable that we choose to fill them with so much garbage. The amount of negativity from television, newspapers, tabloids and other media that bombards us on a daily basis is amazing. We would never think to fill our bodies with only junk food, right? Heck no. We know that if we ate nothing but French fries and ice cream we would experience negative consequences like skin blemishes, weight gain and rotting teeth.

But with mental junk food we don´t see the physical consequences right away. When our minds are constantly filled with negativity and bad news, our minds begin to decay. That´s why we need to develop a strong, Herculean-esque mind.

Developing your mental muscles will give you the power to accomplish anything you want in life. Sure, it takes some discipline on your part, but look at the world’s greatest bodybuilders. They don’t show up at the gym every once in a while. They create a workout schedule and they are at the gym every day, no matter what.

Hire yourself as your “mental manager”. Figure out how much you’re going to pay yourself and make up a job list. Here are six jobs to assign to yourself to create a stronger mind.

1. Read Right

How much good news do you see in the newspapers? Editors usually say, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Not much chance of positivity there. So, read something else. Read books – good books. Books that motivate you. Books that inspire you. Look up some of the great inspirational authors online or in your local bookstore. Read them every morning and/or every night, before you go to sleep.

2. Share Your Mind

Find someone, or a group of someone’s, who have the same desire to share positivity. This is called masterminding. Great successes are created when great minds come together and think about the same things.

3. Find A Mentor

My mentor was Buckminster Fuller and I learned more from that man about life than I ever hoped to. Who are the people you admire most, whether you know them or not? Figure out whom you’d like to emulate and study them. If they offer seminars, attend them. If they’ve written books, read them. Just a few I´d recommend are: Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins, Dr. Wayne Dyer and Zig Ziglar.

4. Listen to Motivational/Inspirational CDs and DVDs

This is one of the most important habits you can create for yourself. Find inspirational audio messages and listen to them over and over. Earl Nightingale, one of the most brilliant thinkers of our time, had this to say on the subject: “Tape listening is the most important advance in technology since the invention of the printing press.” With CDs speakers can reach 10 times as many people as the printed word ever could.

5. Sign Up and Attend Seminars

The motivational messages you hear at seminars, and the inspirational people you meet, reinforce your self-esteem and positive thinking. You can search out seminars via the internet, newspapers or local colleges and universities.

6. Turn Off the Television

On average, the television set in an American home is on over 7 hours a day. Just like any bad habit, it needs to be broken. I’m not saying that all television is bad. Heck no. I’m simply recommending that you cut back on your television viewing. Decide how long you’re going to watch television and then turn it off when you’re time is up. Try cutting back your television viewing one hour every day at first. You can use that time to read a book, listen to a motivational tape, walk your dog or spend time with your family.

After reading these six steps maybe you’re saying, “But Mark, I can´t do it. I just don´t know if I can be this dedicated to bettering myself?” Who else are you going to be dedicated to if not yourself? Because when it comes right down to it, folks, you are all that you’ve got. Jobs and relationships come and go. Children grow up, leave the nest and get lives of their own. Then there you are, alone with yourself. Why not create a “you” you can be proud of.

‘Amaze yourself; manifest your full potential.’

Mark Victor Hansen

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What were you put on earth to do? That’s a mind-blowing question, because most people don’t know the answer. Lots of folks get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, sit in front of the television and go to sleep. That’s their day. That is not anyone’s purpose in life. That’s not a life at all.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not throwing blame or fault. In most cases, they probably don’t know any better. This was how their parents lived each day; this was how they grew up. Maybe they think this is it – this is all life has to offer.

Well, I’m here to sound the wake-up call.

There’s a great scene in the movie “The Matrix” between Morpheus, a mentor, and Neo, his student. Neo has just woken up and discovered that what he thought was reality was just a world ‘that had been pulled over his eyes to shield him from the truth.’ Morpheus wants Neo to let go of what he used to think of as “reality,” his mundane, day-to-day existence, where his true purpose was neither recognized nor realized. I want you to create a new world, a new reality, where you recognize that you have a purpose for being on this planet, and realize that your purpose is waiting for you to figure it out.

If you don’t know your purpose, then your first purpose is to get a purpose.

When you look at the lives of the most successful people who ever lived, you can see that they had a definite purpose and they knew it. Some examples are: Christ – His purpose was spiritual, and stated in John 10:10, which reads: “I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly.”

Walt Disney’s purpose: “To make people happy.”

Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller’s purpose: “Humanity’s comprehensive welfare on spaceship earth.”

Henry Ford’s purpose: “To mass produce, mass distribute and have cars mass consumed.”

Andrew Carnegie’s purpose: “To manufacture and market steel.”

Mother Teresa’s purpose: “To care for and comfort the poor, sick and needy all over the world.”

I don’t want you to confuse a purpose with a goal. Goals are great! I teach goal setting, and believe it is crucial to achieving any kind of success. But goals alone, left by themselves, can be indiscriminate and undirected. We can have hundreds of goals (and I hope you do), but we may only have one purpose that we work for our entire life. That purpose should be the underlying core that gives our goals direction and meaning.

Discovering your purpose will put your life into crystal-clear perspective. You won’t see the world you once knew. You will see another world, one in which you are a necessary and intricate spoke in the wheel.

The saddest places on earth are graveyards. Not because people are buried there, but because dreams, talents and purposes that never came to fruition are buried there. Graveyards are filled with books that were never written, songs that were never sung, words that were never spoken, things that were never done.

You have talents and gifts that no one else can offer. There are things you can do that no one else is capable of doing quite the way YOU can do them. Don’t rob this earth of your purpose by taking it to the grave with you. You see, we all have a purpose, a reason for living, breathing and existing. We all have unique talents and gifts that were created and given to us to be shared. Our task is to understand this and figure out what our purpose is. We owe it to the Universe AND to ourselves!

“You will become as small as your controlling desire, or as great as your dominant aspiration.”

Mark Victor Hansen