Pilots do a preflight check before they take off.  They run their checklist before they run their airplane.  They don't just wing it.  Aircraft are too complex, and too many things can go wrong if they take off without thoroughly checking all the systems on board.

Although flying an airplane is demanding, it's not nearly as challenging as making a life.  You only have one life, and you need to get things right the first time.  If the only way you learn is through trial and error, you will crash and burn dozens of times during your short stay on planet earth.

Pilots trains on simulators for hundreds of hours before they are allowed to fly.  Unfortunately, there are no simulators that train people in how to make a life.  Most of them are woefully unprepared for the challenges they face.  They blunder along doing the best they know how, hoping things eventually work out.  There has to be a better way.

People would be better off if they went through a checklist that prepared them for each day.

Every morning you should do a preflight check to make sure you know where you are going and have sufficient resources to make the trip.  Five minutes spent running your checklist will keep you from crashing and burning, and guarantee that you have a great day.

The twenty-six letters of the alphabet create a convenient way of remembering all of the items on your mental checklist.  These letters serve as a simple and convenient reminder that makes it easy to do a quick checkup from the neck up.  Your morning checklist will tell you if there is a problem, and if you find one,  what to do about it.

This checklist is only a suggestion.  Your can create your own Positive Mental Checklist tailored to your unique situation.  When I wake up in the morning, I run through my checklist to fill my mental tanks with fuel for the day.

A = Ambivalence 

Ambivalence is a dream slayer. 

Ambivalence tears us apart because who we are is heading in three different directions.  Our head wants one thing, our heart wants another, and our will is either unwilling or only too willing, and tramples our head and heart as it stampedes off on its own.

We feel like we are coming apart.  We don't feel like a whole person because we aren't a whole person.  We can't be whole until all parts of us head in the same direction.

Each time we face important decisions, we must ask ourselves three questions.

1.  Do I want it with my head?
2.  Do I want it with my heart?
3.  Am I willing to do whatever it takes?

If we answer no to any of those questions, we may as well stop where we are and resolve our ambivalence before we try to move ahead.  We will never achieve excellence and make our dreams come true while ambivalence rules our lives.

The only way to make our dreams come true is to get our heart, our head, and our will, all heading in the same direction.

B = Blessings

I have a choice.  I can either count my blessings or my problems.  Counting my blessings causes my problems to shrink, and soon I forget they exist.  Counting my problems makes my blessings shrink, and soon I forget that I have any.

When I don’t count my blessings, they disappear from my mind.  Although they are still there, if I don’t think about them, I forget about them.  Each day I need to remind myself of my blessings to keep them active in my mind.

When I wake up in the morning, I decide whether I am going to count my blessings or my problems.  That decision sets the tone for my entire day.  The best way to fill my cup with joy is to turn on my Good Finder and rediscover my blessings.

The things that are positive in my life far outnumber the negative.  When I focus on what is good, my mind replays my blessings all day long.  I must count my blessings or my blessings will not count.

C = Choose The Meaning Of My Life

My beliefs create my personal world and give my life its meaning.  They create the world as I believe it to be.  It’s my unique reality and is the only world I will ever know.  I created it and must live in it.

If I create a world full of limitations, dominated by my frailties, I suffer.  If I create a world full of possibilities and love, I prosper.  For my entire life, I am a prisoner of the world created by my thoughts.

In my personal world I choose the meaning of my life.  Each event is devoid of meaning until I decide what it means to me.  The choice I make determines whether I regard problems as catastrophes or opportunities.  There is never a good reason to interpret events in a negative manner.   No matter how negative a situation is, thinking negatively only makes it worse.  When I think positive, bad things become better things, and my life starts to improve.

I choose the meaning of the events in my life.  I choose to think positive and to live in a positive world.

D = Do The Loving Thing

If you choose to do the loving thing, you will navigate effortlessly through the moral universe.  Doing the loving thing is the way God means for us to live.  Love is the power of God at work in the world, and ultimately it's the world's only hope.

Choosing to do the loving thing is usually straightforward.  You don't need lawyers to parse the truth for you and tell you about love.  If you can't figure out what is the loving thing, you can ask a five year child, and he or she will explain it to you.

If you always do the loving thing, your spirit will grow strong in the power of God's love, and your mistakes will be few and far between.

If you do the legal thing, few people will criticize you.  If you do the right thing, most people will applaud.  If you do the loving thing, God will say well done, and the world will be a better place because you were here.

E = Eliminate Negative Thinking

When a negative thought enters your mind, you immediately must do four things.

First, learn the lesson it has to teach.

Second, take a positive action based on what the negative thought has taught you.

Third, think of two positive thoughts to displace the negativity from your mind.

Fourth, use your Power Graphics to push your mind in a positive direction.

F = Forgive

There is only one way to deal with resentment.  You must forgive.  Your forgiveness must be complete and permanent.  There is no room for compromise on this point.  Resentment is always bad and always hurts you.  You must treat resentment as if it was cancer.  It’s an inner malignancy that kills your spirit when left untreated.  Fortunately, God’s cure for resentment never fails.

When resentment pops into your mind, you simply forgive the person you resent and send them your love.  If you have trouble forgiving and sending love, you need to have a talk with God.  God has forgiven and forgotten all the things you have done wrong, and you are supposed to do the same with other people.  You must continue to forgive, forget, and send love until you no longer have a problem with resentment.  Don’t worry.  If you practice forgiving, forgetting, and sending love, soon you will become good at it, and resentment will no longer be a problem.  If you do a daily forgiveness check, the cancer of resentment will never destroy your life.

G = Go With God

Life is not meant to be a solo adventure.  You are to go with God.  You don’t have to sail on a single-handed voyage to your dreams, because God wants to make the trip with you.  Not only will He be your constant companion, He will also be your navigator and give you the strength to make the trip.

This is the first time you have sailed on the ocean of your dreams, but God has already made the trip innumerable times. For God the entire voyage is in familiar territory.  He knows the exact location of all the rocks and shoals that can destroy your dreams.  If you listen to what He has to say, you will escape unnecessary hardships that you would have brought upon yourself if you had tried to go it alone.  When you go with him, you know that you are heading in the right direction and that you will arrive safely at your destination.

H = Heart

The Bible says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”  Your heart is your home.  It’s where you live in a world of swirling emotions.  Although your thoughts control your emotions, it’s your emotions that rule your world.  If you want to take charge of your life, you must control the storm of thoughts blowing through your heart and mind.

To a great extent, your emotions rule your heart.  The Cardinal Law of The Heart is that feeling is believing.  You can tell when you really believe something because you feel it in your heart. Whether that feeling and belief are correct or not is a completely different issue.  If you feel it, you believe it, and it controls your life. Until you feel something in your heart, you don't really believe it, and it doesn't direct your life.

Your heart is your home, and you should feel comfortable there. It should feel good to be at home with yourself.  If you don't feel good inside, you need to make some changes in the way you think so that you can change the way you feel.

Your heart is like a calculator that sums up everything in your life. After it adds everything up, it tells you how to feel. When you feel bad, you need to change what you put into your mind so that things add up differently. When you count your blessings, and fill your mind with good things, your heart adds everything up, and you feel great. You must put good things into your mind if you want to feel good on the inside.  There is no other way.

I = I Will Live As If I Am A Great Person

I will live the rest of my life as if I am a great person. I will live as if my dreams are possible and work each day to make them happen. It doesn’t matter if I am ten years old or ninety years old, I can still live as if I am great.  Any age is the right age to work on my dreams, and any place is the right place to make them come true.

I don’t know how much time I have left, but in whatever times remains, I will live as if I am great. I will be all that I can be and do all that I can do.  I will find an area of excellence that I can develop and give to the world.  Planet earth will be a better place because I became great in one area.  I can never fail as long as I develop the excellence that I have within. I will live the rest of my life as if I am a great person

J = Jesus Is The Greatest Positive Thinker Who Ever Lived, And He Came To Change Your Expectations

Jesus is the greatest positive thinker who ever lived.  He was the original, one, and only true Positive Thinking Man.  Being positive wasn't a struggle for him.  He was positive to the very core.  He reflected and personified the most positive and most powerful force in the universe, God's unconditional love.

K = Kingdom of Love

Jesus said," Set your mind on God's Kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well."  Jesus knew that the focus of your mind will make or break you.  The right mental focus transforms your life into an awesome adventure.  The wrong focus puts you on a treadmill that wears you down and out.  You end up in Nowhere Land, and you miss out on God's dream for your life.

Since your mental focus expands, you need to check the focus of your mind.  If the only thing you focus on is stuff, dollars, houses, yachts, and youth, you will get stuff and nothing more.  You will grow old carrying a backpack of stuff through life, and eventually it will become an unbearable burden.  You will get everything you want except peace and happiness.

When you focus on God's Kingdom of Love and his way of doing things, you get it all.  You get peace, joy, happiness, and enough stuff to last a lifetime.  God does more than give you wealth.  He also gives you the ability to enjoy it.  When you focus on God's Kingdom and get in agreement  with him, you experience his purpose and plan, and He gives you everything you need.  God opens the windows of heaven, and his blessings fall all around.  God loves giving good things to his children.

Don't be like Esau and trade your birthright for a bowl of porridge.  Don't let your mental focus steal God's dream for your life.  Don't accept second or third best.

Go with God who is the source of all good things.  If you want to have it all, focus on God's Kingdom of Love.

L = God's Love Is The Most Powerful And Positive Force In The Universe

The most powerful force in the universe is God’s love.  The most positive force in the universe is God's love.  The most important fact in the universe is that God loves and accepts you the way you are, but He loves you too much to let you stay that way.  God loves you from the top of your head to the tip of your toes, and it doesn’t get any better than that.  There is no limit to how good your life can become when your heart and mind are full of God’s love.  You must experience the real power of maxing out on his love.

 

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