Do you struggle to achieve what you know you are capable of? Do you have creative insights, great ideas, and talent, but somehow don't put it all together? Or, are you successful in your endeavors, but only in fits and starts? Does your success feel arbitrary and not reproducible? If these statements describe you, don't beat yourself up, they are typical of many of us.

The tragedy is that you are missing out on enjoying the successful outcomes of your ideas, talents and desires and that others, who are eager for your contributions and wisdom, are not benefiting from what you have to offer.

James Allen the author of a slim masterpiece called, "As a Man Thinketh" written in 1902, wrote: "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of his thoughts." We are only as successful as our thoughts allow us to be.

Endless research about successful people has shown that they are convinced that they will achieve what they want. It's not that they are luckier than you, smarter, or know more of the right people. Their thoughts lead them to success - often after years of trail and error. Consider Edison, Ford and the Wright brothers whose innumerable failed attempts led to enormous success. Their way of thinking welcomed failures as a step closer to success.

Are you tired of allowing your unique talents and abilities to flounder, sputter and stall? If so, 8 Steps for Preparing Your Mind for Success can liberate your mind and thoughts to create the conditions of life and work for which you yearn. But you must be really ready to make it happen. No lip service or half-hearted intentions. Change will only occur when you are prepared to do the work.

8 Steps to Preparing Your Mind for Success

1. Identify Your Heart's Desire:

First begin with a Vision of Life and Work that is bigger than anything you have yet dared. Vision isn't a list of chores and a to-do list, how demotivating is that? A Vision is something that inspires, motivates, and makes you feel excited and alive and, if you accomplish it,will fulfill your heart's desire.

Write down what you want to feel when you are at work or working in your business. With pen in hand just write for 3 pages, yes, 3 handwritten pages. Don't take your pen off the paper, don't think, don't edit or worry about spelling, punctuation or feeling self conscious about what you have written. Go for It.

After you have completed this, check out how you feel: Is your heart racing? Do you feel excited, uplifted and energized? Do you feel happy? Great!

2. Pay attention:

What follows your initial positive reactions. Are you beginning to feel uncomfortable, anxious and doubting? Are there intruding thoughts that are creating a downward pull? Listen closely, what are you saying to yourself? The negative energy barriers in your life are your self-limiting beliefs. And self-limiting beliefs are things that we say to ourselves over and over again. They are long held habits of thought that create behaviors of avoidance, procrastination, self-sabotage, doubt and defeat. And, guess what - we all have them.

Do you think to yourself, "Oh I'll never finish this. Someone else has already done this and better. I don't have the time, the money, the energy". Sound familiar? Buddhists call these thoughts, "hungry ghosts". They haunt us, often for decades, and they feed off of and remain vibrantly alive because we spend so much time focusing on them rather than on our positive intentions of creating success.

3. Write down what your hungry ghosts are saying:

Pay attention for one full week to your self-limiting beliefs. Stay vigilant and don't go unconscious. Keep a journal handy to write down your Negative Intentions (all those no's and fears) that often determine our actions more powerfully than Positive Intentions. Concretize them and determine the cost you are paying by holding on to them.

You can't get rid of them by pretending that they don't exist. That's just denial and self-delusion. Rather, treat them as real entities and thank them for trying to keep you safe, but tell them that you will no longer give them your time, energy or hope. Remember, you are in charge of what you think.

4. Tell people who believe in you:

What these ghosts incessantly whisper to you. Ask them to help you to see yourself in the positive ways that they see you. If you don't have someone like that in your life, maybe it's time to get yourself a good coach or therapist.

5. The Work:

One of the best approaches that I know to undo these limiting and often crippling beliefs is found in "Loving What Is", by Byron Katie. Her process, known as The Work, provides a formula for testing out the veracity of these thoughts and turning them around.

In a simplified version here is her formula. It is best done by writing it down one step at a time:

a) What is the limiting belief (if there are several, analyze them one at a time.
b) What do you really want?
c) Is that belief true?
d) Can you absolutely know that it is true?
e) How do you react when you think that belief?
f) Who would you be without that belief?
g) Turn it around (in other words, "I am not smart enough," can be 'turned around' by writing, "I have all the knowledge I need. What I don