What we think about, dwell on and focus on will always set the course for our lives, whether it is positive or negative, success or failure, victory or defeat. But amazingly, few people know and understand this and even fewer believe it. Believe it or don't believe it; the battle will always take place in the mind.

I like to think of thoughts as seeds. Seeds have a planting and germinating process. If they are planted and nourished, they will produce. Someone once said that you can't always help it if a negative thought comes into your mind, but you can certainly keep it from incubating.

It's so true! Just because a thought comes into your mind doesn't mean you need to harbor that thought and entertain it. You can simply dismiss it. Or, you can keep it and let it settle. You cannot, however, entertain two thoughts that are opposite to each other.

In the physical world, how do you get rid of darkness? Simply by introducing light. Light and darkness are opposites.

The same is true with cold and heat. Hot and cold are opposites, just as light and darkness are opposites. One replaces or neutralizes the other.

Now when it comes to our thinking and our thoughts, we just cannot think two opposite thoughts at the same time. Have you ever tried? If not, here's an experiment you can do right now.

Picture a building in your mind. Make this building a very, very tall building and, at the same time, make this building a very short building. You can't do it!

You cannot picture the same building as a very tall building and a very short building at the same time. That's because tall and short are opposites. Want to try another?

Picture a car at a racetrack going one-hundred and fifty miles an hour and at the same time see the car going twenty miles and hour. You cannot picture it because fast and slow are opposites.

You cannot hold two opposite thoughts in your mind at the same time. One will simply overwrite the other. That is how the Creator designed our brains to work. This is such a great advantage for us!

The thoughts that you hold in your mind are the thoughts that you are planting and nourishing, and they will grow. The question is, "What kind of crop you want to harvest?"

Get busy planting and nourishing the seeds that you want to harvest. If a farmer wants to harvest wheat and corn, does he just sit all day and do nothing, and then hope that maybe someday he could harvest some wheat and corn? No. He plants seeds and nourishes them.

What kind of seeds does he plant? Wheat and corn, of course! It's so simple and so very obvious in so many categories of life. And, it works just as accurately and precisely in our minds.

You must decide what you truly desire, and then start planting and nourishing the seed. When those destructive, negative, defeating thoughts pop in, drive them out, by replacing them with what you desire.

Your thoughts will truly bring to you courage or discouragement; success or failure; confidence or fear. It is always in your own power to choose which thoughts you will hold in your mind. Changing your thinking is absolutely required if you want to change your circumstances.

The Creator gave us all free will. You can choose to think whatever thoughts you want to think. But remember, you are and you will be a product of the thoughts that you have planted and nourished. The Bible says, "As he thinks in his heart so is he."