I spend the majority of my speaking time and my writing time actually talking about and describing the concept around the one thing that separates very successful people from just average and mediocre people. That one thing, when I get the question asked of me, is mindset.

Now, the next question that follows up behind it is, "okay, great, it's mindset, now what does that mean? What is a mindset made of?" The people that usually ask that question are the ones that are trying to improve their lives, they want to do more.

Most of us have tried to improve ourselves through some type of self improvement program, be it personal or professional. It could be goal setting, or relationships. It could be, how to make more money, or any number of things, we've all seen all kinds of them.

My gosh, I've spent thousands of dollars going to personal development programs, reading the books, all of that stuff. And we all set off with the highest enthusiasm, with the loftiest intentions, but what eventually happens is, we fade or we just flat out fail to achieve what it is we've set out to do.

One of the things that really gets to a lot of people is that, when they're at a seminar, when they're reading a book, when they're doing a program, when they're in that environment, it all seems very easy. It all seems very real. Very tangible.

But as soon as you get out of the original environment, it's very difficult to maintain. That was the thing that sent me on my journey twelve plus years ago. To discover what that difference between people was. And the difference is the key to it all. Because it's not everybody that experiences that letdown. It's the majority, but it's not everybody.

You see, there are a few that can get into those same programs, they go through the same things, but they not only have success, they maintain success. That's where I came up with mindset being the answer.

A lot of people were talking about mindset, still are today. The problem I had with it, it was very vague. Nobody really said what it was made up of, you either had it or you didn't.

Mindset, I've discovered is made up of six different things. Six elements that need to be brought together. Those elements are purpose, belief, vision, gratitude, forgiveness and action. Now, all six of them individually are very powerful. But once you bring all six of them together, you become absolutely unstoppable.

You can have a certain amount of success, with only a few of them. You can be missing some of them and still experience a certain degree of growth and maintain it for a while. But what eventually happens is that what we build ends up crashing over the area that we don't have.

It's like building a house on a foundation and you only put half of the foundation in place. Eventually, that place where you don't have the foundation crashes and you have to start all over again. You're right back where you were. Except from a personal standpoint, you've got the extra baggage of having failed and that brings you down even further.

So first of all, we've got to have the awareness that mindset is there. Now that we've got the awareness, we can begin to build those areas individually and allow them to come together and magnify their effectiveness once they're all in place.

The first one is purpose.

Purpose is your why! Purpose is the reason that you're doing something. Purpose is the thing that drives you and provides the fire behind what it is you want to accomplish.

Belief. Belief is a very mysterious thing for a lot of people, but it doesn't have to be. It can be very tactical. You can actually get control of it and put it in place, but your belief has to align with your purpose. If you have this incredible burning desire, this amazing purpose to go do something, but in your heart and your head, you don't believe that you can go do it... it does you no good. It just burns out. It doesn't provide you anything.

The next one is vision. Vision provides clarity so that you can recognize the opportunities of what's in front of you. The clearer your vision, the better off you are because you'll be able to move through your day and recognize, oh, I need to do this in order to fulfill my vision. Oh here's an opportunity I didn't realize was there before. It helps to guide you through everything that you're trying to do.

After that, is gratitude. Gratitude is very misunderstood in a lot of cases, but really, gratitude fuels it all. More importantly, it actually helps to tune your belief and your vision. When you find a way and recognize how you can be grateful for the things that you have right now in your life, it helps to tune you toward what you want to bring into your life. So gratitude helps you really refine where it is you're headed and it helps to keep you moving as well.

Now, the next one, I probably get the most looks about and most misunderstanding at first until people really get exposed to it and that's forgiveness. What does forgiveness have to do with success? Well, forgiveness exposes and then casts off the anchors of resentment, guilt, indecision, things that hold people in place for decades. Some of them die with it and never realize what they were capable of because they had a forgiveness issue holding them back.

Finally, number six is action.

Action is the keystone. Nothing happens without action and your action needs to be in alignment with everything else. You can do all of the other five in your head. That's no big deal. But until you get into action, actually putting something out there, it's very difficult to make anything happen.

There are different types of action as well, inner action, outer action, obvious actions, intuitive actions, but the bottom line is, something has to happen or none of it will ever matter.

If you'd like to get a better understanding of those six elements of personal choice and how they can program you for success, what I want you to do is go to http://www.themindsetmaven.com/10free . Put in your email address and I'll send you a series of ten videos that help you to understand the concept of mindset and how it can actually position you for lifelong success.

It's not pie in the sky, it's not anything crazy or way out there, just very simple, easy to understand, easy to apply principles that you can take control of your life with and go enjoy the life that you've always dreamed of. So go to http://www.themindsetmaven.com/10free and I'll see you on the other side.