It is not uncommon to hear people describe the successful, the peaceful, or the blessed with words like "lucky" or "fortunate." In fact, it can be tempting to view those who have the qualities, talents, or things we desire as just easy recipients of good fortune or fate. Or as some have announced, "I must have gotten in the wrong line when those things were being handed out."

The real truth is your life is the product of your thoughts. An individual's mind can be compared with a garden. If good seeds are not purposely planted, an abundance of weeds will spring up and cover the ground. But if you, the gardener, deliberately plant flowers or fruit and diligently remove all weeds, then your harvest will be plentiful and enjoyable.

You are the master gardener of your mind, and the thoughts you plant or allow to take root and grow will determine your life or harvest. That means that no circumstance arrives by chance. It is the result of the thoughts you have allowed to reside in your mind.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Your thoughts determine the words you speak over your life. For example, suppose you often hear yourself say the words, "I can't." These words will become part of your belief system. Your words then inspire certain actions. Actions become the blossom of your words and produce either joy or suffering as the fruit.

Either you will think, speak, and act in a way that brings you success, strength, or peace; or you will think, speak, and act in a way that forms the very weapons that will destroy your dreams. It has nothing to do with luck or chance or getting in the right line!

You will struggle with your present circumstance as long as you believe it is the result of something outside yourself. As long as you blame someone else or something else for your present sufferings, you will remain stuck in your circumstance.

It may be hard to accept but you attract what you either secretly love or fear. If you are fearful of illness, for example, your thoughts will draw that condition into your life. If your thoughts are full of positive concepts, gratitude, and peace, your circumstances will reflect that.

The outer world of your circumstances shapes itself to the inner world of your thoughts.

When you persist in a particular train of thought, whether it is positive or negative, it cannot fail to produce the circumstances that are in keeping with that thought. Therefore it is to your greatest benefit to guard your thoughts and to ruthlessly weed out anything that is not in keeping with your desired results.

If you are unwilling to improve yourself, you will remain bound and stuck in your present circumstance. Only when you cease to whine, complain, or blame others for your condition will you begin to experience change.

The truth is you are the lord and master of your thoughts, the maker, the shaper, the author of your environment. In order to change your circumstances you must change your thoughts.

You must be willing to go through a time of self-examination, self-control, and re-programming of your thought life. All those who practice these purposed steps begin to notice that the alteration in their circumstances has been in exact proportion to their altered mental condition!

While making those vital changes in your thought life will take time and persistence, it absolutely can be done; I've done it, and countless others have too. So if you desire a life of peace, joy, purpose, and prosperity, remember:

When you change your thoughts, you change your circumstances!