How many times has it happened to you? You're great out of the gate toward a goal.You feel the wind blow by you as you build momentum and you begin to change your life! Then you look around and realize, you're right back where you started.

How can we change our lives if we end up no further along than we were before? In the course of coaching entrepreneurs in 54 countries I have listened to everyone of them express experiences of moving forward and falling back, or at least, having their momentum come to a screeching halt. Why does that happen?

The place you start to make the difference and learn how to change your life is in taking control of your mindset. Briefly, your mindset is like your filter to the world. It catches all of the things the world throws at you and only allows through the things you have requested. With your mindset properly engaged, many of the things that distract us and kill our momentum can be eliminated. But how to take control?

To take control of your mindset you must bring together seven simple, but powerful elements that combine to create your mindset.

First, you must have awareness. You have to know where you are in all areas of life.

Next you must have a vision. It is vital to have a vision of where you want to go so that you can maintain momentum.

Third is your purpose. If you don't know why you want to go where your vision is taking you, it is very easy to just give up.

Fourth is belief. When we try to force ourselves to focus beyond our level of belief, we find that we stand still in fear and never make any progress.

Next, you need to use forgiveness. Not just other people, but yourself. Every time we attempt and fail, we layer another feeling of guilt or resentment on ourselves. We have to forgive in order to move forward.

The sixth element is gratitude. By learning to appreciate what is good in your life, you give yourself a finer focus on more things to be grateful for. This tunes you mindset to seek those things out.

Finally, you need a bias for action. We have to do something if we want to build any kind of momentum. One step at a time is much more valuable than standing in fear and not taking any steps.

Any of those seven elements can help you in life, but combining them all into your mindset is what sets you up for success. If you'd like more information about how to change your life by building your mindset, I'd like to offer you two free chapters from my new book, Flip the SWITCH. Just go to http://themindsetmaven.com/fallback .