A positive attitude and self-belief as the secret of success is more than just motivational hype – it is a powerful phenomenon of the human brain. Find out about the expectant power of the brain and how you can use this to drive you to success.

There are many examples of optimism and a positive attitude breeding positive outcomes - in sport, massive swings of power are determined by positive and negative emotions. The same exists in everyday experiences - but the scoreboard is not as defined.

Of course, blind optimism is dangerous too – and that’s where goal setting works. It gives you the direction and the plan to achieve your personal success, and combined with a little motivation and a positive attitude – there’s just no stopping you!

Think of goals as your destination, action plans as your road map and motivation and attitude as the fuel for your car.

How does attitude make a difference?

Quite simply, if you believe in something enough – so it will be!

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the placebo effect – a doctor gives a patient a sugar pill, but tells them it’s a cure for their ailment. And what do you know, the patient gets better! Why? It’s not because sugar is a magical cure for everything, but it’s because the brain is so powerful, it can cure the body – but only if it believes it can.

This is known as the expectant power of the brain – if it expects an outcome, it will make that outcome happen. If your brain expects you to succeed – you will!

I remember writing a paper for a conference. There was a prize for the best paper and I initially thought to myself – I’m going to write the best paper and win that prize. So I wrote the paper. After presenting the paper at the conference, my confidence wavered – there were lots of good papers and mine just didn’t seem to stack up.

But despite my last minute jitters and doubts, my paper won – because I wrote the paper with a winning attitude [my doubt only crept in after it was all done and dusted].

So as far as I’m concerned – self-belief and a positive attitude really works!

But you need to REALLY believe – not just pretend to believe. You can’t trick your brain into expecting something if at the back of your mind you don’t think it will happen. You need to do more than just say it to yourself, you need to convince yourself – and this isn’t always easy to do.

And this is the secret of ‘The Secret’.

You may have heard of ‘The Secret’ – a system that guarantees you untold wealth and success. The system is based on the concept of the expectant power of the brain – believe and you will achieve!

More specifically, the system of ‘The Secret’ is:

Step 1: Ask – ask the "Universe" what you want. Whether it’s a promotion at work, a new house or even a better car park [as claimed by proponents of ‘The Secret’]. This step requires you to define exactly what you want.

Step 2: Believe – this is the crux of ‘The Secret’. You need to really and truly believe that you are going to get what you want. There’s no point pretending to believe to trick the universe [actually, your brain] into giving you what you want. You need to truly and honestly believe that this is going to happen.

Step 3: Receive – once you believe, then you will receive what you want!

But whether you believe the hype of ‘The Secret’ or not [I still can’t quite swallow being able to get a parking space using this system!], it does highlight the power of positive thinking and the expectant power of the brain – believe and you will receive!

And this power used in conjunction with a personal strategic plan for your success, which you can develop through the proven process of goal setting – is what will make you a success.