Last week, I sat at my desk staring at another missed target report, feeling the weight of team pressure crushing down.

The numbers on my screen told a story I didn’t want to read — my team was falling behind, again.

Work is slow; pressure is high.

This moment of breakdown is becoming my breakthrough. I remembered a principle that had transformed my life before:

your mind will get you what you want, but only if you tell it exactly what to look for.

The power of shifted mindset.

When you have bad days, you either give up or tell yourself that you will face it and go through it.

When you face it, you learn to grow with real problem-solving lessons.

Take my current situation. Instead of seeing missed targets as failures, I’m making a conscious decision to view them as data points. Each obstacle is teaching me something that I need to improve.

This isn’t just my story. It’s a truth that neuroscience and psychology have been proving for decades.

Your mind quite literally creates your reality.

The Science Behind Your Mental GPS

Think of your mind as a GPS system.

When you program a destination — career goal, financial goal, personal achievement, your brain starts working like a navigation system. It constantly calculates routes to get you there.

Our brain has a reticular activating system(RAS). It is a network of neurons located in the brainstem that plays a crucial role in regulating alertness, wakefulness, attention, and filtering sensory information, essentially acting as a “personal assistant” who sorts through millions of pieces of information every day, highlighting only what’s relevant to your goals.

So, it begins filtering information differently and starts highlighting opportunities, connections, and resources that were always there but remained invisible because you weren’t programmed to notice them.

From Self-Doubt to Self-Direction

Here’s the exact system I’m using to rewire my mental GPS.

1. Define My Goals with Crystal Clarity.

Here’s what I do, and I highly recommend writing down your goals on a notepad or a piece of paper.

Specify exactly what success means to me and what I want. I write it down with sensory details — what will I see, hear, and feel when I achieve it?

I keep this written on a Post-it note on my monitor, making it the first thing I see each morning.

2. Installing My Mental Filters

Every morning, I spend 5 minutes visualizing my goal for the day.

This will program my RAS system to recognize relevant opportunities.

3. Start Documenting My Evidence

I’ve started a “Progress Journal” in Apple Notes. Every evening, I log:

• Small wins. (like a team member taking the initiative)
• Lessons learned from challenges.
• Ideas for improvement that come from unexpected places.

This creates a feedback loop that keeps me focused on growth rather than gaps.

4. Practice Positive Self Talk

Replacing “What if I fail?” with “How can I make this work?”

This simple shift transforms my anxiety into a problem-solving energy.

It’s Your turn to transform.

Your mind is already getting you what you’re focused on. The question is: are you intentionally directing that focus?

Start right now:

1. Take out a piece of paper
2. Write down one challenge you’re facing
3. Below it, write the opportunity hidden within it
4. List the specific actions you can take to seize that opportunity

Your mind will get you what you want, but you have to feed it a vision of what you are looking for.

Your mind is the most sophisticated technology you’ll ever own. It’s time to start using it as a powerful tool.

This is creativity, and that’s why we humans are creators.