What are you saying to yourself during the day? Are you focused on all the reasons why you can’t be successful? Are you thinking of the many reasons why you won’t be able to pay bills or grow your business? Once you get control of your inner thoughts, then you can replace negative, defeating self talk with words that can guide you to accomplishment and success.

Self-talk that is focused on gratitude for all that you already have is a good place to start in rewriting your inner script. This goes beyond just having a positive mental attitude, and is reality based and not just some pie-in-the-sky new age magic. There is no question that what you focus on expands. This means that when you start to think of all the ways that you are already blessed with abundance, you will begin to attract more of the same. No matter how pessimistic you may have been in the past, you can find many areas where you have abundance in your life that you can be grateful for.

Start by making a gratitude list. Do you have food to eat on a regular basis? There are billions of people in this world who don’t have enough to eat, so you can start your gratitude list there. You may not be living the life you want yet, but do you have a place to sleep at night that offers some protection from the elements and people who might want to do you harm? Again, there are plenty of people living without any type of protective shelter or security. Can you read? Can you see, smell, touch, hear? This may sound trite, but starting with the basics allows you to get into the mood of being thankful for what you have, and is a good way to train your mind to see what you have instead of what you don’t have.

Try the exercise described above for a few weeks. After you write your gratitude list, return to it daily to add to it or reread what you have already written. Think about how it makes you feel to acknowledge your abundance. Keep the list with you and refer to it every time you find yourself stuck on a self-defeating script or a limiting idea of lack or problem consciousness. When you find that you are starting to become solution conscious, act on the ideas that come to you and add your ability to find solutions as an item on your gratitude list!

Matt Pasquinilli is the author of The Child Whisperer and Behavior Coaching and is the Executive Director of the Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio.