You and I live in a world full of diverse influences that surround us everywhere we turn.

Some of these influences are positive but the huge majority are negative. If you do not stay alert, these negative influences can hinder you in your pursuit of your dreams.

Hence the question,

There are at least 5 main negative influences that can become obstacles in our lives. Today we will look at two of them.

You were born a champion. This means you were born to win!

However you might be saying, “then how come I am not always winning in life?” Great question. The answer? The influence of negative words.

The number of negative words that you heard during even your first five years of life is horrendous. And to make things worse, you believed them, not only then but throughout your life until now (or until the day you recognized this fact and made a decision).

So how can you turn this around?
Every great action starts with a great decision. Here, I highly recommend two decisive actions:

• Make a decision to draw close to your Creator through His Son. (Read John 1:12, 1 John 1:1-10).
• Make a decision to stop listening to and believing negative words.

Follow up – take action every day by:

• Reading the Bible.
• Reading at least 10 days (every day) of a non-fiction book that will motivate, inspire or increase your knowledge and intelligence in some area of learning.
• Listening to at least one good mp3/Cd or mp4/dvd of motivational or practical teaching that will challenge you to take action in some area of your life.

Fear is a major problem in so many lives. In fact most of us have some degree of fear to contend with.

What is fear?
Fear is faith in reverse. Fear is faith in evil.

This means:
Fear is believing for the worst, while faith is believing for the best.

Could this be true? How many times have you heard the expression: “we fear the worst in this situation”. What is this? Believing for the worst, right?

So how can you turn this around?
Start focusing on faith. You can strengthen your faith muscle by what you read, watch and what you listen to.

Train your mind to expect the best. How? Make daily declarations that will lead your mind to always focus on the very best outcomes for any situation in your life. You may not always see everything happen just as you planned, BUT you will be sure to see outcomes that will be good.

Follow up – take action every day by:
The same action steps that are found in the negative words section, apply here also.

Emphasis:
Do make sure that you add a good portion of Bible reading to your daily reading schedule. Why? Because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

If you are not willing to forgive, your life will be bitter and your dreams will be hindered.

What does the lack of forgiveness do?

• It seduces your mind to look back and live in the past, re-enacting negative situations over and over again.
• It causes you to become bitter, resentful and angry.
• It will stop you from enjoying good healthy relationships in the present and future.

So how can you turn this around?

• Forgiveness is a decision, not an emotion. Decide to forgive.
• To forgive means you also release the situation from your mind and life.
• Trust is often confused with forgiveness. Trust is earned. Forgiveness is a decision.

Deal with these three obstacles (negative words, fear and lack of forgiveness) and you will take a major step forward in creating a clear path that will make it easier to pursue your dreams.

This is the first article in a series: “Are You Free To Follow Your Dreams”.

• Are You Free To Follow Your Dreams?
• Lack of Vision Will Hinder Your Dreams
• Negative Emotional Attachments Will Suffocate Your Dreams