When my cousins and I get together we have a blast. As a child, our parents made it a point to get together every weekend.  We would play games like hide and go seek, go to the park, and play board games.  Now, our game of choice is poker.  And yes, we play with real money.

I love playing poker with my family. I love the rivalry, the trash talking and the bragging rights the winner has for years to come.  It has been years since I played with my cousins last and I was a little nervous about it.  You see, I like to win, and I needed to win… but I wasn’t feeling that confident about it.

After losing the first game I put my mindset hat on. In my mind I made the decision that I wanted to win and then in my mind I kept saying, I’m going to win,  I’m going to win.  I even started saying it out loud.  “I’m going to win! I’m going to take all your money.”  And the trash talking continued “Sure Anne, you keep telling yourself that.”

We started the game with 12 of us and then slowly the group got smaller. I’m going to win, I thought.  The doubts crept in, but I wanted those bragging rights so badly.  So I forced my imagination to see myself winning in my mind.  Throughout the game that’s all I did.  Suddenly, I started getting amazing cards and I started taking the remaining players out.  In the past I never got cards that good, and now I was getting them hand after hand.  I desperately wanted those bragging rights to rub in my cousins faces that I beat them!

Not only did I win, but I also made $60! Thinking it was a fluke, my cousins couldn’t accept me winning so they coaxed me to drive to New Jersey to play a rematch.  So I played again, and I did the exact same thing I did in the prior game.  I decided I was going to win, I visualized it in my mind and I kept on affirming it out loud.  “You might as well just give me your money now because I’m going to win”.  I visualized, I pictured winning.  I pictured holding the money, the bragging the gloating, everything.  Sure enough I won again.

Achieving your goals is about having the right mindset. The right tools and the right thinking will help you achieve exactly what you want and it will give you an advantage.  Whether it’s winning a game, building your business, attracting clients or making more money using these tools in your day to day life will help you in more ways than you can imagine.