The Power of Positive Thoughts

Is it possible that the world’s greatest achievers think completely differently from the majority?
 
Do you think the Wright brothers could ever have achieved what they did if they hadn’t believed it could be done?  Was Mark Spitz’s seven gold medals in swimming a result of "I can’t do this"? 
 
Have you ever thought that success in any chosen subject be it financial, political, sporting or in anything for that matter could be and was achieved whilst the individual was in a state of negativity? i.e. I can’t do that - That’s not possible – It will never work.
 
I myself have been in the company of negative thinkers and let me tell you that their influence if allowed to go unchecked is very powerful and destructive. “Look at what happens if you place a piece of rotting fruit in a bowl of fresh fruit” This is why it is paramount that if you want to be successful in life, you must surround yourself with positive thinking individuals and to share your positive thoughts and attitudes with like-minded people.
 
It is also equally important that you write your goals down and place them in a position where you can see and read them on a daily basis.
 
In the late 1950’s, 1500 students of Yale University were sent a questionnaire with topics ranging from the quality of food being served in the canteen to how easy it was to get books out of the library. However, these are the last two questions which I would like to dwell on.
 
Do you have an ambition in your life?
Have you written it down?
 
Twenty-five years later, a postgraduate on discovering the existence of the questionnaires decided to carry out further research on the last two questions. Here are the results of his findings.
 
Over 75% of the students who completed the questionnaire had ambitions for their lives.
Only 3.3% had actually written their ambitions down.
 
After tracking down as many of the 3.3% (51 students) as he could he found that all of them had gone on to realize their dreams – in commerce, in government and in the professions.
 
Of the others he had managed to contact, they told him that most of what they had achieved had happened more by chance than design. They had ended up in careers they hadn’t planned for because they didn’t define what it was, they were actually seeking to do. Is it therefore conclusive that by writing your goals down you are actively programming or reprogramming your brain to change the way you subconsciously perceive?
 
Not having been party to the experiment, which was carried out at YALE, I can neither confirm or deny it. However, I would like to carry out my own mini experiment to try and prove / disprove the power of positive thinking.