"Whatever thoughts you do elect to dwell upon"

"will presently be expressed in the outer physical world as things and events - but that is your lookout. Having thought certain thoughts, you have no power to change the outer consequences of these thoughts. Your choice lies in thinking or not thinking them in the first place.

If you do not wish certain consequences to come to you, your business is to abstain from thinking them in the first place, or from thinking the kind of thoughts that will ultimate in them. If you do not want an engine to start, you do not open the valve; if you do not want a bell to ring, you do not press the button; and so, if you really understand this fundamental principle, you will from now onwards watch your habitual thinking with utmost care.

Since it is true that the kind of thoughts that you hold in consciousness (the Secret Place) are presently going to be expressed in your outer life, in your body and affairs, you will no more think of holding inharmonious thoughts than you would think of eating or drinking something which was certain to make you very ill. Remember that whatever the mind dwells upon will sooner or later come into your experience. It does not at all follow that the particular thing you were thinking will be exactly what will happen - although sometimes it does.

For instance, if you think very much about disease, you are tending to undermine your health; if you think much about poverty and depression, you are tending to bring poverty upon yourself; and if you think about trouble, and strife, and dishonesty, you attract those."

- Emmet Fox