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We sold our house and my husband decided he wanted to take the satellite dish with us. As terrified of heights as he is, I asked him how much the dish was worth. How much would it cost to buy another one? To me, it seemed ridiculous to risk his life on something that was worth a few hundred dollars. I was the only one available to help him and I was scared to death. I pulled the rope on the extension ladder and watched it go higher and higher as he held it away from the house. Finally, it was in position and he started to climb. I stood on the concrete slab and watched the aluminum ladder shake each time he stepped on the next rung. Thoughts ran through my head. If he started to fall, what would I do? How fast could I dial "911"? Since I'm one who generally uses humor to make it through tough situations, I thought of yelling up to him, "Hey, if you fall, I'm not throwing myself down to cushion your fall," but decided this probably wasn't a good time. At one point, after chipping away at the sealant around the dish itself, he did temporarily lose his balance. My heart practically jumped out of my body, but I wasn't the only one it scared. He had to stop for a minute to regain his composure. I rotated between holding the ladder steady and pacing around it. I just knew he was going to fall.

As I was focusing on imagining the worst, it occurred to me that I had to stop inviting this tragedy to happen and visualize the outcome I wanted. Instead of picturing him falling off the ladder and dying right there in front of me, I switched gears and began to visualize him backing down the ladder. Over and over I pictured him backing down the ladder. I began to breathe a bit easier and calm down. After what seemed like hours, but in reality was probably no more than 20 minutes, he did just that. He carried the dish down the ladder and loaded it on the truck.

In thinking about it later, I couldn't help but think of the many times that I've thought the worst and then it happened. It seemed natural to say, 'I KNEW that was going to happen." Over the past few years I've become aware of the power we have to make our thoughts reality. This is often referred to as the Law of Attraction. It means that we attract the very thing we are thinking about, so if you are spending your time focusing on negative things, then you are actually attracting those things to you. If you are focusing on the positive, then you attract the positive.

Think about different situations in your life. What kind of attitude do you have in dealing with them? We had our house on the market for almost two years. All of that time I visualized a nice couple buying the house. I didn't know who they were, or when it would happen, but I focused on the result I wanted. I wrote about how grateful I was that we had a nice house to sell, and how good it felt to hold the check representing the profit in my hands. When people would ask about the house, I'd tell them that I knew it was going to sell - we were just waiting for that one buyer who was right for the house. Now I could have approached this differently, wringing my hands and saying, "Oh, that house is never going to sell. We're going to be stuck with it forever. I'm never going to be able to get out of that mortgage." It's true that the house might have sold anyway, even with my negative attitude, but what would it have benefited me? I would have spent two years feeling "oh woe is me" instead of feeling grateful for the blessing of owning the house.

Apply this principle to dealing with your children. Do you praise them when they do something good, or do you only find fault with them when they misbehave? If you're constantly nagging at your kids about how rotten they are, chances are they're going to live the part. If you can find just one good trait, praise them for it. We all love to be praised, don't we? If you show them that you're grateful they are your children, they'll be grateful you are their parent.

Same thing works with spouses. I remember hearing a story about a young couple who got married and she didn't want to give up the party life. She'd go out drinking every night while her husband stayed home. Each morning when he left for work he would prepare breakfast for her and tell her goodbye. Each morning she stayed in bed, suffering the effects of too much alcohol the night before. Still, he treated her like a queen. People in town thought it was such a shame that he was "stuck" in this rotten marriage. It just didn't seem fair. But after awhile, things began to change. One night she decided she just wanted to stay home, and she never went out partying again. Through his kindness to her, and believing that she could be the wife he wanted her to be, he got that wife. They have now been married over 40 years, and she'll be the first to tell you that it was his constant support that brought her back. If you're struggling with something in your life, take some time to look at how you're handling it. Are you imagining failure, or are you visualizing success?