Jul 8, 2022
The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
Too many people are defeated by the everyday problems of life
You can permit obstacles to control your mind to the point where they are uppermost and thus become the dominating factors in your thought pattern
Believe in yourself
A sense of inferiority and inadequacy interferes with the attainment of your hopes, but self-confidence leads to self-realization and successful achievement
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me
First, it is important to discover why you have these feelings of no power
If ye have faith…nothing shall be impossible unto you
If God be for us, who can be against us?
We build up the feeling of insecurity or security by how we think. If in our thoughts we constantly fix attention upon sinister expectations of dire events that might happen, the result will be constantly to feel insecure. And what is even more serious is the tendency to create, by the power of thought, the very condition we fear
Attitudes are more important than facts
Feelings of confidence depend upon the type of thoughts that habitually occupy your mind. Think defeat and you are bound to feel defeated. But practice thinking confident thoughts, make it a dominating habit, and you will develop such a strong sense of capacity that regardless of what difficulties arise you will be able to overcome them
Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain
The secret is to fill your mind with thoughts of faith, confidence, and security. This will force out or expel all thoughts of doubt, all lack of confidence
Rules for overcoming inadequacy attitudes and learning to practice faith
1. Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding
Never think of yourself as failing; never doubt the reality of the mental image. That is most dangerous, for the mind always tries to complete what it pictures. So always picture “success” no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment
2. Whenever a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind, deliberately voice a positive thought to cancel it out
3. Do not built up obstacles in your imagination. Depreciate every so-called obstacle
4. Do not be awestruck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as YOU can
5. Ten times a day repeat these dynamic words, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”
6. Get a competent counselor to help you understand why you do what you do. Learn the origin of your inferiority and self-doubt feelings which often begin in childhood. Self- knowledge leads to a cure
7. Ten times each day practice the following affirmation, repeating it out loud if possible. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
8. Make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 percent. Do not become egotistical, but develop a wholesome self-respect. Believe in your own God-released powers
9. Remind yourself that God is with you and nothing can defeat you. Believe that you now RECEIVE power from him
One must learn to live on a different thought basis, and even though thought change requires effort, it is much easier than to continue living as you are. The life of strain is difficult. The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence
Practice emptying your mind of fears, hates, insecurities, regrets, and guilt feelings. The mere fact that you consciously make this effort to empty your mind tends to give relief
At intervals during the day practice thinking a carefully selected series of peaceful thoughts. Let mental pictures of the most peaceful scenes you have ever witnessed pass across your mind
Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented, and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful. Such attitudes are active and definite factors in creating satisfactory conditions
To have peace of mind, fill your personal and group conversations with positive, happy, optimistic, satisfying expressions
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves
Silence is a healing, soothing, healthy practice
The mind quickly responds to teaching and discipline. You can make the mind give you back anything you want, but remember the mind can give back only what it was first given. Saturate your thoughts with peaceful experiences, peaceful words and ideas, and ultimately you will have a storehouse of peace-producing experiences to which you may turn for refreshment and renewal of your spirit. It will be a vast source of power
How we think we feel has a definite effect on how we actually feel physically. If your mind tells you that you are tired, the body mechanism, the nerves, and the muscles accept the fact. If your mind is intensely interested, you can keep on at an activity indefinitely
The body is designed to produce all needed energy over an amazingly long period of time. If the individual takes reasonable care of his body from the standpoint of proper diet, exercise, sleep, no physical abuse, the body will produce and maintain astonishing energy and sustain itself in good health
The natural state of the individual when body, mind, and spirit work harmoniously is that of a continuous replacement of necessary energy
No obsessions, no disorganizations, no conflicts, no mental quirks, no emotional instability
Our physical condition is determined very largely by our emotional condition, and our emotional life is profoundly regulated by our thought life
Our energies are destroyed because of the high tempo, the abnormal pace at which we go
The surest way not to become tired is to lose yourself in something in which you have a profound conviction
You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired doing nothing. You don’t have to be tired. Get interested in something. Get absolutely enthralled in something. Throw yourself into it with abandon. Get out of yourself. Be somebody. Do something
The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have. You don’t have time to think about yourself and get bogged down in your emotional difficulties
The pressure, monotony, and unceasing continuity of responsibilities dull the freshness of mind which a person must have to approach his work successfully
The man who assumes success tends already to have success. People who assume failure tend to have failure
WHO DECIDES WHETHER you shall be happy or unhappy? The answer — you do!
People were just about as happy as they made up their minds to be
Many of us manufacture our own unhappiness. Of course not all unhappiness is self-created, for social conditions are responsible for not a few of our woes. Yet it is a fact that to a large extent by our thoughts and attitudes we distill out of the ingredients of life either happiness or unhappiness for ourselves
We manufacture our unhappiness by thinking unhappy thoughts, by the attitudes which we habitually take, such as the negative feeling that everything is going to turn out badly, or that other people are getting what they do not deserve and we are failing to get what we do deserve
Affirm happy outcomes at the start of every day, and you will be surprised at how often things will turn out so
The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised
We need to stop fuming and fretting and get peaceful if we are to have power to live effectively
To help reduce this tension which seems to dominate our people everywhere, you can start by reducing your own pace. To do that you will need to slow down, quiet down. Do not fume. Do not fret. Practice being peaceful
To win this or any race, row slowly
Slow down, for whatever you really want will be there when you get there if you work toward it without stress, without pressing
Stop at intervals and affirm, “I now relinquish nervous excitement — it is flowing from me. I am at peace.” Do not fume. Do not fret. Practice being peaceful
Six points to reduce the tendency to fume and fret:
1. Sit relaxed in a chair. Completely yield yourself to the chair. Starting with your toes and proceeding to the top of your head, conceive of every portion of the body as relaxing
2. Think of your mind as the surface of a lake in a storm, tossed by waves and in tumult. But now the waves subside, and the surface of the lake is placid and unruffled
3. Spend two or three minutes thinking of the most beautiful and peaceful scenes you have ever beheld
4. Repeat slowly, quietly, bringing out the melody in each, a series of words which express quietness and peace
5. Make a mental list of times in your life when you have been conscious of Mother Nature
6. Repeat the following, which has an amazing power to relax and quiet the mind: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” (Isaiah 26:3)
If you expect the worst you will get the worst, and if you expect the best you will get the best
‘If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.’ (Mark 9:23)
Change your mental habits to belief instead of disbelief. Learn to expect, not to doubt. In so doing you bring everything into the realm of possibility
“Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that insures the successful outcome of your venture.” — William James
Things become better when you expect the best instead of the worst, for the reason that being freed from self-doubt, you can put your whole self into your endeavor, and nothing can stand in the way of the man who focuses his entire self on a problem. When you approach a difficulty as a personal unity, the difficulty, which itself is a demonstration of disunity, tends to deteriorate
People are defeated in life not because of lack of ability, but for lack of wholeheartedness. They do not wholeheartedly expect to succeed. Their heart isn’t in it, which is to say they themselves are not fully given. Results do not yield themselves to the person who refuses to give himself to the desired results
A major key to success in this life, to attaining that which you deeply desire, is to be completely released and throw all there is of yourself into your job or any project in which you are engaged
Throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow
“Beware of what you want for you will get it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
You can reach your goal, your best dreams can come true, you can get where you want to go only if you know what your goal is
“A man who is self- reliant, positive, optimistic, and undertakes his work with the assurance of success magnetizes his condition. He draws to himself the creative powers of the universe.”
The first thing to do about an obstacle is simply to stand up to it and not complain about it or whine under it but forthrightly attack it
There is no difficulty you cannot overcome
Faith in yourself is the chief quality you need
When you keep asserting that things are going to work out well, that you can do the job, by talking up good results you invoke the law of positive effects and good results occur
The only possible way you can have an attitude is by the mental process, and what you think about your obstacles largely determines what you do about them
The rough is only mental. In other words, it is rough because you think it is. In your mind you have decided that here is an obstacle which will cause you difficulty. The power to overcome this obstacle is in your mind. If you visualize yourself lifting that ball out of the rough, believing you can do it, your mind will transfer flexibility, rhythm, and power to your muscles and you will handle that club in such a manner that the ball will rise right out of there in a beautiful shot. All you need to do is to keep your eye on that ball and tell yourself that you are going to lift it out of that grass with a lovely stroke. Let the stiffness and tension go out of you. Hit it with exhilaration and power. Remember, the rough is only mental
What may seem to be a difficult proposition is hard or easy in proportion to how we think about it
William James pointed out that the greatest factor in any undertaking is one’s belief about it
Thoreau told us that the secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind
To live long: keep busy, use moderation in all things, eat light and simple, get a great deal of fun out of life, go to bed and wake up early, be free from worry, fear, and death, and have a serene mind and faith
Whatever you believe you can do, you can do
Believe that for every problem there is a solution. Keep calm. Tension blocks the flow of thought power. Your brain cannot operate efficiently under stress. Don’t try to force an answer. Keep your mind relaxed so that the solution will open up and become clear
Many people suffer poor health not because of what they eat but from what is eating them. Emotional ills turn in upon yourself, sapping your energy, reducing your efficiency, causing deterioration in your health. And of course they siphon off your happiness
Infants can “catch” fear and hatred from people around them more quickly than they can catch measles or other infectious diseases. Fortunately infants can also catch love and goodness and faith and so grow up to become normal, healthy children and adults
It is never worth it to get worked up or mad about anything
When a hurt-feeling situation arises, get it straightened out as quickly as possible. Don’t brood over it for a minute longer than you can help. Do something about it
“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” — William James
Fill your mind with fresh, new creative thoughts of faith, love, and goodness
You can think your way to failure and unhappiness, but you can also think your way to success and happiness
The world in which you live is not primarily determined by outward conditions and circumstances but by thoughts that habitually occupy your mind
“A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.” — Marcus Aurelius
“A man is what he thinks about all day long.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is a deep tendency in human nature to become precisely like that which you habitually imagine yourself to be.”
Conditions are created by thoughts far more powerfully than conditions create thoughts
Think positively and you set in motion positive forces which bring positive results to pass
To change your circumstances, first start thinking differently. Do not passively accept unsatisfactory circumstances, but form a picture in your mind of circumstances as they should be. Hold that picture, develop it firmly in all details, believe in it, pray about it, work at it, and you can actualize it according to that mental image emphasized in your positive thinking
Keep the idea of prosperity, of achievement, and of attainment firmly fixed in your mind. Never entertain a failure thought
Nothing on earth is greater than the human mind in potential power. The average individual is capable of much greater achievement than he has ever realized
You can make just about anything of your life — anything you will believe or will visualize, anything you will work for
Whatever your situation may be, you can improve it. First, quiet your mind so that inspirations may rise from its depths.
Hold firmly in your mind a picture not of failure but of success.
A person fails to live a creative and successful life is because of error within himself. He thinks wrong. He needs to correct the error in his thoughts. He needs to practice right thinking.
The great secret of successful living is to reduce the amount of error in oneself and increase the amount of truth. An inflow of new, right, health-laden thoughts through the mind creatively affects the circumstances of life, for truth always produces right procedures and therefore right results.
Deliberately speak hopefully about everything, about your job, about your health, about your future.
Do everything more slowly, less hectically, and without pressure
In any situation be relaxed, keep calm, take a friendly attitude, have faith, do your best. Do this, and usually you can make things come out all right
Don’t get the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. Don’t strain so hard. Don’t take yourself so seriously
Determine to like your work. Then it will become a pleasure, not drudgery. Perhaps you do not need to change your job. Change yourself and your work will seem different
Get a correct mental attitude, remembering that ease or difficulty in your work depends upon how you think about it. Think it’s hard and you make it hard. Think it’s easy and it tends to become easy
Practice being relaxed. Easy always does it. Don’t press or tug. Take it in your stride
Discipline yourself not to put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Accumulation of undone jobs makes your work harder. Keep your work up to schedule
You will never get everybody to like you
Don’t deflate people. Build them up and they will love you for it
Whomever you help to build up and become a better, stronger, finer person will give you his undying devotion. Build up as many people as you can. Do it unselfishly. Do it because you like them and because you see possibilities in them. Do this and you will never lack for friends. You will always be well thought of. Build people up and love them genuinely. Do them good and their esteem and affection will flow back toward you
Learn to remember names
Don’t be egotistical. Guard against giving the impression that you know it all. Be natural and normally humble
Practice liking people until you learn to do so genuinely
Get a deep spiritual experience so that you have something to give people that will help them to be stronger and meet life more effectively. Give strength to people and they will give affection to you
Everyone should work hard, but there is no virtue in overtrying or overpressing to such an extent that you do not work efficiently
#SharedFromTwos ✌️
