Self-Encouragement By Self Suggestion
He only is beaten who admits it.
How can you expect to get the maximum of efficiency when worry, fear, anxiety, discouragement, or melancholy are sapping twenty-five, fifty, or seventy-five per cent of your mental energy? You must clear the mind of its enemies; otherwise you pay the penalty in exhausted vitality, in wasted energy.
Every time you feel fear coming into your mind, shut it out as quickly as possible and apply the antidote – fearlessness, assurance. Picture yourself as absolutely fearless. Say to yourself, “I am no coward. Cowards fear and cringe and crawl but I am a man. Fear is a child’s fraillty. It is not for grown-ups. I positively refuse to stoop to such a degrading thing. Fear is an abnormal mental process and I am normal. Fear can not influence me, for I will not harbor it. I will not allow it to cripple my career.”
The man who has acquired the power of keeping his mind filled with the thoughts which uplift and encourage, the optimistic thought, the cheerful, hopeful thought, has solved one of the great riddles of life.
Chapter 6
The Crime Of The “Blues”
A troubled brain can not think clearly, vigorously, logically. Worry clogs the bring and paralyzes the thought.
Faith is the great antidote for worry. We fear because we can not see the way. Faith sees the way.
The man who can smile when everything seems to go against him shows that he is made of winning material, for no ordinary man can do this.
There is no place in civilization for the morose, gloomy, or despondent man. Nobody wants to live with him. Everybody is dejected and depressed in his presence, and tries to get away from him. There is nothing more contagious than mental depression and the “blues.”
A man who is at the mercy of his disposition can never be a leader, a power among men.
You are not capable of correct judgment, of using good sense, where there is fear or doubt or despondence in your mind. Sound judgment comes from a perfectly working brain, unclouded, untroubled faculties. Never act upon that which is suggested when you are in a state of fear and anxiety. When fear is in the mind, the mental forces are scattered and we are not capable of vigorous concentration. Calmness, poise, balance, mental serenity are absolutely essential to the most effective thinking.
The art of arts is to learn how to clear the mind of its enemies, – enemies of our comfort, happiness, and success. It is a great thing to learn to focus the mind upon the beautiful instead of the ugly, the true instead of the false, upon harmony instead of discord, life instead of death, health instead of disease, and is not always easy, but it is possible to everybody. It requires only a little skillful thinking, the forming of the right thought habits.
The best way to keep out darkness is to keep the life filled with light; to keep our discord, keep it filled with harmony; to shut our error, keep the mind filled with truth, to shut out ugliness, contemplate beauty and loveliness; to get rid of all that is sour and unwholesome, contemplate all that is sweet and wholesome. Opposite thoughts can not occupy the mind at the same time.
The world has little use for the man who has not sand enough in him to brace up and be a man when he meets with failure.
Chapter 7
Change the Thought, Change The Man
If you are vacillating, if you lack decision, just assume a decisive mental attitude. Constantly affirm that you are able to decide wisely, firmly, finally. Do not allow yourself to think that you are weak.
One of the cruelest things one can do to another is to reproach him for his deficiencies, peculiarities, or weaknesses. What such a person wants is encouragement and help, not additional handicap.
No one can help another very much when he sees in him a hopeless picture. On the other hand, you can make a person do almost anything when you show him his possibilities and make him believe in himself.
Chapter 8
The Paralysis Of Fear
Fear and worry make us attract the very things we dread.
Fear in all its different phases of expression, such as worry, anxiety, anger, jealousy, timidity, is the greatest enemy of the human race. It has robbed men of more happiness and efficiency, has made more men cowards, more people failures or forced them into mediocrity, than anything else.
Fear is a great robber of power. It paralyzes the thinking faculties, ruins spontaneity, enthusiasm, and self-confidence. It has a blighting effect upon all one’s thoughts, moods, and efforts. it destroys ambition and efficiency.
No matter what your need is, put it into the hands of faith. Do not ask how or why or when. Just do your level best, and have faith, which is the great miracle worker of the ages.
Chronic worriers are always deficient in faith.
The secret of achievement is concentration. Worry or fear of any kind is fatal to mental concentration and kills creative ability. When the whole mental organism is vibrating with conflicting emotions, efficiency is impossible. The things which makes us prematurely old, which wrinkle our faces, take the elasticity out of our step, the bloom from the cheek, and which rob us of joy are not those which actually happen.
Fear benumbs initiative. It kills confidence and causes indecision, makes us waver, afraid to begin things, suspect and doubt. Fear is a great leak in power. There are plenty of people who waste more than half of their precious energy in useless worry and anxiety.
Our sense of fear or terror is always in proportion to our sense of weakness or inability. When conscious of being stronger than that which terrorizes weaker persons, we have no sense of fear.
Chapter 9
One With The Divine
The secret of all health, prosperity, and happiness is being in conscious union with the Divine.
The closer we are to Divinity, the nearer we are to the limitless source of things. When we feel strongest, when we feel conscious of the power which is back of the flesh, but not of it, when we feel that we are in touch with Divinity, our power is greater and our supply larger.
Every time a man does wrong he weakens himself by so much. Every time we do wrong, every time we depart from the truth, every time we commit a dishonest, unworthy act, do a mean, contemptible thing, we lessen the Omnipotent grip upon us, and then we become a party to all sorts of fears, apprehensions, dreads, and doubts.
The moment we feel conscious that our union with the Great Source of things is broken, we are filled with uncertainty and apprehension; we feel a sense of helplessness, which makes us weak, timid, apprehensive. Fear, anxiety, worry, are positive evidence that we have lost our divine connection and strayed from home, that we are out of tune with the Infinite, and in discord with principle.
The very idea of persistently holding the thought that one is divinely upheld, the thought that no harm can possibly come to him while he is thus ensconced in the Divine Presence destroys all fear and worry; restores confidence, and multiples power.
Chapter 10