Mind Power - Positive thinking

1. Believe In Yourself!

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without
a humble but reasonable confidence in your own pow-
ers you cannot be successful or happy. But with self-con-
fidence you can succeed. A sense of inadequacy interferes
with the attainment of your hopes, but self-confidence
leads to self-realization and achievement. Because of the
importance of this mental attitude, this book will help you
believe in yourself and release your inner powers.
An appalling number of people are made miserable by
an inferiority complex. But you need not suffer from this
trouble. You can develop faith in yourself.
After a convention, a man approached me and asked,
“May I talk with you about a matter of desperate impor-
tance to me?” We went backstage and sat down.
“I’m in town to handle the most important business
deal of my life,” he explained, “but I don’t believe I can
put it over. I am discouraged and depressed. In fact,” he
lamented, “I’m just about sunk. Why is it that all my life I
have been tormented by inferiority feelings? I listened to
your speech tonight about the power of positive thinking,
and I want to ask how I can get some faith in myself.”
“There are two steps,” I replied. “First, it is important
to discover why you have these feelings. That requires
analysis and will take time, and may require treatment.
But to pull you through this immediate problem I shall
give you a formula. As you walk down the street tonight,epeat certain words I shall give you. Say them over
several times before your important appointment. Do
this with an attitude of faith and you will receive ability
to deal with this problem.” Following is the affirmation
I gave him: “I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). “Now, follow that
prescription, and things will come out all right.”
He pulled himself up, stood quietly for a moment, then
said with considerable feeling, “Okay, Doctor. Okay.”
I watched him square his shoulders and walk out. He
seemed a pathetic figure; yet the way he carried him-
self showed that faith was already at work in his mind.
Subsequently he reported that this simple formula “did
wonders” for him. He added, “It seems incredible that a
few words from the Bible could do so much.”
Of the various causes of inferiority feelings, not a few
stem from childhood. My own story is a perfect illustra-
tion. As a small boy I was painfully thin. I had lots of
energy, was on a track team, was healthy and hard as
nails, but thin. And that bothered me because I didn’t
want to be thin. I longed to be hard-boiled and tough and
fat. I did everything to get fat. I drank cod-liver oil, con-
sumed vast numbers of milk shakes, chocolate sundaes,
cakes and pies, but they did not affect me in the slightest.
I stayed thin and lay awake nights thinking and agonizing
about it. I kept on trying to get heavy until I was about 30,
when all of a sudden I bulged at the seams. Then I became
self-conscious because I was so fat, and finally had to take
off 40 pounds with equal agony to get myself down to
respectable size.
In the second place, practically every member of
my family was a public speaker, and that was the last
thing I wanted to be. They used to make me speak even
when it filled me with terror. I had to use every known
device to develop confidence in what powers the good
Lord gave me.
I found the solution in the simple techniques of faith
taught in the Bible. These principles are scientific and can
heal any personality of inferiority feelings. Their use can
release the powers which have been inhibited by a feeling
of inadequacy.
Such are some of the sources of the inferiority com-
plex which erect power barriers in our personalities. It is
some emotional violence done to us in childhood, or the
consequences of certain circumstances, or something we
did to ourselves.
This malady arises out of the misty past in the dim
recesses of our personalities. Perhaps you had an older
brother who was a brilliant student. He got A’s in school;
you made only C’s, and you never heard the last of it. So
you believed that you could never succeed in life as he
could. He got A’s and you got C’s, so you reasoned that
you were consigned to getting C’s all your life. Appar-
ently you never realized that some of those who failed to
get high grades in school have been the greatest successes
outside of school. Just because somebody gets an A in
college doesn’t make him the greatest man in the United
States, because maybe his A’s will stop when he gets his
diploma, and the fellow who got C’s in school will go on
later to get the real A’s in life.
The greatest secret for eliminating the inferiority
complex, which is another term for profound self-doubt,
is to fill your mind with faith. Develop tremendous faith
in God and that will give you realistic faith in yourself.The acquiring of dynamic faith is accomplished by prayer,
by reading the Bible and by practicing its faith techniques.
Go to a competent spiritual adviser and let him teach you
how to have faith. The ability to possess and utilize faith
must be studied and practiced to gain perfection.
To build up feelings of self-confidence, practice sug-
gesting confidence concepts to your mind. It is possible,
even in the midst of your daily work, to drive confident
thoughts into consciousness. Let me tell you about one
man who did so. While driving me to a lecture engage-
ment, he said, “I used to be filled with insecurities. But I
hit upon a wonderful plan which knocked these feelings
out of my mind, and now I live with confidence.”
This was the “wonderful plan.” He pointed to two clips
fastened on the instrument panel of the car and, reaching
into the glove compartment, took out a pack of cards. He
selected one and slipped it beneath the clip. It read, “If ye
have faith…nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Mat-
thew 17:20). He removed that one, selected another and
placed it under the clip. This one read, “If God be for us,
who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).
“I’m a traveling salesman,” he explained, “and I used
to drive around between calls thinking fear and defeat
thoughts. That is one reason my sales were down. But
since I have been using these cards and committing the
words to memory, the insecurities that used to haunt me
are just about gone. Instead of thinking thoughts of defeat
and ineffectiveness, I think thoughts of faith and courage.
It is wonderful the way this method has changed me. It
has helped in my business, too.”
This man’s plan is a wise one. By filling his mind with
affirmations of God, he had put an end to his sense of
insecurity. His potential powers were set free.
Lack of self-confidence apparently is one of the great
problems besetting people today. In a university a survey
was made of 600 students in psychology courses. The
students were asked to state their most difficult personal
problem. Seventy-five percent listed lack of confidence.
It can safely be assumed that the same large proportion is
true of the population generally. Everywhere you encoun-
ter people who are inwardly afraid, who shrink from life,
who suffer from a deep sense of inadequacy and insecu-
rity, who doubt their own powers. Deep within themselves
they mistrust their ability to meet responsibilities or to
grasp opportunities.
Always they are beset by the vague and sinister fear
that something is not going to be quite right. They do not
believe that they have it in them to be what they want to
be, and so they try to make themselves content with some-
thing less than that of which they are capable. Thousands
upon thousands go crawling through life on their hands
and knees, defeated and afraid. And in most cases such
frustration of power is unnecessary.
The blows of life, the accumulation of difficulties,
the multiplication of problems tend to sap energy and
leave you spent and discouraged. In such a condition the
true status of your power is often obscured, and a person
yields to a discouragement that is not justified by the
facts. It is vitally essential to reappraise your personality
assets.
Dr. Karl Menninger, the famous psychiatrist, once said,
“Attitudes are more important than facts.” That is worth
repeating until its truth grips you. Any fact facing us,
even the most hopeless, is not as important as our attitude.oward that fact. You may permit a fact to overwhelm
you mentally before you start to deal with it. On the other
hand, a confident thought pattern can modify or overcome
the fact.
So if you feel that you are defeated and have lost confi-
dence in your ability to win, sit down, take a piece of paper
and make a list, not of the factors that are against you, but
of those that are for you. If you or I think constantly of the
forces that seem to be against us, they will assume a for-
midable strength they do not possess. But if you mentally
visualize and affirm and reaffirm your assets, you will rise
out of any difficulty. Your inner powers will reassert them-
selves and, with the help of God, lift you to victory.
A sure cure for lack of confidence is the thought that
God is actually with you and helping you. This is one of
the simplest teachings in religion, namely, that Almighty
God will see you through. No other idea is so powerful
in developing self-confidence as this simple belief when
practiced. To practice it simply affirm, “God is with me.
God is helping me. God is guiding me.” Spend several
minutes each day visualizing His presence. Then practice
believing that affirmation. Go about your business on the
assumption that what you have affirmed and visualized is
true. Affirm it, visualize it, believe it, and it will actualize
itself. The release of power which this procedure stimulates
will astonish you.

2. A Peaceful
Mind Generates
Power

At breakfast in a hotel dining room, one man com-
plained of a sleepless night. He had tossed and
turned and was about as exhausted as when he retired.
“Guess I’d better stop watching the news before going to
bed,” he observed. “I tuned in last night and got an ear
full of trouble.”
Another man spoke up, “I had a grand night. Of
course, I used my go-to-sleep plan, which never fails
to work.”
I prodded him for his plan, which he explained as
follows: “When I was a boy, my father, a farmer, had
the habit of gathering the family in the parlor at bed-
time and he read to us out of the Bible. After prayers, I
would go up to my room and sleep like a top. But when
I left home I got away from the Bible reading and prayer
habit. For years practically the only time I ever prayed
was when I got into a jam. But some months ago my
wife and I, having difficult problems, decided we would
try it again. We found it a helpful practice, so now every
night before going to bed she and I together read the
Bible and pray. I don’t know what there is about it, but I
have been sleeping better and things have improved. In
fact, even on the road, as I am now, I still read the Bible
and pray. Last night I read the Twenty-third Psalm out

loud. He turned to the other man and said, “I didn’t go
to bed with an ear full of trouble. I went to sleep with a
mind full of peace.”
Well, there are two cryptic phrases for you—“an ear
full of trouble” and “a mind full of peace.” Which do
you choose?
The essence of the secret lies in a change of mental
attitude. 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 ex-
istence. The chief struggle then in gaining mental peace
is the effort of revamping your thinking to the relaxed
attitude of acceptance of God’s gift of peace.
As a physician said, “Many of my patients have noth-
ing wrong with them except their thoughts. So I have a
favorite prescription I write for some. It is a verse from
the Bible, Romans 12:2. I do not write out that verse for
my patients. I make them look it up. The verse reads:
‘Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ To
be happier and healthier they need a renewing of their
minds, that is, a change in their thoughts. When they
‘take’ this prescription, they actually achieve a mind full
of peace. That helps to produce health and well-being.”
A primary method for gaining a mind full of peace
is to practice emptying the mind. At least twice a day,
empty your mind of fears, hates, insecurities, regrets
and guilt feelings. To prevent unhappy thoughts from
sneaking in again, immediately fill your mind with cre-
ative and healthy thoughts. At intervals during the day
practice thinking a carefully selected series of peace-
ful thoughts. Let mental pictures of the most peaceful
scenes you have ever witnessed pass across your mind,
as, for example, the silvery light of the moon falling
upon rippling waters, or the sea washing gently upon
soft shores of sand. Such peaceful thought images will
work upon your mind as a healing medicine.
Repeat audibly some peaceful words. Words have
profound suggestive power, and there is healing in the
very saying of them. Use a word such as “serenity.”
Picture serenity as you say it. Repeat it slowly and in the
mood of which the word is a symbol.
It is also helpful to use lines from poetry or passages
from the Scriptures. A man of my acquaintance who
achieved a remarkable peace of mind has the habit of
writing on cards unusual quotations expressing peace-
fulness. He carries one of the cards in his wallet at all
times, referring to it frequently until each quotation
is committed to memory. He says that each such idea
dropped into the subconscious “lubricates” his mind
with peace. One of the quotations he used is from a
sixteenth-century mystic: “Let nothing disturb you. Let
nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except
God. God alone is sufficient.”
There are other practical ways by which you can
develop serenity and quiet attitudes. One way is through
your conversation. In a group when the conversation
takes a trend that is upsetting, try injecting peaceful
ideas into the talk. To have peace of mind, fill your
personal and group conversations with positive, happy,
optimistic, satisfying expressions.
Another effective technique in developing a peace-
ful mind is the daily practice of silence. Insist upon not less than a quarter of an hour of absolute quiet every 24
hours. Go alone into the quietest place available to you
and sit or lie down for 15 minutes and practice the art of
silence. Do not write or read. Think as little as possible.
Throw your mind into neutral. Conceive of your mind
as the surface of a body of water and see how nearly
quiet you can make it, so that there is not a ripple. When
you have attained a quiescent state, listen for the deeper
sounds of harmony and beauty and of God that are to be
found in the essence of silence.
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.