Written goals can serve as a contract with yourself. The goals must be your own goals and not those of someone else, such as your parents or your spouse. The reason the goals need to be yours is that you are not likely to develop a burning desire to succeed unless the goals belong to you. The goals should be measurable. After all, if you cannot measure your goals, how will you know that you have accomplished them?
THE GREATEST WASTE of all is the waste of our own potential mind power. The famous Harvard professor and psychologist William James estimated that the average person uses only 10 percent of his mental power. He has unlimited power—yet he uses only about one-tenth of it. The power to be what you want to be, to get what you desire, and to accomplish whatever it is you are striving for abides within you. You are the one who is responsible for bringing it forth and putting it to work...
In the grand aim of life, some worthy purpose should be kept constantly in view, and every effort to accomplish it must be made every day. If you do that, you will, perhaps unconsciously, approach the goal of your ambition. When a person has formed a great sovereign purpose in her mind, it governs her conduct just as the laws of nature, such as the law of gravity, govern the operation of physical things. It is highly significant that the Creator provided man with control over nothing except the power to shape his own thoughts and the privilege of fitting them to any pattern of his choice....
All riches, of whatsoever nature, begin as a state of mind; and let us remember that a state of mind is the one and only thing over which any person has complete, unchallenged right of control. It is highly significant that the Creator provided man with control over nothing except the power to shape his own thoughts and the privilege of fitting them to any pattern of his choice....
As the Executive Director of the Foundation, I am invited to many functions and choose to attend some periodically. Several years ago, I was invited to a meeting of the Guideposts organization in Cleveland, Ohio. Guideposts is a very prestigious group that is operated today by the successors of Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the bestselling author of many books, but best known for The Power of Positive Thinking. This event was held in one of Cleveland’s most famous hotels...
Nobody can define success for someone else, but the desire to be successful is the starting point for everyone. Success should bring you personal contentment with your own life while you strive to make the world a better place in which to live. A personal commitment to do something that you have a passion for will help you to develop a life that truly matters...
The book you are about to read is excerpted from a series of lessons on success that Napoleon Hill wrote in 1941 at the urging of Dr. William Plumer Jacobs of Clinton, South Carolina. Dr. Jacobs was president of Presbyterian College, owner of Jacobs Press, and consultant to many textile mill owners. He had heard Mr. Hill lecture a year earlier, was impressed, and believed that a self-help course and lecture series by Mr. Hill would help South Carolina and its neighboring states emerge from the lingering effects of the Great Depression...
Fear takes away your strength and breeds inaction, which means that even if you have ideas and plans, you will not take the necessary steps to accomplish your goals...
Belief is a state of mind that is essential for maximum results. You may say that belief is faith that you will reach a positive outcome that can be used to achieve success. Belief is faith that should be active or applied in your everyday plans....