it. They do not approach their work with that assurance of victory which attracts, which forces results, that determination and confidence which knows no defeat.
To be ambitious for wealth and yet always expecting to be poor, to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach East by traveling West. There is no philosophy which will help a man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure.
The man who would succeed must think success, must think upward. He must think progressively, creatively, constructively, inventively, and, above all, optimistically.
You will go in the direction in which you face. If you look towards poverty, towards lack, you will go that way. If, on the other hand, you turn squarely around and refuse to have anything to do with poverty,—to think it,—live it, or recognize it—you will then begin to make progress towards the goal of plenty.
Many of us work at cross purposes, because, while we would like to be rich, we believe in our hearts that we shall not become so, and our mental attitude, the pattern which the life processes follow, makes impossible the very thing we are working for. It is our penury attitude, our doubt and fear, our lack of self-faith and of faith in the all-abundant, infinite supply, that makes us poor.
You must not play the part of a poor man while you are exerting all your energy to make money. You must get into a prosperous mental attitude. As long as you carry about a poorhouse atmosphere with you, you will make a poorhouse impression; and that will never attract money.
There is a saying that every time the sheep bleats it loses a mouthful of hay. Every time you allow yourself to complain of your lot, to say, “I am poor; I can never do what others do; I shall never be rich; I have not the ability that others have; I am a failure; luck is against me,” you are laying up so much trouble for yourself, making it all the more difficult to get rid of these enemies of your peace and happiness, for every time you think of them they will go a little deeper and deeper into your consciousness.
Thoughts are magnets which attract things like themselves. If your mind dwells upon poverty and disease, it will bring you poverty and disease. There is no possibility of your producing just the opposite of what you are holding in your mind, because your mental attitude is the pattern which is built into the life. Your accomplishments are achieved mentally first.
If you are always thinking of poor business, preparing for it, expecting it, are always complaining about the times and conditions and fearing that business is going to be bad, it will be bad—for you. No matter how hard you may work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors, and make success impossible.
The terror of failure and the fear of coming to want and of possible humiliation keep multitudes of people from obtaining the very things they desire, by sapping their vitality and incapacitating them, through worry and anxiety, for the effective, creative work necessary to give them success.
The habit of looking at everything constructively, from the bright, hopeful side, the side of faith and assurance, instead of from the side of doubt and uncertainty; and the habit of believing that the best is going to happen, that the right must triumph; the faith that truth is bound finally to conquer error, that harmony and health are the reality and discord and disease the temporary absence of it—this is the attitude of the optimist, which will ultimately reform the world.
Optimism is a builder. It is to the individual what the sun is to vegetation. It is the sunshine of the mind, which constructs life, beauty, and growth in everything within its reach. Our mental faculties grow and thrive in it just as the plants and trees grow and thrive in the physical sunshine.
Pessimism is negative, it is the darkened dungeon which destroys vitality and strangles growth.
A fatal penalty awaits those who always look on the dark side of everything, who are always predicting evil and failure, who see only the seamy, disagreeable side of life. They draw upon themselves what they see, what they look for.
Nothing has power to attract things unlike itself. Everything radiates its own quality, and attracts things which are akin. If a man wants to be happy and wealthy, he must think the happy thought, hold the abundance thought, and not limit himself. He who has a mortal dread of poverty generally gets it.
Stop thinking trouble if you want to attract its opposite. Stop thinking poverty if you want to attract wealth. Do not have anything to do with the things you have been fearing. They are fatal enemies to your advancement. Cut them off. Expel them from your mind. Forget them. Think the opposite thoughts just as persistently as you can, and you will be surprised to see how soon you will begin to attract the very things for which you long.
The menial attitude which we hold toward our work or our aim has everything to do with what we accomplish. If you go to your work with the attitude of a slave lashed to his task, and see in it only drudgery; if you work without hope, see no future in what you are doing beyond getting a bare living; if you see no light ahead, nothing but poverty, deprivation, and hard work all your life; if you think that you were destined to such a hard life, you cannot expect to get anything else than that for which you look.
If, on the other hand, no matter how poor you may be today, you can see a better future; if you believe that some day you are going to rise out of humdrum work, that you are going to get up out of the basement of life into the drawing-room, where beauty, comfort, and joy await you; if your ambition is clean-cut, and you keep your eye steadily upon the goal which you hope to reach and feel confident that you have the ability to attain, you will accomplish something worthwhile.
Keeping the faith that we shall some time do the thing which we cannot now see any possible way of accomplishing, just holding steadily the mental attitude, the belief that we will accomplish it, that somehow, some way, it will come to us, the clinging to our vision, gets the mind into such a creative condition that it becomes a magnet to draw the thing desired.
I have never known a man who believed in himself and constantly affirmed his ability to do what he undertook, who always kept his eye constantly on his goal and struggled manfully toward it, who did not make a success of life. Aspiration becomes inspiration and then realization.
Try to keep your mind in an uplifting, upbuilding attitude. Never allow yourself for an instant to harbor a doubt that you are finally going to accomplish what you undertake.
These doubts are treacherous, they destroy your creative ability, neutralize ambition. Constantly say to yourself, “I must have what I need; it is my right and I am going to have it.”
There is a great cumulative, magnetic effect in holding in your mind continually the thought that you were made for success, for health, for happiness, for usefulness, and that nothing in the world but yourself can keep you from it.
Form a habit of repeating this affirmation, this faith in your ultimate triumph; hold it tenaciously, vigorously, and after a while you will be surprised to find how the things come to you which you have so longed for, yearned for, and struggled towards.
I have seen a man, when all the results of half a lifetime of struggle and sacrifice had been swept away by financial disaster, when he had nothing left but his grit and determination, and a great family of hungry mouths to feed, who would not even for an instant admit that he would not get on his feet again. There was no use talking discouragement to that man! You might as well have tried to discourage a Napoleon. With clenched fists, and a determination which did not recognize defeat, he kept his eye resolutely on his goal and pushed on. In a few years he was on his feet again.
A man was not intended to be a puppet of
