The presence of any thought or idea in your consciousness tends to produce an associated feeling and to urge you to transform that feeling into appropriate muscular action that is in perfect harmony with the nature of the thought.
For example, if you think of winking your eyelid and there are no counter influences or thoughts in your mind at the time to arrest action, the motor nerve will carry your thought from the seat of government, in your brain, and appropriate or corresponding muscular action takes place immediately.
Stating this principle from another angle: You choose, for example, a definite purpose as your life-work and make up your mind that you will carry out that purpose. From the very moment that you make this choice, this purpose becomes the dominating thought in your consciousness, and you are constantly on the alert for facts, information and knowledge with which to achieve that purpose. From the time that you plant a definite purpose in your mind, your mind begins, both consciously and unconsciously, to gather and store away the material with which you are to accomplish that purpose.
Desire is the factor which determines what your definite purpose in life shall be. No one can select your dominating desire for you, but once you select it yourself it becomes your definite chief aim and occupies the spotlight of your mind until it is satisfied by transformation into reality, unless you permit it to be pushed aside by conflicting desires.
To emphasize the principle that I am here trying to make clear, I believe it not unreasonable to suggest that to be sure of successful achievement, one’s definite chief aim in life should be backed up with a burning desire for its achievement. I have noticed that boys and girls who enter college and pay their way through by working seem to get more out of their schooling than do those whose expenses are paid for them. The secret of this may be found in the fact that those who are willing to work their way through are blessed with a burning desire for education, and such a desire, if the object of the desire is within reason, is practically sure of realization.
Science has established, beyond the slightest room for doubt, that through the principle of Auto-suggestion any deeply rooted desire saturates the entire body and mind with the nature of the desire and literally transforms the mind into a powerful magnet that will attract the object of the desire, if it be within reason. For the enlightenment of those who might not properly interpret the meaning of this statement I will endeavor to state this principle in another way. For example, merely desiring an automobile will not cause that automobile to come rolling in, but, if there is a burning desire for an automobile, that desire will lead to the appropriate action through which an automobile may be paid for.
Merely desiring freedom would never release a man who was confined in prison if it were not sufficiently strong to cause him to do something to entitle himself to freedom.
These are the steps leading from desire to fulfillment: First the burning desire, then the crystallization of that desire into a definite purpose, then sufficient appropriate action to achieve that purpose. Remember that these three steps are always necessary to insure success.
I once knew a very poor girl who had a burning desire for a wealthy husband, and she finally got him, but not without having transformed that desire into the development of a very attractive personality which, in turn, attracted the desired husband.
I once had a burning desire to be able to analyze character accurately and that desire was so persistent and so deeply seated that it practically drove me into ten years of research and study of men and women.
George S. Parker makes one of the best fountain pens in the world, and despite the fact that his business is conducted from the little city of Janesville, Wisconsin, he has spread his product all the way around the globe and he has his pen on sale in every civilized country in the world. More than twenty years ago, Mr. Parker’s definite purpose was established in his mind, and that purpose was to produce the best fountain pen that money could buy. He backed that purpose with a burning desire for its realization and if you carry a fountain pen the chances are that you have evidence in your own possession that it has brought him abundant success.
You are a contractor and builder, and, like men who build houses out of mere wood and brick and steel, you must draw up a set of plans after which to shape your success building. You are living in a wonderful age, when the materials that go into success are plentiful and cheap. You have at your disposal, in the archives of the public libraries, the carefully compiled results of two thousand years of research covering practically every possible line of endeavor in which one would wish to engage. If you would become a preacher you have at hand the entire history of what has been learned by men who have preceded you in this field. If you would become a mechanic you have at hand the entire history of the inventions of machines and the discovery and usages of metals and things metallic in nature. If you would become a lawyer you have at your disposal the entire history of law procedure. Through the Department of Agriculture, at Washington, you have at your disposal all that has been learned about farming and agriculture, where you may use it should you wish to find your life-work in this field.
The world was never so resplendent with opportunity as it is today. On every hand there is an ever increasing demand for the services of the man or the woman who makes a better mouse-trap or performs better stenographic service or preaches a better sermon or digs a better ditch or runs a more accommodating bank.
This lesson will not be completed until you shall have made your choice as to what your definite chief aim in life is to be and then recorded a description of that purpose in writing and placed it where you may see it every morning when you arise and every night when you retire.
Procrastination is—but why preach about it? You know that you are the hewer of your own wood and the drawer of your own water and the shaper of your own definite chief aim in life; therefore, why dwell upon that which you already know?
A definite purpose is something that you must create for yourself. No one else will create it for you and it will not create itself. What are you going to do about it? and when? and how?
Side note: Every line a man writes, and every act in which he indulges, and every word he utters serves as inescapable evidence of the nature of that which is deeply imbedded in his own heart, a confession that he cannot disavow.
Start now to analyze your desires and find out what it is that you wish, then make up your mind to get it. Lesson Three will point out to you the next step and show you how to proceed. Nothing is left to chance, in this Reading Course. Every step is marked plainly. Your part is to follow the directions until you arrive at your destination, which is represented by your definite chief aim. Make that aim clear and back it up with persistence which does not recognize the word “impossible.”
When you come to select your definite chief aim just keep in mind the fact that you cannot aim too high.
Also keep in mind the never-varying truth that you’ll get nowhere if you start nowhere. If your aim in life is vague your achievements will also be vague, and it might well be added, very meager. Know what you want, when you want it, why you want it and HOW you intend to get it. This is known to teachers and students of psychology as the WWWH formula—what, when, why and how.”
Read this lesson four times, at intervals of one week apart.
You will see much in the lesson the fourth time you read it that you did not see the first time.
Your success in mastering this course and in making it bring you success will depend very largely, if not entirely, upon how well you follow ALL the instructions it contains.
Do not set up your own rules of study. Follow those laid down in the Course, as they are the result of years of thought and experimentation. If you wish to experiment wait until you master
