You can If you Think you can
by Norman Vincent Peale
One
The persistence Principle: It's Always too soon to quit
Never talk Defeat
Change your thinking to meet problems in a positive, constructive
way.
Call on your Grit
"The Quitter",
by Robert W. Service
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit:
It's keeping-your-chin-up that's hard.
It's easy to cry that you're beaten-and die;
It's easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight-
Why, that's the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each grueling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try-it's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.
Keeping at it gets results
The Perception Principle
To be effective, the persistance principle must be supported by another
vital principle-the perception principle and the power that derives from
it.
You must see yourself as you really are and deal with yourself on that
honest basis.
Call on your inner potential
In day-to-day activities we are often confronted by situations where our
ability to think positively and never give up is called upon.
Keep on keeping on
1. When tackling a problem the number-one thing is, never quit attacking.
Always use the persistance priciple.
2. Remember-you can get over those big mountains of difficulties by
thinking over them.
3. Adopt the motto, "It's always too soon to quit." Keep it going.
4. Use upbeat words. Never talk down. Speak the Good Word.
5. Plugging away will win the day.
6. Master the perception principle. Learn to know yourself. Know the real
person deep within you.
7. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
8. Do not let circumstances defeat you. With your mind, control
circumstances. You can if you think you can.
9. Just keep on keeping on-just keep trying-for that will do it. Keep
going. It can turn out O.K.
10. And God bless you all the way.
Two
So What's your problem? You can handle it
"Every problem contains the seeds of its own solution."
Wanted: No more problems
Problems, a Sign of Life
Problems constitute a sign of life. The more problems you have, the more
alive you are.
The chief problem is how to cope
Three procedures were vital to the successful handling of problems: (1)
knowledge, (2) thought, and (3) belief; or to put it another way, know,
think, believe.
Have a Problem? Congratulations!
You Can think your way through anything
Cool it when a problem comes
All the ideas you need to handle any problem are all about you, both
within and without you mind.
Freddie the Thinker
Free Ice Water
A Success Formula that works
1. A problem is inherently good, not inherently bad as is commonly
supposed.
2. Only alive people have problems. And the more you have, the more
alive you are. So be glad you have problems.
3. Get all the possible know-how about your problem. Knowledge of the
problem is a key to successful solution.
4. When a problem comes, do not react emotionally-cool it.
5. The mind will not function when it is hot, only when it is cool and
factual.
6. Think-the successful idea is always in your mind. Think it out.
7. Believe you can. Believe it is possible to solve your problem.
Tremendous things happen to the believer. So believe the answer will
come. It will.
Three
Time of the Mad Atom
by Virginia Brasier
Uptight? Tense? How to cool it and relax
The age of the half-read page
And the quick hash and the mad dash
The bright night with the nerves tight
The plane hop-the bright stop
The brain strain and the heartpain
The catnaps till the spring snaps
And the fun's done.
The Spell of the Yukon
Robert Service
1. You do not have to be uptight. You can control tension if you think
you can.
2. Remember that the relaxed though power-driven life is not easily
attained. It must be cultivated. So start to work at it now. Practice
and continue practicing.
3. Practice the getting of transquillity by passing peaceful words and
thoughts through your mind daily and nightly. They have a strange
healing quality.
4. Reduce as many of the noise decibels from your environment as
possible.
5. Seek within your religion for peace of mind. It is there for you.
6. Look inside and get at the deeper cause of your nervous tension.
7. Eradicate any unhealthy attitude pattern which is keeping you stirred
up in your deep unconscious.
8. Unhurry yourself.
9. Put your trust in God and just go calmly on your way.
Four
Motivation that really motivates
1. It puts the fire within you-the fire that gets the inner power
going.
2. It reveals your own talents. Do you really know your own potentially?
Search for it, for it's there. Then release it.
3. Don't be a hold-out-be an all-out.
4. And whatever you do, never be a half-a-minder.
5. Remember that the most powerful motivation is spiritual motivation.
So expose yourself to the spiritual.
6. Keep alert to the magic motivational word that can reactivate and
change you from indifferent to dynamic living.
7. Associate with motivational people.
8. Cultivate motivational ideas; ideas that pulsate with go power.
9. In adversity keep motivated, for often the best comes from
difficulty.
10. Image your goal. Hold that image in consciousness. Keep that image
always before you and your goal will materialize.
Five
Keep on believing in yourself-Have confidence
1. Remember that self-trust is the first secret of success. So trust
yourself.
2. Having learned to believe in yourself, be like Lombardi's football
stars: Go at life with abandon; give it all you've got. And life will
give all it has to you.
3. Have confidence that you can draw the best, not the worst, to
yourself.
4. Be sure to image right, for we tend to become as we see ourselves. So
see yourself confidently.
5. Never let any mistake cause you to stop believing in yourself. Learn
from it and go on.
6. If you've never really found yourself, do so. Then you'll start
liking yourself, and with good reason.
7. You can if you think you can. Engrave those seven words deeply in
consciousness. They are packed with power and with truth.
Six
You can if you think you can
1. You can if you think you can. As you think, so shall it be. Then
think that you can and you can, indeed.
2. Remember Thomas A. Edison's dynamic statement: "If we did all the
things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves."
3. As Rudyard Kipling says, "We have forty million reasons for failure
but not a single excuse."
4. There may not be a tiger in your tank, but there for sure is an eagle
in your mind.
5. Be glad you were never told what you couldn't do. And if you have
been, repudiate the statement.
6. Drop the word "impossible" from your mental processes.
7. "This world is moving so fast that the man who says it can't be done
is interrupted by someone doing it."
8. You can make the impossible possible.
9. Never-never-settle for defeat.
10. You can be greater than anything that can happen to you.
Seven
What are you afraid of? Forget it!
1. Two great forces operate in the mind: fear and faith. Fear is very
powerful, but faith is more powerful.
2. Faith power in the mind, like adrenalin in the body, can release
amazing powers within you in crisis.
3. And remember, the same power is there within you apart from crisis
and may be drawn upon always to keep fear down.
4. Take a long, straight look at your fear. Know it for the ghostly
thing it is and stand firmly up to it. Practice the strong action
technique.
5. When you are afaird, do the thing you are afraid of and soon you will
lose your fear of it.
6. Self-knowledge and insight will overcome fear. This may require
professional counseling. When you know the origin of your fears you are
then in a position to deal with them.
7. Develop a strong, healthy-minded faith. Fear will wither as your
faith grows.
8. Commit the following statement to memory and say it now and then: "I
sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
-Psalm 34:4"
Eight
Expect a Miracle-Make miracles happen
1. First, expect a miracle and keep your sense of wonder going.
2. Have motivation, a deep inner self-belief, and never let anyone or
anything take it from you. Remember Walt-Disney.
3. Be proud you live in a country where miracles can happen-where you
can make dreams come true.
4. Always think upbeat-think hopefully. Never let thought paralysis get
into your mind.
5. Miracles are made not only from dreams, but from everyday
nonglamorous facts like thinking and working and keeping on keeping on.
6. Keep probing for the tremendous quality built into you which has not
yet emerged.
7. Always be on the lookout for the big idea that can change your
life.
8. Know that you are yourself a miracle. And believe you can make
miracles happen-by thinking, praying, believing, working, and by helping people.
9. Remember that miracles are made by people who can because they think
they can.
Nine
Bored? Frustrated? Fed Up? What to do about it
"Life has lost its meaning for me."
"I'm fed up."
"That gripes me."
"Everything's a mess."
"I'm pooped."
"I'm bored stiff."
"Everything bugs me."
"I'm sick and tired of it all."
"Life is the same old stuff."
"Out of this world" people
"Life is terrific, and I mean terrific."
"Everything's great, really great."
"Boy, am I getting a charge out of living."
"This is it and I don't mean maybe."
"I feel good, really good."
"Bored? Are you kidding?"
1. Get this basic fact firmly in mind-you do not need to be bored,
frustrated, or fed up.
2. Concentrate on exciting motivation. Boredom can't live with it.
3. Get with the philosophy which teaches us to "Rejoice with
unutter-able and exalted joy."
4. Don't shy off real spiritual faith. It's packed with excitement that
burns out boredom.
5. Remember: If you love life, life will love you back.
6. Get away from dirty and noisy cities. Get with streams, meadows,
mountains, if at all possible. Nature siphons off boredom.
7. Like one-listless Larry, practice excitement. Practice excited
thinking until you become excited. And always know for a fact that you
can if you think you can.
8. Level with yourself. Things are better than they seem.
9. Associate with excited people. Let their excitement rub off on
you.
10. Keep thinking, keep moving, keep participating.
Ten
Never think of failing-you don't need to
1. Formulate a goal; not a fuzzy, vague goal, but one that is sharp,
clearly defined and specific-very specific.
2. Pray about that goal to be sure it is right, for if it isn't right,
it's wrong, and nothing wrong ever turns out right.
3. Put that goal into your conscious mind, holding the image there
tenaciously until it sinks into the unconsciousness. And when it does
you will have it, because it has you-all there is of you.
4. Then give it all you've got of thought, effort, imagination, and
innovation.
5. Work, and then work, and then work.
6. Never, never, never give up-keep it going, going, going-know that you
can if you think you can.
7. Tell yourself every day of your life until you believe it away down
deep that you shall never think of falling. You don't need to.
Eleven
All the resources you need are in your mind
1. Believe that you have inherent in your mind all the resources you
will ever need.
2. Build up your resources inventory by faith and know-how.
3. Remember that spiritual power activates your forces of mind and
spirit.
4. Never minimize your ability to think your way through any
situation.
5. If power isn't coming through, find the block and remove it.
6. Keep alert for those flashes of insight which come when you're really
thinking.
7. Skip "if only"; concentrate on "next time."
8. Never bog down in a defeat psychology. Always, in the midst of
defeat, keep looking for victory.
9. Be bold, and mighty powers will come to your aid.
10. The tests of life are not to break you but to make you.
Twelve
Ways to Foster Health, Vitality, Aliveness
1. Realize that you can of yourself do much to make yourself a
healthy.
2. Affirm and keep on affirming that the powerful life force is flowing
through your mind, your spirit, your body.
3. Rid yourself of all sick thoughts-hate, resentment, inferiority, and
the like.
4. Every day practice emptying your mind of all unhealthy attitudes.
5. Keep your mind tuned up to keep your body in tone.
6. Hold the thought of all elements of the body working together in
perfect rhythm.
7. Help the doctor by thinking healthy thoughts. Remember that while the
doctor treats you, God heals you.
8. Think health, practice health, pray health.
9. See yourself as a whole person.
10. Visualize God, who created you, as constantly re-creating you in
every element of being.
Thirteen
Ease Up! Have a sense of humor
1. Don't get stirred up and in a dither. Take it easy-like.
2. Take all the fuming and fretting of the media with a grain of salt.
Much of today's news isn't really new. Most of it has happened before
and before that.
3. Practice word therapy-serenity, urbanity, imperturbability,
equanimity. Say those powerful, mind-healing words over to yourself
every day. Let them sink into consciousness, reconditioning your
stressful attitudes.
4. Like General Eisenhower, take the hands which life deals you and play
them out without griping. You will come out O.K.
5. Get in harmony; easy does it; don't over-press.
6. Don't take yourself too seriously.
7. Never let the excitable immediacy of our time throw you. Keep your
sense of humor. It's not all that bad.
8. You can live with all the confusion of today's world if you think you
can. So practice thinking that you can.
Fourteen
Get on top of things and stay there
1. Always keep hope going for you.
2. Believe, and never stop believing, that the tide always comes
back.
3. Realize there is more potential strength built into you than you have
ever demonstrated.
4. To use an old-fashioned but powerful phrase-dare to be what you want
to be and can be.
5. Never take no for an answer.
6. Do your best and leave the results to God.
7. Drop the three L's-lack, loss, limitation-from your vocabulary.
8. Hold the image of the life you want and make the image become
fact.
9. Keep on hitting; keep on trying.
10. And don't forget prayer. It releases power.
-And remember...always remember-
You can if you think you can.
How to Take Charge of Your Life
by Mildred Newman & Bernard Berkowitz
What motivates you?
You had better believe it-and more
No amount of determination, no amount of will power, of inspiration or
exhortation is enough as long as you are in the dark about your own
secret payoff.
To choose one goal means to give up others.
It means you can't have everything.
It means you can't do everything.
It means you can't be everything.
It means you can't please everybody.
Making a decision reveals something about you
What if everyone loves you but your sense of self is lost?
Leaving Home is Not Enough
Being in charge of your life not only means getting away, leaving your
family-it also means putting your family outside of yourself.
Strange idea
It's like: You are about to fall asleep and you remember you haven't
brushed your teeth. You feel so sleepy, you don't want to get up, but
you know you should. You hassle yourself this way most every night. If
you listen to the voices in the argument going on inside you, whose
voice do you hear?
It's like: Whenever you get to know someone who might really be the
"right" person for you, you suddenly lose interest. Why? Do you secretly
think of all the things that "they" might say about that person?
They are the persons whoever raised you
It's not enough to leave physically-you can be thousand miles away and
still hear their voices.
The emotional separation does not mean a lack of feeling. It does not
mean being cold and distant.
It does mean: You are you, and they are who they are.
Giving up your fantasy family means you'll be gaining a real family-real
people.
So there is no cause of guilt. You are not rejecting or hurting the
feelings of real people-only those you have created in your imagination.
It takes two seperate people
OK-so you're not carrying them around with you.
Can you avoid getting pulled into them?
When you say, "My life is your life," you entrust the boundaries and
shape and direction of your life to the other person.
But you are really not being generous and kind.
You are setting a trap.
You are setting up a situation in which you will inevitably feel
Abused,
Taken advantage of, and resentful.
When you expect another person to protect you from your own
unwillingness to be in charge of what you can give, you are placing an
impossible demand on that other person.
Instead of gratitude for all your self-sacrifice, you are much more
likely to be rejected.
It is impossible to live with a self-sacrificing saint.
When you give up what you want, just to give in to the other person's
needs, then you are not there.
And when you are not there, the other person is lonely.
And needs to look for company.
Protect Us from the Power of the Victims
The power of powerless people is remarkable.
Whether you know it or not, you are always influencing the behaviour of
others by your response (or lack of response!)
It makes a world of difference to use your powers consciously and
constructively, and you will discover that you no longer need to feel
like such a victim.
Remember honey draws more flies than vinegar
You can take charge of your life.
Can you do it for yourself?
Your best bet is to know what you want, and go for it.
There is not way you can have this tailor-made exsistance unless you
know your own dimensions, unless you know just who you are and exactly
what you want to be.
You can take charge of your life
You do not have to take yourself as a prepackaged product coming off the
assembly line. There are certain things you have inherited-your
coloring, your sex, your bone structure, your height-but what you do
with your biological inheritance is up to you. Much of what you are you
have made, and it is your right, if not also your obligation, to remake
yourself exactly as you see fit.
You know a lot more about what works and what does'nt work for you.
So take a good look at yourself.
If you see something you don't like, the chances are you put it there,
and you can change it.
Introduce Yourself to You
It is not self-indulgent to entertain your own thoughts, because only
then do you really have enough of yourself to give to others. Otherwise
you are simply reflecting what you admire in others back to them.
Don't be afraid that if you really give of what is genuinely and
essentially you, you will be depleted.
Quite the contrary. Once you have learned how to tune in on your inner
self, you will have tapped a well that never runs dry.
How you feel about yourself throughout the day is life itself
You cannot take charge of the present if you are busy reliving the
failures of the past.
Have the courage to confront and deal with your negative feelings.
It's not easy, but don't let the difficulty of all this deter you from
the real job of filling in the picture of who you are and what you want
for yourself.
Play your own Character
You know, the strength you take to live unhappily, if you take just half
of that and put it into living well, you can have a pretty good
time."
Getting Into Action
Anxiety is only one of the ways in which you can stop yourself from
being the kind of person who is in charge of your own life.
A truly strong person is strong enough to let other people be who they
are, and does'nt feel pushed around by the strength of others. A person
who feels strong is much more likely to be mild-mannered and easygoing,
with an air of quiet confidence.
People are hard on themselves when they should be easy, and too easy on
themselves when they should be hard. The only way to avoid these
pitfalls is to know yourself well.
How to get lucky?
Once you get on your own side, once you decide to act in your own
behalf, you begin to see possiblilities and potentials that you never
knew were there. Having learned how to deal with anxiety and doubts, you
are free to see new and challenging things. You have the courage to use
the strength and creativity you barely suspected you had. This openness
to opportunities and possibilities that others may not see is what often
goes under the name of "getting lucky."
William H. Murray put it beautifully and effectively:
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and
creation), there is one elemantary truth, the ignorance of which kills
countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely
commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to
help one that never otherwise have occured. A whole stream of events
issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of
unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man
could have dreamed would have come his way."
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
Begin it, now.
The power of Positive Thinking
by Norman Vincent Peale
one
Believe in yourself
1. Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop this picture. Never think of yourself as failing; never doubt the reality of the mental image. That is most dangerous, for the mind always tries to complete what it pictures. So always picture "success" no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.
2. Whenever a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind, deliberatly voice a positive thought to cancel it out.
3. Do not build up obstacles in your imagination. Depreciate every so-called obstacle. Minimize them. Difficulties must be studied and efficiently dealt with to be eliminated, but they must be seen for only what they are. They must not be inflated by fear thoughts.
4. Do not be awestruck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as YOU can. Remember also that most people, despite their confident appearence and demeanor, are often as sacred as you are and as doubtful of themselves.
5. Ten times a day repeat these dynamic words, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31) (Stop reading and repeat them NOW slowly and confidently.)
6. Get a competent counselor to help you understand why you do what you do. Learn the origin of your inferiority and self-doubt feelings which often begin in childhood. Self-knowledge leads to a cure.
7. Ten times each day practice the following affirmation, repeating it out loud if possible. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians 4:13) Repeat those words NOW. That magic statement is the most powerful antidote on earth to inferiority thoughts.
8. Make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it to 10 percent. Do not become egotistical, but develop a wholesome self-respect. Believe in your own God-released powers.
9. Put yourself in God's hands. To do that simply state, "I am in God's hands." Then believe you are NOW receiving all the power you need. "Feel" it flowing into you. Affirm that "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21) in the form of adequate power to meet life's demands.
10. Remind yourself that God is with you and nothing can defeat you. Believe that you now RECEIVE power from Him.
Two
A Peaceful Mind Generates Power
Practice emptying your mind of fears, hates, insecurities, regrets, and guilt feelings.
Immediatly start filling your mind with creative and healthy thoughts.
Now and then during every day allow motion pictures of peace slowly to cross your mind.
Practice the technique of suggestive articulation, that is, repeat audibly some peaceful words.
"Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except God. God alone is sufficient."
Another effective technique in developing a peaceful mind is the daily practice of silence. Everyone should insist upon not less than a quarter of an hour of absolute quiet every twenty-four hours. Go alone into the quietest place available to you and sit or lie down for fifteen minutes and practice the art of silence. Do not talk to anyone. Do not write. Do not read. Think as little as possible. Throw your mind into neutral. When you have attained a quiescent state, then begin to listen for the deeper sounds of harmony and beauty and of God that are to be found in the essence of silence.
Thomas Carlyle said, "Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves."
Ask God to "Let Thy peace flow into our mind, into our soul, and into our body."
Three
How to Have Constant Energy
"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31)
"He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength." (Isaiah 40:29)
"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10)
To avoid tiredness and to have energy, feel your way into the essential rhythm of Almighty God and all His works.
Pray as follows: "Dear God, You are the source of all energy. You are the source of the energy in the sun, in the atom, in all flesh, in the bloodstream, in the mind. I hereby draw energy from You as from an illimitable source."
Then practice believing that you receive energy. Keep in tune with the Infinite.
Four
Try Prayer Power
Affirmative Prayers Release Powers By Which Positive Results Are Accomplished.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. (Psalms 46:1)
"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:20)
If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father in heaven." (Matthew 18:19)
According to your faith be it unto you (Matthew 9:29)
What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them (Mark 11:24)
Prayerize, Picturize, Actualize
1. Set aside a few minutes every day. Do not say anything. Simply practice thinking about God. This will make your mind spiritually receptive.
2. Then pray orally, using simple, natural words. Tell God anything that is on your mind. Do not think you must use stereotyped pious phrases. Talk to God in your own languages. He understands it.
3. Pray as you go about the business of the day, on the subway or bus or at your desk. Utilize minute prayers by closing your eyes to shut out the world and concentrating briefly on God's presence. The more you do this every day the nearer you will feel God's presence.
4. Do not always ask when you pray, but instead affirm that God's blessings are being given, and spend most of your prayers giving thanks.
5. Pray with the belief that sincere prayers can reach out and surround your loved ones with God's love and protection.
6. Never use a negative thought in prayer. Only positive thoughts get results.
7. Always express willingness to accept God's will. Ask for what you want, but be willing to take what God gives you. It may be better than what you ask for.
8. Practice the attitute of putting everything in God's hands. Ask for the ability to do your best and to leave the results confidently to God.
9. Pray for people you do not like or who have mistreated you. Resentment is blockade number one of spiritual power.
10. Make a list of people for whom to pray. The more you pray for other people, especially those not connected with you, the more prayer results will come back to you.
Five
How to Create Your Own Happiness
When you get up say three times "This is the day the Lord hath made. I will rejoice and be glad in it."
Keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by.
"In Him was life; and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4)
Six
Stop Fuming and Fretting
1. Sit relaxed in a chair. Completely yield yourself to the chair. Starting with your toes and proceeding to the top of your head, conceive of every portion of the body as relaxing. Affirm relaxation by saying, "My toes are relaxed-my fingers-my facial muscles."
2. Think of your mind as the surface of a lake in a storm, tossed by waves and in tumult. But now the waves subside, and the surface of the lake is placid and unruffled.
3. Spend two or three minutes thinking of the most beautiful and peaceful scences you have ever beheld, as, for example, a mountain at sunset, or a deep valley filled with the hush of early morning, or a woods at noonday, or moonlight upon rippling waters. In memory relive these scenes.
4. Repeat slowly, quietly, bringing out the melody in each, a series of words which express quietness and peace, as, for example, (a) tranquillity (say it very deliberatly and in a tranquil manner); (b) serenity; (c) quietness. Think of other such words and repeat them.
5. Make a mental list of times in your life when you have been conscious of God's watchful care and recall how, when you were worried and anxious, He brought things out right and took care of you. Then recite aloud this line from an old hymn, "So long Thy power hath kept me, sure it SHALL will lead me on."
6. Repeat the following, which has an amazing power to relax and quiet the mind: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee." (Isaiah 26:3) Repeat this several times during the day, whenever you have a fraction of a moment. Repeat it aloud if possible, so that by the end of the day you will have said it many times. Conceive of these words as active, vital substances permeating your mind, sending into every area of your thinking a healing balm. This is the best-known medicine for taking tension from the mind.
Seven
Expect the Best and Get it
"If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." (Mark 9:23)
Throw your heart over the difficulty bar and your body will follow.
Throw the spiritual essence of you over the bar and your material self will follow in the victory groove thus pioneered by your faith-inspired mind.
Emerson said, "Beware of what you want for you will get it."
"Have faith in God for verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith." (Mark 11:22-23)
"I expect the best and with God's help will attain the best."
Eight
I Don't Believe in Defeat
"I can do all things through Christ which strentheneth me."(Philippians 4:13)
There is no difficulty you cannot overcome.
"I believe I am always divinely guided".
"I believe I will always take the right turn of the road."
"I believe God will always make a way where there is no way."
With God all things are possible.
Nine
How to Break the Worry Habit
Whatever you believe you can do, you can do, with God's help.
1. Say to yourself, "Worry is just a very bad mental habit. And I can change any habit with God's help."
2. You became a worrier by practicing worry. You can become free of worry by praciticing the opposite and stronger habit of faith. With all the strength and perseverance you can command, start practicing faith.
3. How do you practice faith? First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, "I believe," three times.
4. Pray, using this formula, "I place this day, my life, my loved ones, my work in the Lord's hands. There is no harm in Lord's hands, only good. Whatever happens, whatever results, if I am in the Lord's hands it is the Lord's will and it is good."
5. Practice saying something positive concerning everything about which you have been talking negatively. Talk positively. For example, don't say, "This is going to be a terrible day." Instead, affirm, "This is going to be a glorious day." Don't say, "I'll never be able to do that." Instead, affirm, "With God's help I will do that."
6. Never participate in a worry conversation. Shoot an injection of faith into all your conversations. A group of people talking pessimistically can infect every person in the group with negativism. But by talking things up rather than down you can drive off that depressing atmosphere and make everyone feel hopeful and happy.
7. One reason you are a worrier is that your mind is literally saturated with apprehension thoughts, defeat thoughts, gloomy thoughts. To counteract, mark every passage in the Bible that speaks of faith, hope, happiness, glory, radiance. Commit each to memory. Say them over and over again until these creative thoughts saturate your subconcious mind. Then the subconscious will return to you what you have given it, namely, optimism, not worry.
8. Cultivate friendships with hopeful people. Surround yourself with friends who think positive, faith-producing thoughts and who contribute to a creative atmosphere. This will keep you restimulated with faith attitudes.
9. See how many people you can help to cure their own worry habit. In helping another to overcome worry you get greater power over it within yourself.
10. Every day of your life conceive of yourself as living in partnership and companionship with Jesus Christ. If He actually walked by your side, would you be worried or afraid? Well, then, say to yourself, "He is with me." Affirm aloud, "I am with you always." Then change it to say, "He is with me now." Repeat that affirmation three times every day.
Ten
Power to Solve Personal Problems
1. Believe that for every problem there is a solution.
2. Keep calm. Tension blocks the flow of thought power. Your brain cannot operate efficiently under stress. Go at your problem easy-like.
3. Don't try to force an answer. Keep your mind relaxed so that the solution will open up and become clear.
4. Assemble all the facts impartially, impersonally, and judicially.
5. List these facts on paper. This clarifies your thinking, bringing the various elements into orderly system. You see as well as think. The problem becomes objective, not subjective.
6. Pray about your problem, affirming that God will flash illumination into your mind.
7. Believe in and seek God's guidance on the promise of the 73rd Psalm, "Thou wilt guide me by thy counsel."
8. Trust in the faculty of insight and intuition.
9. Go to church and let your subconscious work on the problem as you attune to the mood of worship. Creative spiritual thinking has amazing power to give "right" answers.
10. If you follow these steps faithfully, then the answer that develops in your mind, or comes to pass, is the right answer to your problem.
Eleven
How to Use Faith in Healing
1. Spiritual forces as well as medical technique are important in healing.
2. Pray that the doctor may be an open channel of God's healing grace.
3. Whatever you do, do not become panicky or filled with fear, for if you do, you will send out negative thoughts and therefore destructive thoughts in the direction of your loved one when he requires positive and healing thoughts to assist him.
4. Remember that God does nothing except by law. Also remember that our little materialistic laws are only fragmentary revelations of the great power flowing through the universe. Spiritual law also governs illness. God has arranged two remedies for all illness. One is healing through natural laws applicable by science, and the other brings healing by spiritual law applicable through faith.
5. Completely surrender your loved one into the hands of God. By your faith you can place him in the flow of Divine power. There is healing there, but in order for it to be effective the patient must be completely released to the operation of God's will. This is difficult to understand and equally difficult to perform, but it is a fact that if the great desire for the loved one to live is matched with an equally great willingness to relinquish him to God, healing powers are amazingly set in motion.
6. It is also important that harmony prevail in the family, that is, a spiritual harmony. Remember the emphasis in the scripture, Matthew 18:19: "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." Apparently disharmony and disease are akin.
7. Form a picture in your mind of the loved one as being well. Visualize him in perfect health. Picture him as radiant with the love and goodness of God. The conscious mind may suggest sickness, even death, but nine tenths of your mind is in the subconscious. Let the picture of health sink into the subconscious and this powerful part of your mind will send forth radiant health energy. What we believe in the subconscious we usually get. Unless your faith controls the subconscious, you will never get any good thing, for the subconscious gives back only that which your real thought is. If the real thought is negative, the results will also be negative. If the real thought is positive, you will get positive and healing results.
8. Be perfectly natural. Ask God to heal your loved one. That is what you want with all your heart, so ask Him please to do it, but we suggest that you say PLEASE just once. Thereafter in your prayer, thank Him for His goodness. This affirmative being will help to release God's loving care. This joy will sustain you, and remember that joy itself possesses healing power.
Twelve
When Vitality Sags, Try This Health Formula
1. Remember that anger is an emotion, and an emotion is always warm, even hot. Therefore to reduce an emotion, cool it.
2. Say aloud to yourself, "Don't be a fool. This won't get me anywhere, so skip it." At that moment it may be a bit hard to pray, but try it anyway; at least conjure up a picture of Jesus Christ in your mind and try to think of Him mad just as you are. You can't do it, and the effort will serve to puncture your angry emotions.
3. Count to ten or say "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name." Say this ten times and your anger will lose its power over you.
4. Make a list of everything that irritates you. The purpose in doing this is to dry up the tiny rivulets that feed the great river of anger.
5. Make each separate irritation a special object of prayer. Get a victory, over each, one at a time. Snip away by prayer each annoyance that feeds your anger. In this way you will weaken your anger to the point where presently you will gain control over it.
6. Affirm: "It isn't worth it to spend $1000 worth of emotion on a five-cent irritation."
7. When you are hurt put some spiritual iodine on the hurt at once by saying a prayer of love and forgiveness.
8. Apply grievance drainage to your mind. Go to someone you trust and pour it out to him until not a vestige of it remains within you. Then forget it.
9. Simply start praying for the person who has hurt your feelings. Continue this until you feel the malice fading away.
10. Say this little prayer: "May the love of Christ fill my heart." Then add this line: "May the love of Christ for (insert the other's name) flood my soul."
11. Actually take the advice of Jesus to forgive seventy times seven. To be literal, that means four hundred ninety times. Before you have forgiven a person that many times you will be free of resentment.
12. Pray, "Even as You can convert a person's morals, so now I ask You to convert my nerves. As You give power over the sins of the flesh, so give me power over the sins of the disposition. Bring my temper under Your control. Give me Thy healing peace in my nervous system as well as in my soul."
Thirteen
Inflow of New Thoughts Can Remake You
1. For the next 24 hours, delibrately speak hopefully about everything, about your job, about your health, about your future. Restrain from negative habit even if it requires an act of will.
2. After speaking hopefully for 24 hours, continue the practice for one week, then you can realistic which is the dawning of the positive outlook.
3. "Have faith in God for verily I say unto you, that whosover shall say unto this mountain be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith." (Mark 11:22-23)
4. Commit each faith phrases to memory. Effort and time will be needed to unlearn your negative pattern.
5. Get closer to those with a positive point of view for a while, until you have absorbed their spirit, then you can go back amoung negative friends and give them your newly acquired thought pattern without taking on their negativism.
6. Avoid argument, but whenever a negative attitude is expressed, counter with a positive and optimistic opinion.
7. Pray a great deal and always let your prayer take the form of thanksgiving on the assumption that God is giving you great and wonderful things; for if you think He is, He surely is. "According to your faith be it unto you." (Matthew 9:29)
Fourteen
Relax for Easy Power
1. Don't get the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. Don't strain so hard. Don't take yourself so seriously.
2. Determine to like your work. Then it will become a pleasure, not drudgery. Perhaps you do not need to change your job. Change yourself and your work will seem different.
3. Plan your work-work your plan. Lack of system produces that "I'm swamped" feeling.
4. Don't try to do everything at once. That is why time is spread out. Heed that wise advice from the Bible, "This one thing I do."
5. Get a correct mental attitude, remembering that ease or difficulty in your work depends upon how you think about it. Think it's hard and you make it hard. Think it's easy and it tends to become easy.
6. Become efficient in your work. "Knowledge is power." It is easier to do a thing right.
7. Practice being relaxed. Easy always does it. Don't press or tug. Take it in your stride.
8. Discipline yourself not to put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Keep your work up to schedule.
9. Pray about your work. You will get relaxed efficiency by so doing.
10. Take on the "unseen partner." It is surprising the load He will take off you. God is as much at home in offices, factories, stores, kitchens, as in churches. He knows more about your job than you do. His help will make your work easy.
Fifteen
How to get people to like you
1. Learn to remember names.
2. Be a comfortable person so there is no strain in being with you-be an old-shoe, old-hat kind of individual. Be homey.
3. Acquire the quality of relaxed easy-goingness so that things do not ruffle you.
4. Don't be egotistical. Guard against giving the impression that you know it all. Be natural and normally humble.
5. Cultivate the quality of being interesting so that people will want to be with you and get something of stimulating value from their association with you.
6. Study to get the "scratchy" elements out of your personality, even those of which you may be unconscious.
7. Sincerely attempt to heal, on an honest Christian basis, every misunderstanding you have had or now have. Drain off your grievances.
8. Practice liking people until you learn to do so genuinely. Remember what Will Rogers said, "I never met a man I didn't like." Try to be that way.
9. Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone's achievement, or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment.
10. Get a deep spiritual experience so that you have something to give people that will help them to be stronger and meet life more effectively. Give strength to people and they will give affection to you.
Sixteen
Prescription for Heartache
An excellent and normal release from heartache is to give way to grief.
The deeper remedy for heartache is, of course, is the curative comfort supplied by trust in God.
So in this faith, which is a sound, substantial, and rational view of life and eternity, you have the prescription for heartache.
Seventeen
How to Draw upon That Higher Power
"Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:28-31)
Stay Alive All Your Life
by Norman Vincent Peale
One
The Magnificient Power of Belief
How to Believe
1. Believe
2. As you train your mind to believe, everything tends to move out of the area of the impossible into that of the possible.
3. Never compare yourself or your achievements with others, but make your comparisons only with yourself.
4. A sign of mental health is to be glad when others achieve, and to rejoice with them.
5. Failure lies in not being naive enough to practice the power of faith.
6. Make your life what you want it to be through belief in God and in yourself.
7. Start living by faith, pray earnestly and humbly, and get into the habit of looking expectantly for the best.
8. Get your life right in terms of God's laws.
9. Be sure your goals are spiritually sound.
10. Think, believe, visualize success.
11. Keep on believing as long as you live.
Two
Enthusiasm can do wonders for you
Practice calmness and quietness.
Do something everyday for somebody.
Pray with thanksgiving.
Flush negatives out of the mind with enthusiasm and optimism.
1. Look for interest and romance in the simplest things about you.
2. Enlarge your view of your own God-given capacities. Within the limit of humility develop a good opinion of yourself.
3. Diligently practice eliminating all dull, dead, unhealthy thoughts so that your mind may be freshened up and capable of developing enthusiasm.
4. Daily affirm enthusiasm. As you think it, talk it, and live it, you will have it.
5. Practice daily relaxation to keep your mind and spirit from getting tired. Enthusiasm is a characteristic of the vigorously alert.
6. Act enthusiastic, for as you act you tend to be.
7. Allow no sense of guilt to take the luster off your spirit. It's the greatest of all causes of ennui.
8. Keep the creative channel open between God and yourself, remembering that enthusiasm is "entheos" meaning "God within."
9. Keep spiritually virile and alive.
10. Give all you've got to life and it will give its greatest gifts to you. It will never grow dull.
Three
How to conquer your frustrations and be creative
1. Decide that you honestly want emotional self-control.
2. Pracice peaceful thinking. With practice you will find it easier, more natural.
3. Instead of letting frustration irritate you, try to understand other people objectively, what makes them the way they are.
4. Set apart a period of quietness daily.
5. Each day practice relaxing muscular tensions.
6. Before going to bed, flush out of your mind the bad emotions.
7. Look to God for help in substituting calmness for irritation.
8. Do the best you can and leave the results to God. Then it will work out for the best.
Four
Kill worry and live longer
Worry may be described as a spasm of the emotions in which the mind takes hold of a thought or obsession, clutches it spasmodically, and will not let it go. To break its hold one must gently, but forcibly, insinuate a healthier and stronger idea into the mind's convulsive grasp. This stronger idea is that of faith in God. When faith, rather than fear, becomes your obsession, you will master worry.
Picture yourself as boldly attacking and overcoming your fears. Picturized concepts in the conscious mind will, if reiterated, impress themselves deeply within the subconscious.
Five
You can have power over your difficulties
You are not defeated, though it may be you think you are.
By the help of God you can overcome your difficulties and live a vital and victorious life. Never settle for less. You do not need to. When the full strength potential within you is mustered you have sufficient power to deal with any difficulty.
Think big; and powerful forces are released.
Believe big; faith and effort generate dynamic creative power.
Pray big; God will grant big things if you ask for them and are big enough to receive them.
Act big; only the biggest plans are really easy.
Six
You can have life if you want it
1. Admit that you want to feel wholly alive. Everyone does.
2. Realize that life is full of the overcoming of sorrow and trouble.
3. Get outside of yourself.
4. Live in the present.
5. Put animation into your daily work.
6. Seek inspiration: in books, friends, music, art, travel.
7. Interest is a measure of aliveness.
8. "To know God is to live."
Seven
Stop being tired-live energetically
1. Through your thought and faith, keep attached to God, the source of all energy.
2. Avoid the gray sickness: half awake, half asleep; half alive, half dead.
3. Realize that energy sags when your thoughts sag, so vigilantly keep your thinking alert.
4. Think of yourself as a child of God, a constant recipient of His gifts of boundless health, energy, and vitality.
5. Avoid the concepts of "growing old and feeble." Picture the youthfulness of your spirit as resisting the aging process.
6. Empty your mind every night as you empty your pockets. Before going to bed forgive everybody, naming those forgiven. Leave the past in the past, and believe that God watches over you as you sleep.
7. Slow down and keep the even rhythm of God.
8. Train your mind to block off worry and frustration, two attitudes which siphon off energy.
9. Affirm that God's constantly renewing energy flows through your being giving you sufficient vitality to live effectively.
Eight
Learn from mistakes-and make fewer
1. Do not pessimistically assume that having made a mistake there is no hope, that a mistake means ruin.
2. Calmly and objectively examine your mistake. Learn all you can from it. Then move away from it with a new know-how.
3. Get psychological insight into the underlying causes of your mistake-tendency.
4. Increase your spiritual understanding. This will displace error from your mind by an intake of truth through prayer and faith.
5. Do not continue to hold mental images of past mistakes for that may stimulate repetition of the error.
6. Get your personality organized and your thoughts tightened up. Effective thinking and action will result.
7. Keep your efficiency high by stopping the leakeges of power caused by fear, inferiority, etc.
8. Recondition your mental equipment by a daily reading program designed to fill your mind with the constructive thoughts of men who teach truth, not error.
9. Keep studying, keep trying. Always believe you can learn to do better. Constantly seek for self-improvement. Never believe you have arrived.
10. Apply the supreme personal test at all times, "Am I a right person?" If you are "right" things tend to go right.
Nine
Why be tense? How to adjust to stress
1. In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. (Isaiah 30:15)
2. Be still, and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)
3. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. (Isaiah 26:3)
4. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
Ten
Your life can be full of joy
When you love people you are happy.
If you have God in your heart, nothing bothers you, nothing discourages you. You are just happy, that is all.
Think joy, talk joy, practice joy, share joy, saturate your mind with joy, and you will have the time of your life all your life. And what's more, you will stay alive as long as you live.
Process of absorbtion of joyful thoughts tend to displace unhappy ones.
The constant saying of a joyful thought will change you to harmonize with it. In time you tend to become what you think and say.
List all the joyful facts of your life. Read the list frequently to remind yourself the reasons for your joy.
Try to bring joy to as many people as possible. It is a curious fact that you get joy out of giving it; you lose joy by selfishly trying to keep it.
Try to see the joyful side of life. One must see the pain of life with clear eyes, and help all he can; but there is also lots of joy, and one should see that, too.
Get into the habit of acting joyful in a normal and reasonable manner.
Eleven
Lift your depression and live vitally
1. Identify the symptoms of depression.
Serious depression: perpetual sadness, slow reaction of mind and body, morbid and bitter self-criticism.
Mild depression: discouragement, loneliness, disconsolateness, feelings of inferiority, getting no fun out of life.
2. Practice hope. As hopefulness becomes a habit, you can achieve a permanently happy spirit.
3. Right eating, right exercising, right thinking, right praying, right living-these tone up vitality.
4. Practice of thought replacement can bring about spirit transfusion.
Replace each weak thought with a strong one.
Replace each negative thought with a positive one.
Replace each hate thought with a loving one.
Replace each gloomy thought with a lifted one.
Twelve
Peace of mind-your source of power and energy
1. Conserve your energy, i.e. don't race your motor.
a. Do not rush-work, eat, and play leisurely.
b. Do not get overtired at work or play.
c. Be moderate in eating, drinking, smoking, working-everything you do.
d. Do not hesitate to refuse to take on unimportant, burdensome tasks.
2. Stay calm and serene. Do not fret or worry or allow yourself to become unnecessarily involved in situations fraught with emotion.
a. The past is past.
b. Do your best today and let it go at that.
c. Do not be apprehensive of tomorrow-it will take care of itself-most worries never come to pass.
d. Put your trust in God and forget all fear. He has a plan for you and in such a situation who can be against you?
You can have peace of mind and with it the power to live more effectively.
Thirteen
How to feel well and have vibrant health
1. Send for your minister even as you call your doctor when illness comes.
2. Believe in healing Grace of Christ and affirm that it is operating in you.
3. Think of your body as the temple of the soul and treat it with respect.
4. Empty out all resentment and hate.
5. Pray for your doctor that he may have healing skill as a servant of the Great Physician.
6. Keep body, mind, and soul spiritually tuned up by daily periods of exercise and thanksgiving.
7. Visualize health and wholeness and entertain no sick thoughts about yourself or loved ones.
8. Believe that God, who creates, can also re-create, and think of the re-creative process as operating within you at all times.
9. Study and practice the spiritual rules of health contained in the Bible.
10. Remember the famous statement of Ambroise Pare, one of the most noted physicians of Europe, "Je le pansay, Dieu le guarit"-"I dressed him, God cured him."
Fourteen
Self-Confidence and dynamic achievement
1. Cultivate "the strength of belief."
2. Shift your thoughts from the things that are against you and focus them on the vast power that is for you.
3. The very moment you decide that nothing shall defeat you, from that instant nothing can defeat you.
4. Surrender yourself to God.
Fifteen
Living above pain and suffering
Du Nouy said pain has it purpose: "Without...suffering...man does not really humanize himself nor liberate his spiritual aspirations. It is because of this that pain is fruitful..."
1. Even as pain may be removed by faith, so it may be endured by faith.
2. Hold a mental image of yourself as healthy and vigorous.
3. The secret of life isn't in what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.
4. God never lays a burden or a pain upon us that He does not give us equivalent strength to bear it.
5. As difficult as it is, pain is not without value.
6. It isn't all-important what the condition of your body is; the important factor is the condition of your mind and soul.
7. There is an enormous power in the human spirit to rise above pain and suffering when the spirit is determined.
8. You have the right to ask God to take away or reduce your pain.
9. Complete giving of the self to God is the most effective way of gaining that inner peace and sense of Divine love that takes pain away.
Sixteen
Live Forever
Life is filled with uncertainties; fogs of doubt, dismal and shadowy fears sometime obscure the landmarks of our faith. Simply put your trust in God and in the deep instincts of your own nature. Read the Bible, pray, and fill your life with love and goodness. Have faith in the accuracy and dependability of your spiritual instruments. They will guide you through the overcasts of this life to a perfect landing in that beautiful land beyond.
God Loves You; So Do I
All Things Are Possible to him that believes.
Mark 9:23
Maintained by:Vasu Rajan 
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