Here’s an extract from Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’ from the chapter on faith:
If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don’t,
If you like to win, but think you can’t,
It is almost certain you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost,
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will –
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You’ve got to think high to rise,
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before,
You can ever win a prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN.

Hill’s poem epitomises his belief that we can become what we think about.
I add a wee bit that – we become what we think about the most.
Of course your mind does not differentiate between negative or positive.
So if your self talk [ thoughts], are more about defeat, and difficulty and scarcity then that’s what you will tend to see in your life.
Hill espouses the constant use of what he calls ‘auto – suggestion’ to programme your mind to success.
It is the same thing as the more modern term ‘affirmations.’ Louise Hay is a modern day living example of how successful one can be by using this technique.
Using affirmations regularly every day – in spite of what your inner voice has to say – will, over time help your self growth enormously
And to add further support to this Bruce Lipton in The Biology of Belief has this to say:
On a personal level, I knew at the moment of insight that I had gotten myself stuck because I falsely believed that I was fated to have a spectacularly unsuccessful personal life.”
He goes on: ‘When our uniquely human minds get involved we can choose to to perceive the environment in different ways….’
And: ‘I was exhilerated by my new realisation that I could change the character of my life by changing my beliefs.”
As a personal development tool, using affirmations is one of the simplest ways I know of to change your beliefs for the better.
If, as Hill suggests, you turn your burning desire into a goal [definite chief aim], and you take action and persist until you get results, then is it not worth the effort?
Marva Collins famously said: ‘Success doesn’t come to you, you go to it.’