Review book" The Power of Positif Thinking" Capter 1-4

Chapter 1 - Believe in Yourself

First sentence : 
"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities. Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. But with self-confidence you can succeed. A sense of inferiority and inadequacy interferes with the attainment of your hopes, but self-confidence leads to self-realization and successful achievement."

Later..
".. to build up feelings of self-confidence the practice of suggesting confidence concepts to your mind is very effective. If your mind is obsessed by thoughts of insecurity and inadequacy it is, of course, due to the fact that such ideas have dominated your thinking over a long period of time. Another and more positive pattern of ideas must be given the mind, and that is accomplished by repetitive suggestion of confidence ideas. In the busy activities of daily existence thought disciplining is required if you are to re-educate the mind and make of it a power-producing plant. 
"We build up the feeling of security or insecurity by how we think. . ... And what is even more serious is the tendency to create, by the power of thought, the very condition we fear.
List all the things you have going for you when you face a problem. (if you are religious think that some god is helping you. For if he/she/it is on your side, if this "god" is guiding you, you will be successful)
Go about your business on the assumption that what you have affirmed and visualized is true. Affirm it, visualize it, believe it, and it will actualize itself. Feelings of confidence depend on the type of thoughts that habitually occupy your mind. Think defeat and you are bound to feel defeated. Emerson said: "They conquer who believe they can... and "do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain". Practice confidence and faith and your fears and insecurities soon will have no power over you.

First chapter summary : 
1. Picture yourself as succeeding.
2. Whenever a negative thought comes to mind, deliberately voice a positive thought to cancel it out.
3. Do not build up obstacles in your imagination. Instead tear them down by tearing them apart
4. Do not compare yourself to others.
5. 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.
6. Practice self-affirmations, for example, Yes, I can. or I can do all things through belief in myself
7. List all the things you have going for you.

Go to bed with a mind full of peace, not trouble.
"The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence." 
A primary method for gaining peace is to practice emptying the mind. 
 Definitely practice emptying your mind of fears, hates, insecurities, regrets, and guilt feelings. ... after you have emptied your mind of all the old, unhappy thoughts immediately start refilling it with creative and healthy thoughts. 
--- Take an inventory of all the things you have going for you and begin to
really appreciate your assets. Health, eyes, hearing, friends, family, son, house,
shelter, food, income, transportation, intelligence, etc.
--- Think of the factors supporting you. Not of those opposing you. 
Quote from Karl Menninger: Attitudes are more important than facts. 

"Any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not so important as our attitude toward that fact. How you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it.
Feelings of confidence depend upon the type of thoughts that habitually occupy your mind. Think defeat and you are bound to be defeated. But practice thinking confident thoughts, and you will develop such a strong sense of capacity that regardless of what difficulties arise you will be able to overcome them. Feelings of confidence actually induce strength." 
"Affirm it, visualize it, believe it and it will actualize itself." 
Emerson: "They conquer who believe they can... Do the thing you fear and death of the fear is certain."
"Practice confidence and faith and soon your fears and insecurities will have no power over you.... The secret is to fill your mind with thoughts of faith, confidence and security. This will force out or expel all thoughts of doubt, all lack of confidence.

"Never think of failing ... the mind always tries to complete what it pictures" 
"When a negative thought ... comes to mind, deliberately voice a positive thought to cancel it out." 
"Do not build up obstacles in your mind. Minimize them." 
"Practice the technique of suggestive articulation, that is repeat audibly some peaceful words. Words have profound suggestive power, and there is healing in the very saying them. Utter a series of panicky words and your mind will immediately go into a mild state of nervousness... If, on the contrary, " you speak peaceful, quieting words, your mind will react in a peaceful manner." 

"Watch your manner of speech if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind... It is important to eliminate from conversations all negative ideas, for they tend to produce tension and annoyance inwardly." 
Peale also says to spend some quiet time each day relaxing, and not thinking about anything much. He says picture your mind as a pond and see if you can achieve the state of smoothness and no ripples. 
"Fill your mind with all peaceful experiences possible, then make planned and deliberate excursions to them in memory." 
{ I have been doing this with my traveling. At any time I choose I can stop
to think about the pleasant experiences I had climbing mountains, watching the
sunset, wandering the streets of Paris, London, Brussels, meeting people, etc. All
of these pleasant experiences have been very good for me. I also know that I
can return to these places someday in the future, but because they are etched
in my mind I can actually return to them at any time. It probably would not be
a bad idea to set aside a certain amount of time each day, especially in times of
stress, to conjure up my pleasant memories to keep them near the top of my
mind. SH}


Chapter 3 - How to Have Constant Energy
He continues: "Saturate your thoughts with peaceful experiences, peaceful words, and ideas, and ultimately you will have a storehouse of peace-producing experiences to which you may turn for refreshment and renewal of your spirit. It will be a vast source of power."
On energy:
"You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired doing nothing. You don't have to be tired. Get interested in something. Get absolutely enthralled in something. Throw yourself into it with abandon. Get out of yourself. Be somebody. Do something. Don't sit around moaning about things, reading the papers and saying, "Why don't they do something?" The man who is out doing something isn't tired. If you're not getting into good causes, no wonder you are tired. You're disintegrating. You're deteriorating. You're dying on the vine. The more you lose yourself, the more energy you will have. You won't have time to think about yourself and get bogged down in your emotional difficulties." 
One reason fear and guilt are self-defeating:
"The quantity of vital force required to give the personality relief from either guilt or fear or a combination of each is so great that often only a fraction of energy remains for living. The result is that he tires quickly. Not being able to meet the full requirements of his responsibility, he retreats into an apathetic, dull, listless condition and is indeed even ready to give up and fall back sleepily in a state of enervation." 
[From my own experience, I have found beyond a doubt that when I have things I want to accomplish during the day, it is easy to wake up, to get up and to stay awake and alert. When not much is going on, or I don't know what to do with myself, my mind does in fact get sleepy and feels tired. I am convinced that thoughts can create energy. - SH]
He goes on to talk about how we can not possibly sleep well if we go to bed burdened with fear or guilt. He says, "You must eradicate fear and guilt before you will ever be able to sleep and regain your strength." 
As he talks about prayers, I found the following interesting: "Spend most of your prayers giving thanks [not asking for things]" and "Only use positive thoughts in prayers, never negative. Only positive thoughts get results."
When they asked an obviously happy aged man his secret to happiness he said, "I haven't any great secret. It is as plain as the nose on your face. When I get up in the morning, I have two choices--to be happy or to be unhappy. And what do you think I do? I just choose to be happy, and that is all there is to it."
Abraham Lincoln also said, "People were just about as happy as they made their minds up to be".

Chapter 4 - Try Prayer Power
He says, each day when you wake up, think of things to be thankful for, happy about. Think about things you want to accomplish. See yourself accomplishing them.
[1994 or 1995 note...I have practiced this and it works very well for me. Also at night for a while I was in the habit of telling myself why that day was a good day. So each morning I would say, "Today is going to be a good day because..." And each night I would say, "Today was a good day because". I can still remember some of these from this summer. It really did help me sleep and get up.]

A little quote Peale likes:
"The way to happiness: 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. Try this for a week and you will be surprised." 
Then he goes on to say that many will say "there is nothing new in that." But he says, "what is the value in knowing these principles all your life if you have never made use of them? Such inefficiency in living is tragic. For a man to have lived in poverty when all the time right on his doorstep is gold indicates an unintelligent approach to life.
"... what you are determines the world in which you live, so as you change, your world changes also." 
William James said, "Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that insures the successful outcome of the venture." 
Peale tells the story about a baseball team that was in a slump. Then a famous preacher came to town and the coach took the bats away, came back and told the players the preacher blessed the bats. Of course the next day, the team won easily. And then won the league. For many years, it was said, other players would pay a large sum for one of these bats. --- A quaint little example of the power of suggestion and perception! (And of people's gullibility!)
Another coach advises his high jumper, to "throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow." 
Peale recommends we think about what we want to do if we could do anything. And to think about what we are good at.

           See you on the next blog 😘

Komentar

  1. I am a kind of person that never satisfied with my ability. Sometimes I feel better than people in some thing. But when put myself among people who have same interest with me I feel my ability is the lowest. So by this book review I know how to build confidence by thinking positively. Good post 😉

    BalasHapus
    Balasan
    1. Hopefully by reading this book you can become a better person :), thanks for visit my blog.

      Hapus

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