Are you ready to do something bigger and better? In this time that may seem like a daunting task but you should NEVER be discouraged or kept from trying to better yourself and your circumstances because of the “appearances” around you. You are bound ONLY by your own thoughts and imagination, NOT by the events in the world outside of you. Take heed to what Napoleon Hill writes.

Your Beginning
by Dr. Napoleon Hill

You will come to the point, sooner or later, at which you will want to do something bigger and better than you have ever done before. When you do, you are going to be discouraged by those around you who know you best, and who will say the plan you have is foolish or beyond your power to carry out. You will find more people willing to tear you down by discouragement than you will find sympathizing with you and helping you to build your ego.

The best way to avoid such discouragement is to confide only in those who have a genuine sympathy with your cause and an understanding of your possibilities. Otherwise, keep your plans to yourself and let your actions speak. Adopt the motto Deeds – Not Words. It is a good motto for everyone.

It may not be in the best taste for you to overestimate your abilities, but it is better than to underestimate, and it will do less harm. If you aim at a very big achievement and attain only a moderate achievement, you will still have attained something. If you allow yourself to be held back before you even begin, you will have sold yourself short and will attain nothing.

Maybe you are a man with a big idea. You have nursed this idea for a long time. You have made an experimental model, or have worked it out on paper and refined it over a period of time until you know it will work. But you haven’t really done anything about it. Perhaps the reason you haven’t acted is that you lack the self-confidence sufficient to start you looking for a master mind ally to help you carry out your idea.

The thing for you to do is take hold of the principles of this philosophy and apply them to yourself. It will do you no good to read these lessons and think, “That’s a wonderful lesson! I’ll bet it really works for somebody else.” Why not start building up your self-confidence through mastery and application of these time-tested principles which have lifted others from poverty to places of eminence? The rules will work for you as well as for anyone else, but you have to take the initiative. No one else will do it for you.

    When a man can manage himself, he
    is ready to start managing others.

You have every quality in the world that it takes to succeed if you will organize what you have according to the seventeen principles of this philosophy. To do that requires self-discipline, faith in yourself and concentration on your objective. Your success or failure is entirely a matter of how you discipline your mind.

Source: PMA Science of Success. Pgs. 277 & 278.

Terrie

This is another great idea by Napoleon Hill. You can use the characters he mentions because they are of the highest quality OR you can pick your own characters and substitute the qualities you wish to instill in yourself.

The Magic Plan
by Dr. Napoleon Hill

“A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.”

As surely as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, here is a plan that will transform your personality into whatever you wish it to be:

Place this page on the walls of your room.  Each night before you retire, relax, shut out all other thoughts and repeat the following, with firm determination to build it into your character, keeping your eyes fixed upon the picture of each character as you repeat the words which indicate the qualities you wish to build by emulating that character:

    LINCOLN:  As I look upon your face I definitely pledge my earnest efforts to develop in my own character those qualities of patience, tolerance and love for all humanity, the weak and the strong, friend and foe, which were your distinguishing marks.  I will emulate your example by looking for the good there is in others and by developing a love for justice.

    EMERSON:  As I look upon your face I resolve to develop in my own character those qualities which helped you to leave your footprints on the sands of time, namely, the ability to read the handwriting of Nature, as it is written in the faces of men, in flowing brooks, in the flowers, in growing trees, in the singing birds, in the faces of little children and in the rocks of prison walls.

    ELBERT HUBBARD:  As I look upon your face I resolve to develop in my own character that rare ability, that was your distinguishing mark, to state my conclusions in words that vibrate with life, action and enthusiasm.
        
    WASHINGTON:  As I look upon your face I resolve to develop courage and the persistence with which to complete all that I undertake.

    NAPOLEON:  As I look upon your face I resolve to develop the strategic ability to lay hold of the organized forces that are available for my use, and to develop the self-confidence to master all handicaps which come my way.  You shall serve as a constant reminder that the quitter never wins; that eternal vigilance and the courage to carry on in spite of every obstacle are the price of success.

    ________________________________

          (Sign here)

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.  Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.”  
—ALLEN.

Source: Napoleon Hill’s Magazine. September, 1921. Pg. 24.

Let us know how this works.

Terrie

Hope
by Dr. Napoleon Hill

“Do the thing and you shall have the power.” —Emerson

The way of success is the way of struggle!

Lincoln wrote the greatest speech ever delivered in the English language, on the back of an envelope, a few moments before it was delivered, yet the thought back of that speech was borne of hardship and struggle.

All down the road of life you will meet with obstacles, many of them. Failure will overtake you time after time, but remember that it is a part of Nature’s method to place obstacles and failure in your way, as hurdles are placed before a horse that is being trained, that you may learn from these, some of the greatest of all lessons.

Every time you master failure you become stronger and better prepared to meet the next one. The moments of trial will come to you as they come to all at one time or another. Doubt and lack of faith in yourself and in your fellowmen will cast their dark shadows over you but remember that the manner in which you react under these trying negatives will indicate whether you are developing power or slipping backward.

“And this, too, will soon pass away.” Nothing is permanent, therefore why permit disappointment, resentment or a keen sense of injustice to undermine your composure, because they will soon eliminate themselves.

Look back over your past and you will see that those experiences of yesterday which bore heavily on your heart at the time, and seemed to end all hope of success, passed away and left your wiser than you were before.

The whole universe is in constant state of flux. You are in a constant state of change. Evolution is removing the wounds left in your heart by disappointment. You need not go down under any difficulty if you but bear in mind that “this, too, will soon pass away.”

I looked back at my heavy load of grief and worry which crowded the happiness out of my heart only yesterday, and lo! they had been transformed in to stepping stones of experience over which I had climbed higher and higher.

Source: Napoleon Hill’s Magazine. September, 1921. Pg. 9.

Terrie