The Power of Positive Thinking By Norman Vincent Peale

"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." ".. 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. p8 "We build up the feeling of security or insecurity by how we think. p. 10. ... 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.