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If you give mental attention to your goals, ideals, and enterprises, your deeper mind will back you up.
Establishing goals and then working toward their achievement is the first step one must take on the long road to success. All successful people start with a goal. By knowing where you are going and how you plan to get there, you will be able to focus your time, energy, and emotion—and start on the right track toward reaching those goals.
A ship with a broken rudder may keep on a full head of steam, driving about all the time, but never arrive anywhere. It never reaches any port unless by accident; and if it does find a haven, its cargo may not be suited to the people, the climate, or the conditions. The ship must be directed to a definite port, for which its cargo is adapted, and where there is a demand for it, and it must aim steadily for that port through sunshine and storm.
So a person who would succeed must not drift about rudderless on the ocean of life but must steer straight toward a destined port not only when the ocean is smooth, when the currents and winds serve, but also keep the course in the very teeth of the wind and tempest—even when enveloped in the fogs of disappointment and mists of opposition.
The Dream is the Starting Point
Do you have a dream—a vision of the future? In your dream are you rich? Famous? Happy? Most people do dream of such a future—but in most cases, that’s all it will ever be—a dream.
Successful people have had those dreams, too, but they turned those dreams into goals and in turn into reality. Their dreams were not vague hopes for success, but dreams of specific achievements that they aimed for. Edison dreamed of a world in which electric energy would light up the night. Stephenson dreamed of an engine that would pull trains and eliminate the backbreaking labor of men and beasts. Beethoven dreamed of music that would make the spirit soar. Great actors, artists, musicians, writers dreamed—not just of fame, but of the way they would utilize their talents to achieve success.
Dreaming is not limited to such geniuses. All successful people report that their success started with a hope, a dream. Over the years hundreds of men and women have reported that their achievements all started with a dream, which led to a goal, which led to a plan of action, and inevitably to accomplishing the goal.
Dreaming is not limited to the young. It is never too late to have a new dream that leads to new goals that lead to new successes. It is astonishing what people who have had their dreams late in life have accomplished. Benjamin Franklin was past fifty before he began the study of science and philosophy. Milton, in his blindness, was past the age of fifty when he sat down to complete his epic poem Paradise Lost.
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” – Norman Vincent Peale
Convert Your Dreams into Goals
Even brains are second in importance to determination. Only those with the strong determination that nothing shall impede them are sure that, with perseverance and grit, they will succeed. Dreams become goals and goals become achievements to those who strive long enough and hard enough.
Unfortunately, too many dreamers remain just that—dreamers. The dreams remain dreams. To make your dreams come true, you must convert them into goals. Then they are no longer fantasies, but objectives that you can set before you as a road map to success. You must bring to your dreams a purpose, a determination that you will do all that you can to make that dream come true.
The Secret Weapon – The Subconscious Mind
Our subconscious minds have tremendous power in creating in us the habit of expectancy, of believing that we shall realize our ambition; that our dreams will come true.
The very habit of expecting that the future is full of good things for you, that you are going to be prosperous and happy, that you are going to have a fine family, a beautiful home, a successful career, and are going to stand for something, is the best kind of capital on which to start your life.
You must always try to express the ideal. Your subconscious will respond and the things you would like to come true in your life, whether it be robust health, a noble character, or a superb career, will result. If you visualize these results as vividly as possible and try with all your might to realize them, they are more likely to come true than if you do not.
If you wish to improve yourself in any particular way, visualize the quality as vividly and as tenaciously as possible and hold a superior ideal along the line of your ambition. Keep this persistently in your mind until you feel its uplift and realization in your life. You are born to win, to conquer, and to lead the triumphant life. You should be a wonderful success in your chosen work, your relationship with people, and in all other phases of your life.
The clearer your instructions are to your subconscious, the more it can help you. This inner mind responds to your commands much the way sailors manning the engine and controls of an ocean liner respond to the orders of the captain on deck. If the words are precise and unmistakable, then the crew sets about turning the vessel to the ordered direction or increasing its speed exactly as they are told.
But if you as a captain are not sure yourself what you want, then your subconscious mind will get an unclear message and your ship will follow a random, or haphazard, or circular course. You need to tell your subconscious exactly what you want. You need to direct it to help attain your goals. When you know what your true desire really is, your subconscious mind will propel you precisely toward it.
Believe in Your Goals to Achieve Them
Prosperity begins in the mind and is impossible to achieve while the mental attitude is hostile to it. It is fatal to work for one thing and to expect something else, because everything must be created mentally first and is bound to follow its mental pattern.
You cannot become prosperous if you really expect or half expect to remain poor. We tend to get what we expect, and to expect nothing is to get nothing.
When every step you take is on the road to failure, how can you hope to arrive at the success goal? Facing the wrong way, toward the black, depressing, hopeless outlook—even though we may be working in the opposite direction—kills the results of our effort.
Thoughts are magnets that attract things like themselves. If your mind dwells upon poverty and disease, it will bring you poverty and disease. There is no possibility of your producing just the opposite of what you are holding in your mind, because your mental attitude is the pattern, which is built into your life. Your accomplishments are achieved mentally first.
Be an optimist. Develop the habit of looking at everything constructively, from the bright, hopeful side, the side of faith and assurance. Refrain from looking at life with doubt and uncertainty. Acquire the habit of believing the best is going to happen, that the right must triumph.
(Excerpt is from ‘Putting the Power of Your Subconscious Mind to Work’ by Joseph Murphy).
