Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock You Hidden Powers to Succeed Chapter 1 - Make Your Life a Masterpiece
You can't hit a target you cant see (21)
You have to decide exactly what "success" means to you. You have to decide what your life would look like if you made it into a masterpiece. (21)
The Seven Ingredients of Success
Create a blueprint, a clear picture of where you are going and what it will look like when you get there.
Peace of Mind
Health and Energy
Loving Relationships - laughter
Financial Freedom
Worthy Goals and Ideals
Self-Knowledge and Self-Awareness
Personal Fulfillment - This is a feeling you are becoming everything that you are capable of becoming.
Chapter 2 - The Seven Laws of Mental Mastery
Failing to plan is planning to fail (35)
You are where you are today because that is where you have chosen to be. (35)
If necessity is the mother of invention, then pain seems to be the father of learning. (35)
The Law of Control
The Law of Cause and Effect
The Law of Belief
Whatever you believe, with feeling, becomes your reality. (45 )
The Law of Expectations
Perhaps the kindest thing that you can do for another person is to say, "I believe in you. I know you can do it." (52)
You can create a force field of positive mental energy around you by confidently expecting to gain something from every situation. (52)
"I believe something wonderful is going to happen to me today." (52)
Always expect the best of yourself. (53)
The Law of Attraction (53)
you are a living magnet.
You will tend to meet and become involved with people and situations that are vibrating in harmony with your own dominant thoughts and emotions.
The more emotion you attach to a thought, the greater will be the rate of vibration and the more rapidly you will attract people and situations in harmony with that thought into your life.
As long as you're clear about what you want and the kind of people you want to be associated with, you'll draw them into your life.
Your thoughts are a form of energy that vibrates at a speed determined by the level of emotional intensity accompanying the thought.
Sow a thought and you reap an act;
Sow an act and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit and you reap a character;
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.
The Law of Correspondence (55)
"As within, so without." It says that your outer world is a reflection of your inner world.
Your external world of manifestation corresponds with your internal world of thought and emotion.
Your outer world of health will correspond to your inner attitudes of mind.
My big mistake when I was younger was concentrating on doing rather than on being.
"One must be something to be able to do something." You must change yourself
Emerson wrote, "What you are shouts at me so loudly, I can't hear a word you're saying."
"The greatest revolution of my life is the discovery that individuals can change the outer aspects of their lives by changing the inner attitudes of their minds."
The Law of Mental Equivalency (56)
thoughts objectify themselves
thoughts are things
first you have them, then they have you
You eventually become what you think about.
You sow positive causes and reap positive effects. You begin to believe more intensely in yourself and your possibilities. You expect more positive outcomes. You attract positive people and situations, and soon your outer life of results will begin to correspond to your inner world of constructive thinking.
Create the mental equivalent of what you want to experience in your reality.
Honestly facing the facts about yourself is the starting point of rapid self-improvement.
Chapter 3 - The Master Program
Everything that happens to you, everything you become and accomplish is determined by the way you think, by the way you use your mind.
You have the potential to do something special, even extraordinary with your life, something that no one else can do. The only real question you have to answer is: Are you going to do it?
A Simple Equation
[IA + AA] x A = IHP
IA = inborn attributes
AA= Acquired attributes
A = Attitude
IHP = Individual human performance
Inborn attributes plus acquired attributes multiplied by your attitude equals your individual human performance.
Your attitude is under direct control of your will. You can decide what it is going to be every minute of every day.
Earl Nightingale referred to attitude as the most important word in the language.
Your attitude is your general mental tone and the outward expression of your thoughts and feelings.
Developing this kind of positive attitude toward yourself and your life is the first step to unlocking your full potential.
Your attitude is determined by your expectations.
If you expect something wonderful to happen to you today, it probably will.
Positive expectations are the mark of the superior personality.
You will get back what you give out.
The Master Program
You are where you are and what you are because of what you believe yourself to be.
"You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are."
But you can change your program, your self-concept, by replacing self-limiting ideas and beliefs with self-liberating thoughts.
You can decide to make every part of your life positive, exciting and uplifting. You can create your life as a masterpiece.
Aspects of your Self-Concept
You perform as well as you believe yourself capable of performing. You are as effective as you believe yourself to be in whatever you do.
"comfort zones," once there, you do everything possible to stay there. You resist change of any kind, even positive change.
The Three Parts Of Your Self-Concept (67)
Your outer life reflects your inner life
You always behave consistently with the picture that you hold of yourself on the inside.
As you begin to see yourself and think about yourself as more competent and confident, your behaviour becomes more focused and effective.
Your self-esteem is how you feel about yourself. It is the emotional component of your personality, and it is the foundation quality of high performance.
The first is how valuable and worthwhile you feel about yourself, how luck you like and accept yourself as a good person.
Second = your feeling of "self-efficacy," how competent and capable you feel you are in whatever you do.
These two parts of self-esteem reinforce each other. When you feel good about yourself, you perform better. And when you perform well, you feel good about yourself. Both are essential. Neither can endure without the other.
"I love myself! I love myself! I love myself!" or "I like myself!"
The Rules of Self-Esteem (70)
There are two rules of self-esteem and self-liking: Rule number one is that you can never like or love anyone else more than you like or love yourself. You cant give away what you don't have.
Rule number two is that you can never expect anyone else to like or love you more than you like, love or respect yourself.
Every attitude, behaviour, value, opinion, belief and fear you have today has been learned. (71)
The Qualities of Children (73)
unafraid
uninhibited
Most of our problems in adult relationships are rooted in these earlier experiences of love deprivation.
True constructive criticism leaves the person feeling better and more capable of doing a better job in the future. (75)
"constructive feedback"
"I love you very much"
focus on the future, not the past
"What do we do from here?" Use words like "Next time, why don't you..."
Focus on the behaviour or the performance, not the person. Replace the word "you" with a description of the problem.
Use "I" messages to retain ownership of your feelings. Instead of saying, "You make me very angry." instead say, "I feel very angry when you do that,"
Get clear agreement on what is to change, and when, and by how much.
Offer to help. "What can I do to help you in this situation?"
Assume that the other person wanted to do a good job and that, if he or she has done a poor job or made a mistake, it was not deliberate. (77)
Negative Habit Patterns
the fear of failure is the greatest single obstacle to success in adult life. (77)
Some people do things poorly the first time and conclude they have no aptitude in that area. (79)
Identify and deal with any fears that could be holding you back. (80)
Talk out your fears with a good friend or spouse. (80)
To the child, trouble with parents always means the withdrawal of love or approval. (80)
In each situation in which the opinions of others are involved, ask yourself, “What do I really want to do? What would make me the happiest?” Then make your decisions for the person who is going to have to live with them - yourself. (81)
Love from their fathers is transferred, in adult life, to the boss in the workplace. Type A behaviour is then manifested as an over-concern for the approval of the boss. In extreme cases, this can cause a man to become obsessive about his work, even to the point of ruining his health and his family. (81)
Programming Your mind for Success
Keep your mind on only the things you want, and off the things you don’t want. (85)
All growth and progress requires you to move out of your comfort zone in the direction of something bigger and better. (87)
Greater success and happiness are only possible for you when you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable during the process of creating a new comfort zone at a higher level of effectiveness. (87)
Psychosclerosis
This mental flexibility is the mark of the superior person. (87)
You do get what you think about most of the time, and if you continually think in terms of how you can achieve it, and the specific actions you can take to move toward it, you are much more likely to be successful in the end. (88)
The Power of Suggestion
Any change in your physical, mental or emotional environment can change the way you think, feel and act in moments, and thereby change your results. (89)
The key to your mental programming is for you to take systematic and purposeful control of your suggestive environment. (89)
The Law of Habit
Which states that a body at rest tends to remain at rest, and a body in motion tends to remain in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. (90) **Move people
Because of the fact that whatever you think about continually you create in your life, your negative or self-limiting thoughts hurt you more than almost anything else you can engage in. (91)
As Shakespear wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” You live in a mental world. Nothing around you has any meaning except the meaning you give it with your thoughts. If you change your ways of thinking, you change your life. (91)
Your job is to form good habits and make them your masters.
The Law of Practice
Your ability yo take control of your mind and begin thinking the kind of thoughts that lead to the outcomes you desire is the starting point of the process that leads to complete freedom, happiness and self-expression. (93)
The Law of Emotion (93)
Emotion is like an electric current, or fire, which can be either constructive or destructive.
You are completely emotional.
Only two main categories of emotions: desire and fear.
The things you do, or refrain from doing, because of fear greatly outweigh the number of things you do because of desire.
When you have a clear thought, positive or negative, accompanies by an intense emotion of either fear or desire, you activate the various mental wars and begin drawing whatever is it toward you.
Once you have made the decision to do something important and valuable with your life, the achieve your own ideas of personal greatness, you absolutely must go to work on changing your mentality.
Three Essential Conditions for Change (94)
First, you must sincerely want to change.
You must have an intense, burning desire to be more than you’ve ever been before.
People wanting other people to change - they cant get them too, change comes from desire and desire is always personal.
Second, you must be willing to change.
You must be willing to let go of the old person in order to become the new person.
You must be willing to work very hard to become someone different.
Mental Power in Twenty One Days (95)
For twenty one days you keep your thoughts, words and actions consistent, all day, every day, with the goals you want to achieve and the person that you would like to become.
Patience in self-development is the key.
When you set big, exciting goals for yourself and the person you want to be, and then think about theses things everyday, you take full control of your mental evolution and the direction of your life. You become what you think about.
Seven Ways to Control Your Mental Life (96)
Think about yourself, in a casual and relaxed way, as the person you would like to be, with the qualities you would like to have. Begin imaging what life would be like, what your home would be like, what your work would be life, what your health would be like, and the standard of living that you would most enjoy.
Visualization
the first of these elements is frequency
People who accomplish extraordinary things visualize their desired results continually.
2nd element = vividness
When you could close your eyes and see it in complete detail, it materialized in your world. This is the way to achieve most goals.
3rd Dimension = intensity
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
4th Part = Duration
When you consume the elements frequency, vividness, intensity, and duration with your visualizations of anything you want to be, have or do in the future, you actually supercharge yourself and accelerate your movement toward it. A Practical Application
Choose your thoughts and your mental pictures with care.
If you find yourself lacking confidence in a situation, cancel the negative thought by repeatedly visualizing yourself as calm, confident and relaxed when you’re in that situation.
Use visualization to flood your mind at every opportunity with pictures of your ideal life.
Take some time each day to stand in front of this poster and drink in the images, letting them soak into your subconscious mind.
Dwell upon your success experiences, real and imagines. Recall and relive them vividly.
Using visualization, you can convince your subconscious mind that you are repeating the success experience over and over.
Visualization activates all the mental laws, including the Law of Attraction, drawing people and resources into your life to help translate your images into your realities.
Affirmations
Affirmations are based on the 3 “P’s.” They are positive, present tense, and personal.
“I believe in the perfect outcome of every situation in my life.”
Verbalization
Standing in front of a mirror and saying very clearly and emotionally, “I can do it, I can do it, I can do it!”
Acting the Part
Your positive behaviour will generate positive feelings, just as your positive feelings generate positive behaviour.
“Fake it until you make it.”
Begin by thinking of yourself as you would ideally like to be. Then visualize yourself in vivid detain, as though you already were the person that you intend to become. Affirm to yourself, and verbalize aloud, strong, positive statements consistent with your goals. Remember as you do this that words do create emotion and crystallize thought. And finally, keep your behaviour consistent with your new messages of success, happiness, prosperity and a positive personality.
Feeding Your Mind
As you improve your inner understanding, you improve your outer results.
Associating with Positive People
you must be extremely careful about who you choose to spend time with.
“make no useless acquaintances.”
get away from negative people. They are the primary cause of most unhappiness in your life.
Teaching Others
You become what you teach. You teach what you are.
Discard past labels. It is how you see yourself, how you talk about yourself and how you act now, in the present, that is creating your future.
You will become what you think about most of the time.
Action Exercise
Select one positive habit pattern or behaviour that you would like to develop, and for the next twenty-one days, discipline yourself to think, visualize, verbalize, affirm and behave in a manner consistent with the new habit you want to develop.
Behave as if achieving your goal were inevitable.
You will know that your possibilities are unlimited.
Chapter 4 - The Master Mind
They all seemed to have, or to develop, an unshakable belief in their ability to overcome all obstacles and reach some great height.
Your subconscious mind is enormously powerful.
Successful people are those who have learned how to operate their conscious and subconscious minds in harmony, enabling them to get the things they want far faster and with much less effort.
The Law of Concentration
The law of concentration states that whatever you dwell upon, grows.
Effective people guard the doorways of their minds diligently.
The Law of Substitution
This “crowding out” principle allows you to deliberately replace a negative thought with a positive thought.
You choose to think about something uplifting, like your goals, whenever you are faced with a situation that would normally upset you.
When you think about what you can do, what action you can take, rather than dwelling on what has happened, your mind becomes calm and clear in an instant.
The Discovery of The Subconscious
“Every day in every way, I’m feeling better and better.”
Just as feelings generte actions, actions generate feelings. You can act your way into feeling, and the feeling will then generate the actions consistent with it. Either one can create the other.
An objective state, an actual accomplishment or a success of some kind, creates a subjective state, the feeling of happiness and achievement, the subjective state will also create the objective state.
To put it another way, if you can create the feeling, or the emotion, that you would experience if you accomplished a goal or solved a problem, and you can hold that feelings, the feeling will create, in your physical world, the result that goes with it - the result that would trigger the emotion if the result had actually occurred.
Speed up the Process
This is exactly the same method you use to program your new self-concept, and your goals, into the deeper levels of your subconscious mind, where they “lock in” and take on a power of their own. The emotional component is critical. It is the calm, confident, expectant, subconscious and brings about rapid change. This mental state, self0induced, is followed very quickly, sometimes instantaneously, by the physical manifestation of your desired result.
Step 1: Verbalize & Affirm
Step 2: Visualize
Step 3: Emotionalize
Step 4: this is the catalyst in the process, release the situation completely
Step 5: Realization
It is said that prayer is the highest form of affirmation - “In Tune with the Infinite.”
Accelerating The Process of Change
Written affirmation technique: As you visualize, create the feeling that would go with your imagined success
Standard affirmation technique: Write out your goals in bold letters in present tense - read twice a day
Quick affirmation technique: You get by yourself, close your eyes, affirm the ideal outcome, visualize it, emotionalize it and release it. See and feel the event working out successfully. Then go into the meeting (or whatever) with calmness and confidence.
Autogenic Conditioning: The method - one breath to one repitition, “My left arm is becoming healy and warm.” Then repeat six times, “My left are is now heavy and warm.” Finally, say six times, “My left arm is completely heavy and warm.”
An Old Fable
“If you really want to get to Mount Olympus, just make sure that every step you take is in that direction.”
Sir Isaac Newton, how he made such significant contributions to the world of science as one man “By thinking of nothing else.”
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
To become all you can be, you must live more consciously.
Chapter 5 - The Master Skill
Your only limitation is your desire: How badly do you want it?
H. L. Hunt: “First, decide exactly what it is you want. Most people never do that. Second, determine the price you’re going to have to pay to get it, and then resolve to pay that price.”
You either work to achieve your own goals or you work to achieve someone else’s goals.
Repetition
Less than 3 percent of men and women have their goals in writing. Fewer than 1 percent of them read and review their goals regularly.
Remember, only action is action, and nothing else counts for much.
Keep your goals confidential - to avoid criticism.
The fear of failure is the greatest single obstacle to success in adult life.
It is impossible to succeed without failing. Failure is a prerequisite for success
Success is a numbers game. There is a direct relationship between the number of things you attempt and your probability of ultimately succeeding.
Edison: “Young man, you don’t understand how the world works. I have not failed at all, I have successfully identified 5,000 ways that will not work. That just puts my 5,000 ways closer to the way that will.”
Napoleon Hill: “Within ever adversity is the seed of an equal or greater opportunity or advantage.”
One of the qualities of leaders is that they never use the words failure or defeat. Instead, they use words like “valuable learning experiences” or “temporary glitches.”
Great football coach Vince Lombardi: “We didn’t lose, we just ran out of time.”
The Principles of Goal Setting
1. Congruency - goals and values
2. Area of excellence
3. Acres of Diamonds - title of a talk by Russell Conwell - look in your own backyard first
“Opportunities come dressed in work clothes.”
4. Balance
You need family and personal goals. You need physical and health goals. You need mental and intellectual goals, and goals for study and personal development. You need career and work goals. You need financial and material goals. Finally, you need spiritual goals, goals aimed at inner development and spiritual enlightenment.
To maintain proper balance, you need two or three goals in each area, a total of twelve to eighteen goals in all.
Your objective is to make your life one continuous stream of progress and achievement.
5. The determination of your major purpose
“Which goal, is I accomplish it, would do the most to help me achieve all my other goals.”
How To Identify Your Goals
What are your five most important values in life?
organize them in order of priority
What are your three most important goals in life, right now?
What would you do, how would you spend your time, if you learned today that you only had six months to live?
Someone once said that you are not ready to live until you know what you would do if you only had one hour left on earth. What would you do?
What would you do if you won a million dollars cash, tax free, in the lottery tomorrow?
What have you always wanted to do, but been afraid to attempt?
What do you most enjoy doing? What gives you your greatest feeling of self-esteem and personal satisfaction?
What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?
Do I want it badly enough, and am I willing to pay the price?
By this simple act of deciding what you really want, and writing it down, you will have moved yourself into the top 3 percent.
The Twelve - Step System
Develop desire - intense, burning desire.
Develop belief
One of the kindest and most helpful things you can do for your children is to help them to set realistic and believable goals.
Write it down. Goals that are not in writing are not goals at all. They are merely wishes or fantasies.
Make a list of all the ways that you will benefit from achieving your goal.
Analyze your position, your starting point.
Set a deadline
There are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic deadlines
In your thinking, start from a visualization of your goal as already accomplished and work back to the present
“Project forward, look backward”
Make a list of all the obstacles that stand between you and the accomplishment of your goal.
“Is there anything about myself that I will have to change, or any ability that I will have to develop in order to achieve my goal?”
What is my limiting step?
Identify the additional information you will need to achieve your goal
Make a list of all the people whose help and cooperation you will require.
The Law of Reciprocity - “What’s in it for me?”
By “overcontributing” you’ll end up being “overcompensated.”
Make a plan. Write it out, in detail, what you want, when you want it, why you want it and where you are starting from. Make a list of the obstacles you must overcome, the information you will require, and the people whose help you will need.
One of the characteristics of superior men and women is that they can accept feedback and make course corrections. They’re more concerned with what’s right than with who’s right.
Use visualization
Make the decision, in advance, that you will never, never, give up.
DON’T QUIT When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit Rest if you must, but don’t you quit. For life is queer with its twists and turns, As every one of us sometimes learns, And many a failure turns about, When he might have won if he’d stuck it out. Success is just failure turned inside out, The silver tint of the clouds of doubt. And you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far. So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit, It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit! -Anonymous Continuous Action Technique
The continuous action technique keeps you on track towards your goal. It is based on Isaaz Newton’s physical principles of inertia and momentum. These principles state that a body in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. They also state that while it may take a large amount of energy to get a body from a resting to a state of forward motion, it takes a smaller amount of energy to keep it in motion at the same speed.s This is one of the most important of all principles underlying great success.
“Nothing succeeds like success.” You must develop the success habit by doing something every single day to move you toward your goals. Review them every morning and think about them every day. Always be looking for something you can do to contribute to their achievement.
Make sure that you make each day with an accomplishment of some kind, the earlier in the day, the better. Remember, fast tempo is essential to success.
A True Story
It took them ten full hours to complete their plan.
Remember, if there are no obstacles, it’s probably not a goal at all; it’s just a task.
Chapter 6 - The Master Power Continuous Functioning
The functions of the conscious mind are to identify, compare, analyze and decide. The subconscious mind stores and retrieves information and obeys the commands of the conscious mind. The superconscious mind functions outside and beyond both of them, but is accessed through them.
Goal-Oriented Motivation
When you become fully attuned to your superconscious mind, you will experience a continuous stream of health, energy, and strength that will enable you to produce more in a few hours than the average person produces in a week. You will enter into the state of “flow”, where the world seems to slow down while your mind speeds up. During this time you seem to have an easy ability to produce large quantities of high-quality work. You have a wonderful sense of we;;-being. Your mind sparkles with a stream of ideas that flow to you exactly as you need them.
Clear Commands
decisiveness is such an important trait of successful men and women.
It Brings You The Experiences You Need
Napoleon Hill found that almost every one of the wealthy men he interviewed had achieved their great successes one step beyond what appeared to be their greatest failure.
It is almost as if your superconscious mind gives you a final test just before you arrive at your destination. It is when you are going through your most difficult learning experiences that you ,ist draw on your ability to control your mind and have faith that the difficulty you face is simply part of the process that will inevitably bring you through to your goal.
Use it or Lose it
When you develop the habit of continually turning to your superconscious mind to guide and direct you, to inspire and illuminate you and tot solve every problem on your path, it will work faster and more efficiently every day.
Synchronicity Explained
Serendipity is the facility of making happy discoveries.
They are actively seeking something
Your Mental Alarm Clock
All you need to do is to decide at what time you want to wake up tomorrow morning. Then forget it.
Finding Parking Spaces
But any trace of doubt or skepticism will short-circuit the process and cause it to fail.
The Law of Superconscious Activity
“Any thought, plan, goal or idea held continuously in your conscious mind must be brought into reality by your superconscious mind, whether positive or negative.
You are always free to choose the kind of world that you wish to live in. And you choose it every day by the thoughts you think.
Stimulating Superconscious Activity
Think about your goals
Through the practice of solitude, “going into the silence”
If you have never tried it, the simplist way to practice solitude is to go and sit somewhere, perfectly silently, without moving, for an entire hour. Do not drink coffee, take notes, smoke cigarettes, listen to music or do anything else. Just sit perfectly still for an entire hour.
Visualize your goal as realized
The Superconscious Solution
“I believe something wonderful is going to happen to me today.”
Norman Vincent Peale says that whenever God wants to send you a gift, he wraps it up in a problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the gift.
Characteristics of a Supersonscious Solution
100% complete
Blinding flash of the obvious
Burst of joy and energy
Action Exercise
Schedule one solid hour of solitude - schedule it asap.
Chapter 7 - The Master Decision
You must accept, without reservation, that you are where you are and what you are because of yourself.
“True maturity only comes when you finally realize that no one is coming to the rescue.”
Your Statement About Yourself
Thomas Szasz, the controversial psychiatrist, says, “There is no such thing as mental illness; there are merely varying degrees of irresponsibility.”
Responsibility = Control = Freedom
Responsibility = Positive Emotions
Since negative emotions are learned, like most things, they can be unlearned, and you can be free of them.
What Causes Negative Emotions
You can begin the process of eliminating negative emotions by simply refusing to justify them.
“God bless him; he’s probably having a bad day.”
You must starve your negative emotions
The Law of Substitution Revisited
Cancel the thought
“I am responsible”
Your negative emotions are like forces of mental gravity that are holding you in your current reality. You must leave them behind.
Mandatory, Not Optional
This acceptance of responsibility, and the accompanying elimination of negative emotions, is not optional. It is mandatory.
“You are responsible, what are you going to do about it?”
Action Exercise
Take a pad of paper and draw a line down the center. On the left, make a list of every person or situation about which you harbor any negative feelings at all. Number each one. On the right, write out a series of sentences that begin with “I am responsible for this because…” and complete this sentence. Do this for each item and be as hard on yourself as you possibly can. Be brutally frank and honest. Write out every reason why you might be responsible for what happened. Do the same for every negative situation in your past or present.
When you have completed this exercise, you will be amazed at how much more positive and in control you feel. You will be free from the mental burdens you’ve been carrying for so long. Three Conditions to Feel Loved
Parents must love themselves
Parents must love each other
Parents must love the child
Destructive criticism and lack of love, in combination, create the negative emotion of guilt. Guilt is the major emotional problem of the twentieth century. It is the root cause of most mental illness, unhappiness and almost all other negative emotions. A child who feels guilty feels that he or she is not worth very much, that he or she is, in fact, worthless. Destructive criticism and lack of love instill in the child’s subconscious mind the feeling of worthlessness.
Guilt is used on people deliberately for two reasons: punishment and control.
Adult Manifestations of Guilt
Whenever people say “I’ll try,” they are apologizing for failure in advance.
The words “I’ll try” mean “I’m going to fail at this, and I want you to know in advance so that you can’t come back to me later and say that I didn’t give you any warning. If you do come back I can remind you that I only said that I would try.”
Another form of victim language is contained in the words “I wish.”
Every time you use victim language - I cant, I have to, I’ll try, I wish, I’m sorry, Don’t blame me, that’s not my fault - you re reinforcing the negative emotion of guilt and driving it deeper into your subconscious mind.
Make the decision, right now, to eliminate victim language from your conversation. Speak with definiteness and conviction instead. Say I will or I wont. Say I want to rather than I have to. Especially say I can or I will rather than I cant or I wish.
Free yourself From Guilt
If someone criticizes you, simply say, “I would appreciate it if you did not speak to me like that because it’s not true.”
Remember, your subconscious mind is absorbing information constantly and internalizing it as part of your self-concept development. If you allow someone to say something negative about you without responding, your sbconscious accepts it as a valid description of you and files it away to reinforce your feelings of guilt and inferiority. Negative statements by yourself or from others, if not cancelled out or challenged, set you up for failure in the future.
Second: Refuse to blame anyone for anything.
There is nothing to be gained by criticizing, condemning or complaining.
“No one is guilty; I am responsible.”
The first and easiest is simply the use of silence.
The next time someone attempts to use guilt on you, go completely silent. Say nothing. Refuse to answer. Don’t allow yourself to be provoked. Remember, you are conditioned to respond automatically to guilt by defending or apologizing.
“Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”
Talk about others as if they were present and you wanted to make them feel good about themselves.
“I never hold grudges; while you’re holding a grudge, they’re out dancing.”
The Letter
“I accept complete responsibility for our relationship. I got myself into it and I have no excuses to offer.”
“I forgive you for everything you ever did that hurt me in any way.”
“I wish you well.”
The third person that you have to forgive is yourself.
Chapter 8 - The Master Goal
The master goal is the achievement of peace of mind, the ultimate aim of all your efforts
The Highest Human Good
When you make inner peace your highest goal and organize all your activities, decisions and behaviour around it, you will be happier and more effective in your life and career than under any other circumstances.
Courage and Honesty
Stress is not contained in what happens to you. It is the way you respond to what happens to you.
Worry Wears You Down
Worry is a sustained form of fear caused by indecision.
Meaning And Purpose
“Feeling listless? Make a list!”
Failure is A Great Teacher
Sir Thomas J. Watson: “Do you want to succeed? Then, double your rate of failure. Success lies on the far side of failure.”
Facing The Facts
Denial triggers insomnia, headaches, digestive problems, depression, angry outbursts and often frantic activity.
Confronters and Evaders
Men and Women who squarely confront their problems and difficulties are far healthier than those who evade them.
The more willing you are to honestly confront the difficulties and challenges facing you, the happier and healthier you will be.
The Key to Inner Strength
“What is it in my life that I’m not facing?”
Pay The Price
Never compromise your peace of mind for anything. Set peace of mind as your highest goal and organize every part of your life around it. If you ever trade your peace of mind for something else, you will end up with neither.
Fight Or Flight
Angry outbursts are a mark of weakness. They demonstrate immaturity and a lack of control.
Gross Physical Impact Activity
Selye found that you can dispel anger through one of four outlets: your hands, your feet, your teeth or your voice. You can get rid of anger by hitting, kicking, biting or screaming.
Much of acne in adolescents and most skin breakouts in adults is caused by repressed anger.
The Cognitive Control Method
If another person makes you angry, practice the Law of Forgiveness. Let go of any feelings of anger or resentment. Remember, forgiveness is a perfectly selfish act.
Set Peace Of Mind as Your Highest Goal
You take complete charge of you inner life by deciding that you are going to set peace of mind as your highest goal. Organize your life around this goal.
Chapter 9 - Mastering Human Relationships
Fully 85% of your success in life is going to be determined by your social skill, by your ability to interact positively and effectively with others and to get them to cooperate with you in helping you to achieve your goals.
Most of your problems in life are people problems
The more you accept yourself just as you are, the more you accept others just as they are.
The Law of Indirect Effort
The more interested you become in another person, the more likely it is that the other person will become interested in you.
“I like you because of the way I feel about myself when I am with you.”
Make Others Feel Important Building Self-Esteem In Others
Perhaps the best decision you can ever make is to stop criticizing other people.
You must stop running people down or speaking negatively about them for any reason. No matter what a person has done, or how wrong you think it is, keep your opinions to yourself. Make a game of finding reasons not to criticize or condemn. Make up excuses for the other person, wish him or her well, and when appropriate, forgive him and let him off the hook.
Henry Ford: “Never complain, never explain.”
The trust is that no one is really interested in your complaints anyway.
Seven Keys To Improving Relationships
Be Agreeable
Stop Arguing
“Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?”
Practice Acceptance
Just Smile!
The starting point of being liked is to like other people.
An Attitude of Gratitude
I have learned that you can get halfway across any country in the world by simply learning and saying the words “please” and “thank you” everywhere you go.
Say “Thank You”
Develop the habit of saying “thank you” to everybody for anything and everything they do.
Send “thank you notes.”
Little Children Cry For It; Grown Men Die For It
Three Keys To Positive Praising
Praising is an art
Praise should be immediate
Praise specifically
The rule is: Praise what you want to see repeated, praise it immediately, and praise it specifically.
Praise in public
People may work harder for more money, but they will crawl over broken glass to get more praise and recognition.
“I have discovered a remarkable thing; men will die for ribbons.” - Napoleon
Two Kinds of Praising
Continuous reinforcement - Praise the person every single time he or she does it.
Intermittent reinforcement - only praise the behaviour every third or fourth time it occurs.
Making people feel important
Agreeable
Acceptance
Appreciation
Approval
Admiration
“White Magic”
attention
Life is the study of attention
Wherever your attention goes, your thoughts, your feelings, your life goes also.
Listening is the true measure of attention in human relations.
The best leaders and salespeople, the best managers and friends, are all excellent and skilled listeners.
Listening builds trust
Listening builds self-esteem.
Listening builds self-discipline
The average person speaks at about 150 words per minute, while you can listen at the rate of almost 600 words per minute.
The more you can discipline yourself to listen without distractions, the more effective you will become in other areas of your life as well.
Don’t Just Sit There!
Listen attentively
Listen without interrupting
Pause before replying
question for clarification
“How do you mean?”
Remember, you never learn anything while your mouth is open.
Feed back
“Let me make sure that I understand you. What you’re saying is this.”
Empathic Listening
simple reflection
interpretive reflection
Just Follow The Rules
cue the subject to your listener
“How did you get into that business (or line of work), anyway?”
Take your turn
Remember, if other people are not contributing, what you are doing is making a speech, not holding a conversation.
Shut Up. Don’t go back and finish a story unless you are asked to do so.
Think before you speak
respect other peoples privacy and reserve a little privacy for yourself.
be natural
The Playing Field Is Yours
avoid criticizing, condemning, or complaining
You too can become a brilliant conversationalist by learning how to speak and, especially, by learning how to listen.
Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.
Nothing succeeds like success
Chapter 10 - Mastering Personal Relationships
One of the characteristics of the fully mature, self-actualizing person is the ability to enter into long-term, intimate relationships.
“No success in public life can compensate for failure in the home.”
Intimacy and Growth Go Hand In Hand
Love is like money: If you have an ample supply, you don’t think about it very much. But if your supply is cut off for any period of time, you think about nothing else.
Six Rules For Successful Relationships
similarities attract
opposites attract
Almost all affairs in marriages begin as the result of a need to communicate more fully with another human being.
total commitment
“Love is the total commitment to the full development of the potential of the other.” - W. Scott Peck
The Best Friend Test
met your best friend
amount of laughter
similar self-concepts attract
good communications
Remember, it is not the content of the conversation that is important. It is the process
The Key Question
“What’s important here?"
“What would it be like to be married to me?”
“What would it be like if my mate treated me the way I treat him or her?”
Six Problems in Relationships
lack of commitment
trying to change the other person
Acceptance is largely determined by compatibility
When you stop trying to change them, they will often change their behaviour voluntarily
jealousy
The antidote to jealousy is to realize that it has nothing to do with the other person
self-pity
The antidote is to get so busy with your own goals that you don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself.
Negative expectations
Expect the best of your partner
“I love you, and I believe in you.”
The most common time for incompatibility to occur in marriages seem to be between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-two years.
The Warning Signs
The first sign that a couple is no longer compatible is that the laughter goes our of their relationship.
How To Put The Love Back In
realize that love is a verb: Love is an action word. “To love”
act your way back into loving the person
Begin With Acceptance
“Is this a fact, or is this a problem?”
If its a problem, it is amenable to a solution
If it is a fact, the smartest thing to do is to accept it.
Chapter 11 - Mastering the Art of Parenting What Is The True Role Of Parenting?
Just as a plant needs sunshine and rain, a child needs love and nurturing.
Children Are Not Property
The starting point of raising super kids is to realize that your children are not your property. Your children belong to themselves.
Children Are A Precious Gift
Whenever you have a problem with your child, look into yourself and ask, “What is there in my that could be causing this situation?”
Love Makes The Difference
You can never give a child too much love.
How To Let Them Know
If you want to raise super kids, tell them that you love them every single day.
Eye contact
physical contact
Vulnerability
Destructive criticism has done more to destroy more personalities than all the wars in history.
“Children Learn What They Live” If a child lives with criticism, He learns to condemn. If a child lives with hostility, He learns to fight. If a child lives with ridicule, He learns to be shy. If a child lives with shame, He learns to feel guilty. If a child lives with tolerance, He learns to be patient. If a child lives with encouragement, He learns confidence. If a child lives with praise, He learns to appreciate. If a child lives with fairness, He learns justice. If a child lives with security. He learns to have faith. If a child lives with approval, He learns to like himself. If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, He learns to find love in the world. - Dorothy Noltie
You’re a creature of habit
the primary role of parenting is to raise children with high self-esteem and self-confidence
children need a continuous flow of unconditional love, approval and acceptance from their parents.
tell your children you love them every day, in both words and actions.
Chapter 12 - Mastery: The Power of Love
love is the most important thing in the world.
Always, love is the answer
The Keys To The Kingdom of Personal Achievement
accept yourself unconditionally
The foundation of self-esteem is self-acceptance
accepting complete responsibility.
set worthwhile goals for yourself
take good care of yourself physically.
“I like myself, I like myself, I like myself.”
Three Kinds of Love
Eros - self love
Filia - love of others
Charis - charismatic - universal love
Love Is An Active Verb
Love is not just something that you feel: it is something that you do.
The Key to Happiness
The happiest of all men and women are those who continually look for ways to show love, kindness and affection toward the people around them.
Sowing and Reaping
You can never have any more love for yourself than that which you express to other people. Love only grows by sharing, and the only way you can have any more love for yourself is by giving it away. The more you give away, the more you have.
Set Yourself Free
Forgiving another person is a perfectly selfish act. You do it so that you can be free.
The Purpose of Life
Learn and practice love on every occasion, at every opportunity. The expression of love and the actions of kindness must be as natural to you as breaking in and breathing out.
Only one life, that soon is passed; Only what’s done with love will last.
Your purpose in life is to become a totally loving person. Life is the study of attention. It is a matter of priorities, of choices.
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