The Power of Positive Thinking

by Norman Vincent Peale

‘I don’t believe in defeat’.

when the game seemed to go against him he did not let discouragement creep in nor negative thoughts dominate and thus lose the power needed to win. This mental and spiritual quality made that man a champion. He was able to face obstacles, to stand up to them and overcome them.

Faith supplies staying power. It contains dynamic to keep one going when the going is hard. Anybody can keep going when the going is good, but some extra ingredient is needed to enable you to keep fighting when it seems that everything is against you. It is a great secret, that of never being: ‘defeated by the discouraging vicissitudes of the game’.

However, I caution you not to take the attitude that you are in a situation in which nobody has ever been before. There is no such situation.

Well, first I try to go around it, and if I can’t go around it, I try to get under it, and if I can’t get under it, I try to go over it, and if I can’t get over it, I just plough right through it.”

your subconscious mind in a sense is one of the greatest liars in existence. It concurs in and sends back to you your own errors about your abilities. You have created the negative attitude in your subconscious and it gives this error back to you. So just turn on your subconscious and say to it: ‘Now look here, I do believe that. I insist upon believing it’. If you talk to your subconscious mind with that positiveness, in due course it will be convinced. One reason is because you are now feeding it positive thoughts. In other words, you are at last telling the truth to your subconscious. After a while your subconscious mind will begin to send back the truth to you,

I found that the best way to eliminate them was deliberately to say a positive word about everything. When you keep asserting that things are going to work out well, that you can do the job, that you will not have a flat tyre, that you will get there on time, by talking up good results you invoke the law of positive effects and good results occur. Things do turn out well.

a clean mind, even as a clean engine, always delivers power.

Form the mental attitude that you cannot remove an obstacle and you will not remove it, not if you think you can’t. But get the idea firmly fixed that the obstacle is not so great as you previously considered it to be. Hold the idea that it is removable, and however faintly you entertain this positive thought, from the very moment you begin to think in this manner, the process is inaugurated which will lead to its ultimate removal.

If you have been long defeated by a difficulty, it is probably because you have told yourself for weeks, months, and even for years that there is nothing you can do about it. You have so emphasised your inability to yourself that your mind gradually accepted the conclusion upon which you have insisted, and when your mind is convinced, you are convinced, for as you think so are you.

Emphasise and re-emphasise that positive attitude and you will finally convince your own consciousness that you can do something about difficulties. When at last your mind becomes convinced, astonishing results will begin to happen. Of a sudden you discover that you have the power you would never acknowledge.

“The rough is only mental. In other words,” he continued, “it is rough because you think it is. In your mind you have decided that here is an obstacle which will cause you difficulty. The power to overcome this obstacle is in your mind. If you visualise yourself lifting that ball out of the rough, believing you can do it, your mind will transfer flexibility, rhythm, and power to your muscles and you will handle that club in such a manner that the ball will rise right out of there in a beautiful shot. All you need to do is to keep your eye on that ball and tell yourself that you are going to lift it out of that grass with a lovely stroke. Let the stiffness and tension go out of you. Hit it with exhilaration and power. Remember, the rough is only mental.”

‘the rough is only mental.’

‘The rough is only mental. I think victory—I get victory’. Remember that formula.

‘Always take hold of things by the smooth handle’. That is, go at a job or at your difficulty by the use of a method that will encounter the least resistance. Resistance causes friction in mechanics, therefore it is necessary in mechanics to overcome or reduce friction. The negative attitude is a friction approach. That is why negativism develops such great resistance. The positive approach is the ‘smooth handle’ technique. It is in harmony with the flow of the universe. It not only encounters less resistance, but actually stimulates assistance forces. It is remarkable how from early life until the end of your existence the application of this philosophy will enable you to attain successful results in areas where otherwise you would be defeated.

Since aggressive, direct action is essential in the elimination process, there is just one proper time to begin an effective attack on worry, and that is now.

‘Anxiety is the great modern plague.’

‘fear is the most disintegrating enemy of human personality’, and a prominent physician declares that ‘worry is the most subtle and destructive of all human diseases’. Another physician tells us that thousands of people are ill because of ‘dammed-up anxiety’. These sufferers have been unable to expel their anxieties which have turned inward on the personality, causing many forms of ill-health. The destructive quality of worry is indicated by the fact that the word itself is derived from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘to choke’. If someone were to put his fingers around your throat and press hard, cutting off the flow of vital power, it would be a dramatic demonstration of what you do to yourself by long-held and habitual worry.

We are told that worry is not infrequently a factor in arthritis. Physicians who have analysed the causes of this prevalent disease assert that the following factors, at least some of them, are nearly always present in arthritic cases: financial disaster, frustration, tension,...

The worrier, so it seems, is not likely to live as long as the person who learns to overcome his worries.

if you want to live long, observe the following rules: (1) Keep calm. (2) Go to church. (3) Eliminate worry.

Married people, according to the article, live longer than single people. Perhaps this is because a married couple can divide the worry. When you are single, you have to do it all alone.

A scientific expert on length of life made a study of some 450 people who lived to be one hundred years of age. He found that these people lived long and contented lives for the following reasons: (1) They kept busy. (2) They used moderation in all things. (3) They ate lightly and simply. (4) They got a great deal of fun out of life. (5) They were early to bed and early up. (6) They were free from worry and fear, especially fear of death. (7) They had serene minds and faith in God.

“We fear not only in our minds but in our hearts, brains, and viscera, that whatever the cause of fear and worry, the effect can always be noted in the cells, tissues, and organs of the body.”

Practise emptying the mind daily. This should be done preferably before retiring at night to avoid the retention by the consciousness of worries while you sleep. During sleep, thoughts tend to sink more deeply into the subconscious. The last five minutes before going to sleep are of extraordinary importance, for in that brief period the mind is most receptive to suggestion. It tends to absorb the last ideas that are entertained in waking consciousness. This process of mind drainage is important in overcoming worry, for fear thoughts, unless drained off, can clog the mind and impede the flow of mental and spiritual power. But such thoughts can be emptied from the mind and will not accumulate if they are eliminated daily. To drain them, utilize a process of creative imagination. Conceive of yourself as actually emptying your mind of all anxiety and fear. Picture all worry thoughts as flowing out as you would let water flow from a basin by removing the stopper. Repeat the following affirmation during this visualisation: ‘With God’s help I am now emptying my mind of all anxiety, all fear, all sense of insecurity.’ Repeat this slowly five times, then add: ‘I believe that my mind is now emptied of all anxiety, all fear, all sense of insecurity.’ Repeat that statement five times, meanwhile holding a mental picture of your mind as being emptied of these concepts. Then thank God for thus freeing you from fear. Then go to sleep. In starting the curative process the foregoing method ...

The procedure may be further strengthened by imaginatively thinking of yourself as reaching into your mind and one by one removing your worries. A small child possesses an imaginative skill superior to that of adults. A child responds to the game of kissing away a hurt or throwing away a fear. This simple process works for the child because in his mind he believes that that is actually the end of it. The dramatic act is a fact for him and so it proves to be the end of the matter. Visualise your fears as being drained out of your mind and the visualisation will in due course be actualised.

Imagination is a source of fear, but imagination may also be the cure of fear. ‘Imagineering’ is the use of mental images to build factual results, and it is an astonishingly effective procedure. Imagination is not simply the use of fancy. The word imagination derives from the idea of imaging. That is to say, you form an image either of fear or of release from fear....

Therefore hold an image of yourself as delivered from worry and the drainage process will in time eliminate abnormal fear from your thoughts. However, it is not enough to empty the mind, for the mind will not long remain empty. It must be occupied by something. It cannot continue in a state of vacuum. Therefore, upon emptying the mind, practise refilling it. Fill it with thoughts of faith, hope, courage, expectancy. Say aloud such affirmations as the following: ‘God is now filling my mind with courage, with peace, with calm assurance. God is now protecting me fr...

Fear is the most powerful of all thoughts with one exception, and that one exception is faith. Faith can always overcome fear. Faith is the one power against which fear cannot stand.

Fill your mind with faith, and in due course the accumulation of faith will crowd out fear. It will not be of much value merely to read this suggestion unless you practise it. And the time to begin practising it is now, while you think of it and while you are convinced that the number one procedure in breaking the worry habit is to drain the mind daily of fear and fill the mind daily with faith. It is just as simple as that. Learn to be a practiser of faith until you become an expert in faith. Then fear cannot live in you.

The importance of freeing your mind of fear cannot be overemphasised. Fear something over a long period of time and there is a real possibility that by fearing you may actually help bring it to pass.

“For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me...” (Job iii.25.) Of course it will, for if you fear something continuously you tend to create conditions in your mind propitious to the development of that which you fear. An atmosphere is encouraged in which it can take root and grow. You tend to draw it to yourself.

if we have faith ‘nothing is impossible’ unto us, and ‘according to your faith be it done unto you’. So if you shift your mind from fear to faith you will stop creating the object of your fear and will, instead, actualise the object of your faith. Surround your mind with healthy thoughts, thoughts of faith, and not fear, and you will produce faith results instead of fear results.

Strategy must be used in the campaign against the worry habit. A frontal attack on the main body of worry with the expectation of conquering it may prove difficult. Perhaps a more adroit plan is to conquer the outer fortifications one by one, gradually closing in on the main position.

To change the figure, it might be well to snip off the little worries on the farthest branches of your fear. Then work back and fin...

“If we had cut the tree at the ground before trimming off the branches, it would have broken nearby trees in falling. It is easier to handle a tree the smaller you can make it,” so explained the tree man. The vast tree of worry which over long years has grown up in your personality can best be handled by making it as small as possible. Thus it is advisable to snip off the little worries and expressions of worry. For example, reduce the number of worry words in your conversation. Words maybe the result of worry, but they also create worry. When a worry thought comes to mind, immediately remove it with a faith thought and expression. ‘I’m worried that I will miss the train’. Then start early enough to be sure you get there on time. The less worrying you do, the more likely you are to start promptly, for the uncluttered mind is systematic and is able to regulate time.

He says that every morning before he arises he repeats these two words: ‘I believe’, three times. Thus at the day’s beginning he conditions his mind to faith, and it never leaves him. His mind accepts the conviction that by faith he is going to overcome his problems and difficulties during the day. He starts the day with creative positive thoughts in his mind. He ‘believes’, and it is very difficult to hold back the man who believes.

“Howard, don’t you ever worry?” He laughed. “No, not on your life. I don’t believe in it.”

I noticed that everybody else seemed to worry and I figured I must be missing something, so one day I made up my mind to try it. I set aside a day and said: ‘That is to be my worry day.’ I decided I would investigate this worry business and do some worrying just to see what it was like. “The night before the day came I went to bed early to get a good night’s sleep to be rested up to do a good job of worrying the next day. In the morning I got up, ate a good breakfast—for you can’t worry successfully on an empty stomach—and then decided to get to my worrying. Well, I tried my best to worry until along about noon, but I just couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. It didn’t make sense to me, so I just gave it up.”