The Power of Thought

I've always look forward to January...minus the snow and cold! The reason it's my favorite month is that I see it as a clean slate...a chance to do better...to be better than the previous year...I'm filled with hope and anticipation. This is especially true this year because I've spent the past 12 months doing much reading on the topic to follow.

"There was a time when I would have laughed at people who talked about the magnetic force of thought, how thought correlates with its object, how it can affect people and inanimate things, even at great distances. But I no longer laugh, nor do others who know something of its power, for anyone who has any intelligence sooner or later comes to the realization that thought can change the surface of the entire globe." Claude Bristol

I too, was once a skeptic, and even after spending considerable time reading and studying these concepts and findings, certainly wouldn't have risked being ridiculed by my peers by admitting that I now believe them to be true! Not only do I now believe them to be true, I believe that in our current economic environment, along with the gloom and doom mindset of the media, that it is more important than ever to determine whether or not you will choose to focus on all that is good with your life or will you buy into the concept that the best days of our lives are behind us. I personally choose to believe that the best days are in front of us and that we can overcome the obstacles and be stronger as a result!

Perhaps the following story and insights taken from the book I'm reading, The Magic of Believing by Claude Britol, from which most of the content for today is coming will be an encouragement to you as it has been for me.

"It came to me in a flash that the reason my firm was going on the rocks was not because of the threatening outside happenings and events, but because of the mental attitude of its members and employees. We were all succumbing to mass fear thoughts; we feared that the depression was weakening our spirit and sweeping everything downhill to financial disaster, and with our own thoughts of ruin we were attracting the disaster to ourselves. It occurred to me that all I needed to do to save the firm and to begin fighting the depression itself was to reverse the thinking of every person connected with our organization. I set about doing that very thing; and as Frank W. Camp who wrote the introduction to my brochure declared, "it was followed by the most remarkable transformation of individuals and organization as well.

Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that the ancestor of every action is thought; when we understand that, we begin to comprehend that our world is governed by thought and that everything without had its counterpart originally within the mind. It is just as Buddha said many centuries ago: "All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

Your very life is your thinking and the result of your thinking processes. Your flesh, bones, and muscles can be reduced to 70 per cent water and a few chemicals of small value, but it is your mind and what you think that makes you what you are. The secret of success lies not without, but within, the thoughts of man. You are the product of your own thought. What you believe yourself to be, you are." Claude Bristol

"As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." Jesus

"Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inventions, and of all achievement. Without it there would be no great empires, no great fortunes, no great transcontinental rail lines, no modern conveniences; in fact, there would be no advance over life in the most primitive ages.

Your thoughts, those that predominate, determine your character, your career, indeed your everyday life. Thus it becomes easy to understand what is meant by the statement that a man's thoughts make or break him. And when you realize that there can be no action or reaction, either good or bad, without the generating force of thought initiating it, the Biblical saying, "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap," and Shakespeare's words "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking that makes it so," becomes more intelligible. We become what we contemplate, what we envisage.

I would like to point out that hard work alone will not bring success. The world is full of people who work hard but have little to show for it. Something more than hard work is necessary: it is creative thinking and firm belief in your ability to execute your ideas. The successful people in history have succeeded through their thinking. Their hands were merely helpers to their brains.

Another important point is that one essential to success is that your desire be an all-obsessing one, your thoughts and aims be co-ordinated, and your energy be concentrated and applied without letup. It may be riches or fame or position or knowledge that you want, for each person has his own idea of what success means to him. But whatever you consider it to be, you can have it provided you are willing to make the objective the burning desire of your life. A big order, you say. Not at all; by using the dynamic force of believing,you can set all your inner forces in motion, and they will in turn help you to reach your goal." Claude Bristol

"It is done unto you as you believe." Jesus

"Now that you have a clearer idea of the part that thought and desire play in our daily lives, the first thing to determine is precisely what you want. Starting in with the general idea that you merely want to be a success, as most people do is to indefinite. You must have a mental pattern clearly drawn in your mind. Ask yourself, Where am I headed? What is my goal? Have I visualized just what I really want? If success is to be measured in terms of wealth, can you fix the amount in figures? If in terms of achievement, can you specify it definitely?" "I ask these questions, for in their answers are factors which will determine your whole life. Strange as it may appear, not one out of a hundred people can answer these questions. Most people have a general idea of what they would like to be a success, but beyond that everything is vague. They merely go along from day to day figuring that if they have a job today they will have it tomorrow and that somehow they will be looked after in their old age. They are like the cork on the water floating aimlessly, drawn this way and that by various currents, and either being washed up on the shore, or becoming waterlogged and eventually sinking." Claude Bristol

Thought - Desire - Belief...are you paying attention to yours?

Make it a great year...the choice IS yours
Wendy