Believe in Yourself
Following are ten simple, workable rules for overcoming inadequacy attitudes and learning to practice faith. Thousands have used these rules, reporting successful results.
- Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop this picture. Never think of yourself as failing; never doubt the reality of the mental image. That is most dangerous, for the mind always tries to complete what it pictures. So always picture “success” no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.
- Whenever a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind, deliberately voice a positive thought to cancel it out.
- Do not built up obstacles in your imagination. Depreciate every so-called obstacle. Minimize them. Difficulties must be studied and efficiently dealt with to be eliminated, but they must be seen for only what they are. They must not be inflated by fear thoughts.
- Do not be awestruck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as YOU can. Remember also that most people, despite their confident appearance and demeanor, are often as scared as you are and as doubtful of themselves.
- Ten times a day repeat these dynamic words, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) (Stop reading and repeat them NOW slowly and confidently.)
- 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.
- Ten times each day practice the following affirmation, repeating it out loud if possible. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (Philippians 4:13) Repeat those words NOW. That magic statement is the most powerful antidote on earth to inferiority thoughts.
- Make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 per cent. Do not become egotistical, but develop a wholesome self-respect. Believe in your own God-released powers.
- Put yourself in God’s hands. To do that simply state, “I am in God’s hands.” Then believe you are NOW receiving all the power you need. “Feel” it flowing into you. Affirm that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) in the form of adequate power to meet life’s demands.
- Remind yourself that God is with you and nothing can defeat you. Believe that you now RECEIVE power from him.
Try Prayer Power
Following are ten rules for getting effective results from prayer:
- Set aside a few minutes every day. Do not say anything. Simply practice thinking about God. This will make your mind spiritually receptive.
- Then pray orally, using simple, natural words. Tell God anything that is on your mind. Do not think you must use stereotyped pious phrases. Talk to God in your own language. He understands it.
- Pray as you go about the business of the day, on the subway or bus or at your desk. Utilize minute prayers by closing your eyes to shut out the world and concentrating briefly on God’s presence. The more you do this every day the nearer you will feel God’s presence.
- Do not always ask when you pray, but instead affirm that God’s blessings are being given, and spend most of your prayers giving thanks.
- Pray with the belief that sincere prayers can reach out and surround your loved ones with God’s love and protection.
- Never use a negative thought in prayer. Only positive thoughts get results.
- Always express willingness to accept God’s will. Ask for what you want, but be willing to take what God gives you. It may be better than what you ask for.
- Practice the attitude of putting everything in God’s hands. Ask for the ability to do your best and to leave the results confidently to God.
- Pray for people you do not like or who have mistreated you. Resentment is blockade number one of spiritual power.
- Make a list of people for whom to pray. The more you pray for other people, especially those not connected with you, the more prayer results will come back to you.
Stop Fuming and Fretting
Following is a technique consisting of six points in reducing the tendency to fume and fret.
- Sit relaxed in a chair. Completely yield yourself to the chair. Starting with your toes and proceeding to the top of your head, conceive of every portion of the body as relaxing. Affirm relaxation by saying, “My toes are relaxed—my fingers—my facial muscles.”
- Think of your mind as the surface of a lake in a storm, tossed by waves and in tumult. But now the waves subside, and the surface of the lake is placid and unruffled.
- Spend two or three minutes thinking of the most beautiful and peaceful scenes you have ever beheld, as, for example, a mountain at sunset, or a deep valley filled with the hush of early morning, or a woods at noonday, or moonlight upon rippling waters. In memory relive these scenes.
- Repeat slowly, quietly, bringing out the melody in each, a series of words which express quietness and peace, as, for example, (a) tranquillity (say it very deliberately and in a tranquil manner); (b) serenity; (c) quietness. Think of other such words and repeat them.
- Make a mental list of times in your life when you have been conscious of God’s watchful care and recall how, when you were worried and anxious, He brought things out right and took care of you. Then recite aloud this line from an old hymn, “So long Thy power hath kept me, sure it STILL will lead me on.”
- Repeat the following, which has an amazing power to relax and quiet the mind: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” (Isaiah 26:3) Repeat this several times during the day, whenever you have a fraction of a moment. Repeat it aloud if possible, so that by the end of the day you will have said it many times. Conceive of these words as active, vital substances permeating your mind, sending into every area of your thinking a healing balm. This is the best-known medicine for taking tension from the mind.
How to Break the Worry Habit
To help you go to work now to break the worry habit, I list a ten-point worry-breaking formula.
- Say to yourself, “Worry is just a very bad mental habit. And I can change any habit with God’s help.”
- You became a worrier by practicing worry. You can become free of worry by practicing the opposite and stronger habit of faith. With all the strength and perseverance you can command, start practicing faith.
- How do you practice faith? First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, “I believe,” three times.
- Pray, using this formula, “I place this day, my life, my loved ones, my work in the Lord’s hands. There is no harm in the Lord’s hands, only good. Whatever happens, whatever results, if I am in the Lord’s hands it is the Lord’s will and it is good.”
- Practice saying something positive concerning everything about which you have been talking negatively. Talk positively. For example, don’t say, “This is going to be a terrible day.” Instead, affirm, “This is going to be a glorious day.” Don’t say, “I’ll never be able to do that.” Instead, affirm, “With God’s help I will do that.”
- Never participate in a worry conversation. Shoot an injection of faith into all your conversations. A group of people talking pessimistically can infect every person in the group with negativism. But by talking things up rather than down you can drive off that depressing atmosphere and make everyone feel hopeful and happy.
- One reason you are a worrier is that your mind is literally saturated with apprehension thoughts, defeat thoughts, gloomy thoughts. To counteract, mark every passage in the Bible that speaks of faith, hope, happiness, glory, radiance. Commit each to memory. Say them over and over again until these creative thoughts saturate your subconscious mind. Then the subconscious will return to you what you have given it, namely, optimism, not worry.
- Cultivate friendships with hopeful people. Surround yourself with friends who think positive, faith-producing thoughts and who contribute to a creative atmosphere. This will keep you re-stimulated with faith attitudes.
- See how many people you can help to cure their own worry habit. In helping another to overcome worry you get greater power over it within yourself.
- Every day of your life conceive of yourself as living in partnership and companionship with Jesus Christ. If He actually walked by your side, would you be worried or afraid? Well, then, say to yourself, “He is with me.” Affirm aloud, “I am with you always.” Then change it to say, “He is with me now.” Repeat that affirmation three times every day.
How to Get People to Like You
The basic principles of getting people to like you need no prolonged and labored emphasis, for they are very simple and easily illustrate their own truth.
- Learn to remember names. Inefficiency at this point may indicate that your interest is not sufficiently outgoing. A man’s name is very important to him.
- Be a comfortable person so there is no strain in being with you—be an old-shoe, old-hat kind of individual. Be homey.
- Acquire the quality of relaxed easy-goingness so that things do not ruffle you.
- Don’t be egotistical. Guard against giving the impression that you know it all. Be natural and normally humble.
- Cultivate the quality of being interesting so that people will want to be with you and get something of stimulating value from their association with you.
- Study to get the “scratchy” elements out of your personality, even those of which you may be unconscious.
- Sincerely attempt to heal, on an honest Christian basis, every misunderstanding you have had or now have. Drain off your grievances.
- Practice liking people until you learn to do so genuinely. Remember what Will Rogers said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Try to be that way.
- Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone’s achievement, or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment.
- Get a deep spiritual experience so that you have something to give people that will help them to be stronger and meet life more effectively. Give strength to people and they will give affection to you.