The Law of Success - Chapter 2 - Self Confidence

Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.   - Henry Ford

Day by day in every way I am becoming more successful.   - Napoleon Hill

Thinking by Walter D. Wintle

If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't
It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!

Chapter 2:  Self-Confidence - Skepticism, unbelief and doubt have no place in the mind of the person who wants to reach his definite purpose.  Thought, according to Hill, is the most highly organized form of energy know to man.  Thorough goal setting, affirmations, persistence and self-confidence in what you are trying to achieve a person can achieve anything.  

But first you must let go of fear, that nagging voice in your head that says you can't, you shouldn't or you don't have the ability.  "If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been."  - Robert Schuller 

Many people live in constant fear of making a mistake so they never take the first step toward making their dreams and aspirations a reality.  Start looking at things a different way.  Instead of being fearful of what might happen, especially in the negative, start looking at positive outcome may happen instead.  By being positive about the things you are doing, you set in motion the positive outcome of your actions.  How many times have you heard stories of people born into a bad situation who through positive thoughts and actions were able to pull themselves out of that situation?  Self-confidence develops as we use it to move forward with our lives.  And, yes there may be setbacks.  Edison did not invent the light bulb on his very first try and Milton Hershey failed many times until he succeeded with the now world-famous chocolate bar.  Self-confidence in reaching the end result and perseverance to keep trying made them the successful men that they were. 

Self confidence is a way of believing in yourself.  You will, of course, need the cooperation of others has you work toward your definite purpose and the best way to do that is to surround yourself with those people who also believe in you.  Surround yourself with those people who will boost you up with have setbacks and will offer encouragement when you need it.  Do not surround yourself with "negative Nellies", those people who will discourage you from your chosen path or look down upon whatever it is you have set out to do.

Napoleon Hill set out the following Self-Confidence Formula, which I have condensed for this post.

1. Know that you have the ability to achieve your definite purpose and take persistent, aggressive and continuous action toward that goal.
2. Realize that your thought will eventually manifest into physical reality - thoughts become things.  Concentrate daily on the mental picture of who you want to be and your definite purpose.
3. Use affirmations, in the present tense, to set those ideas into your subconscious where they will force the body into action.
4. Write down your definite purpose and a "road map" of goals for the next five years to achieve this desired result.
5. Engage in only those actions that have benefit not only to you but to the others that they may affect.  Do nothing through hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness or cynicism and always with a positive attitude.  Always employe the Golden Rule of Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.
   

Make a copy of these items, if you like and study them and commit to them.  The positive habits that you form now and do repeatedly will be very powerful in developing your self-confidence.  Anything you have learned to do up to this point has been by repeated practice until it became a habit.  The use of my keyboard to type is through a "learned" habit of knowing where the specific keys that represent the letters are located.  Over time then I have developed the ability to type words without the need to think about where they are.  You can do the same thing with anything you set your mind to do, including the habit of self-confidence in your ability.

People who are successful are so because they believed in themselves, created a definite purpose as to where they wanted to be and then backed that up with a definite plan on how to get there.  As Hill says, your only limitation, within reason, is the one that you set up in your own mind.

Take the time to perform a self-analysis - take an inventory of your current abilities to see if you have what you need to achieve you goals.  And then when you do set out on your journey to that purpose make sure that you finish all that you set out to do each step of the way.

AND, be fearless as you go, having the self-confidence in your abilities that you have acquired as you proceed toward your definite purpose.

Ready?