The Law of Success - Lesson 11 - Concentration

Concentration - the act of focusing the mind upon a given desire until ways and means for its realization have been worked out and successfully put into operation.     - Napoleon Hill

Using Auto Suggestion and the Law of Habit spoken of earlier in his book, Mr. Hill says that concentration on your Definite Purpose can make it happen.  Using repetition, thinking the same thoughts over and over again will cause you to come up with ways to make it possible.

Your thoughts become your words,
Words become actions
Actions become habits
Habits become character
Character becomes Destiny
               Lao Tzu

Your environment creates your habits, which become a permanent part of your subconscious where it becomes your personality and influences your actions, prejudices, biases and opinions.  This is environment that you live or work in.  All those things that influence you through sight, hearing, smell, taste or feelings/emotions are part of your environment.
You need to master your habits rather than becoming a slave to them.  Good habits are just as easy to create as bad habits.  Just keep doing them over and over again.  A habit is a "mental path" according to Hill.  It is the way you keep doing something over and over again based on the way you think about it.  The way to change them is to come up with new thought patterns.

Men's natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart.    - Confucius

The Rules of Procedure to form the habits you desire are laid out by Hill.

First - beginning a new habit - put force and enthusiasm into your expression.  Feel what you think.  Make the path as clear and deep as you can at the beginning so it can be easily seen going forward.  In other words put the emotions that you want to experience from this new habit into the habit from the very beginning.

Second - Keep your attention firmly concentrated on building your new path and away from the old paths.  Forget the old, concern yourself only with the new ones you are building.  Again, put an emotion with the new habit.  How will it feel when this is how you do this all the time?

Fourth - Resist the old paths - It will make you stronger to be persistent.

Fifth - Make sure to map out the right path to your definite purpose and go ahead without fear or doubt.  Select your goals and make your path lead straight to it.

Through habit, an act repeatedly performed in the same manner has a tendency to become permanent, and eventually we come to perform the act automatically or unconsciously. 

Auto suggestion is the tool to create this new habit.

Concentration is the hand that holds the tool.

Habit is the map or blueprint.

Your desired GOAL must be held in your conscious mind faithfully and persistently until it becomes a permanent habit.

Your environment must support this goal.  Other parts of your environment include: books, read, associates, community, work you do, country/nation you live in, clothes you wear, songs you sing or listen to, religion, education prior to age 14.  Environment is the direct relationship with who we become.  If your environment is not providing you with what you want, CHANGE IT!  Create in your mind an exact, clear, well developed picture of the environment needed to create your Definite Purpose and then concentrate your mind on this picture until you turn it into reality.  Remember that you can only succeed if you define your Definite Purpose and then your environment must include those people who are in harmony with that Definite Purpose.

Every word spoken within your hearing, every sight that reaches your eyes, and every sense impression that you receive through any of the 5 senses influences your thought as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.  Thus your environment must be controlled.

And Mr. Hill goes into great detail about keeping every part of your environment concentrated on your Definite Purpose.  Your clothes should be appropriate to the end result.  Your mental attitude needs to be appropriate to your desired outcome.  And he says that the magic key to this success is Concentration.  It means the ability to control your attention and focus it on a given problem until you have solved it!

Think the way you wish to think.  Control your thoughts and direct them to a definite end.  Organize your knowledge into a plan of action that is sound and workable to reach your desired goal.

Concentrate on your Definite Purpose.

Successful concentration depends on Ambition and Desire.

Nothing was ever created that was not first created in the imagination through desire and then transformed into reality through concentration!  WHEW!

As I often tell my students, You need to see it, feel it, taste it, smell it to make it happen.  Look ahead 1, 3, 5 years even 10 and see yourself as _________________.  See the outcome, use your imagination.  As Dr. Wayne Dyer says, "You will see it when you believe it".  And 2 or more people with the same Definite Purpose can do anything!

Thought is organized energy and concentrating on a single thought gives it even more energy.

Our environment is an extension of our mind.  When we change our mind, our life changes.     - Dr. Joe Dispenze

So Concentrate on this for a while!

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