The Strangest Secret
by Earl Nightingale (Part 2 of 3)
GOALS
Have you ever wondered why so many people work so hard and honestly
without ever achieving anything in particular, and why others don't
seem to work hard, yet seem to get everything? They seem to have the
"magic touch." You've heard people say, "Everything he touches turns
to gold." Have you ever noticed that a person who becomes successful
tends to continue to become more successful? And, on the other hand,
have you noticed how someone who's a failure tends to continue to
fail?
The difference is goals. People with goals succeed because they know
where they're going. It's that simple. Failures, on the other hand,
believe that their lives are shaped by circumstances ... by things that
happen to them ... by exterior forces.
Think of a ship with the complete voyage mapped out and planned. The
captain and crew know exactly where the ship is going and how long it
will take -- it has a definite goal. And 9,999 times out of 10,000, it
will get there.
Now let's take another ship -- just like the first -- only let's not put
a crew on it, or a captain at the helm. Let's give it no aiming point,
no goal, and no destination. We just start the engines and let it go.
I think you'll agree that if it gets out of the harbor at all, it will
either sink or wind up on some deserted beach -- a derelict. It can't
go anyplace because it has no destination and no guidance.
It's the same with a human being. However, the human race is fixed,
not to prevent the strong from winning, but to prevent the weak from
losing. Society today can be likened to a convoy in time of war. The
entire society is slowed down to protect its weakest link, just as the
naval convoy has to go at the speed that will permit its slowest
vessel to remain in formation.
That's why it's so easy to make a living today. It takes no particular
brains or talent to make a living and support a family today. We have
a plateau of so-called "security." So, to succeed, all we must do is
decide how high above this plateau we want to aim.
Throughout history, the great wise men and teachers, philosophers, and
prophets have disagreed with one another on many different things. It
is only on this one point that they are in complete and unanimous
agreement -- the key to success and the key to failure is this:
WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT
This is The Strangest Secret! Now, why do I say it's strange, and why
do I call it a secret? Actually, it isn't a secret at all. It was
first promulgated by some of the earliest wise men, and it appears
again and again throughout the Bible. But very few people have learned
it or understand it. That's why it's strange, and why for some equally
strange reason it virtually remains a secret.
Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor, said: "A man's life is what
his thoughts make of it."
Disraeli said this: "Everything comes if a man will only wait ... a
human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and nothing can
resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment."
William James said: "We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in
question were real, and it will become infallibly real by growing into
such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will
become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be
those which characterize belief." He continues, " ... only you must,
then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not
wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as
strongly."
My old friend Dr. Norman Vincent Peale put it this way: "If you think
in negative terms, you will get negative results. If you think in
positive terms, you will achieve positive results." George Bernard
Shaw said: "People are always blaming their circumstances for what
they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in
this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances
they want, and if they can't find them, make them."
Well, it's pretty apparent, isn't it? We become what we think about. A
person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going
to reach it, because that's what he's thinking about. Conversely, the
person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose
thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and
worry will thereby create a life of frustration, fear, anxiety and
worry. And if he thinks about nothing ... he becomes nothing.
See you tomorrow for part 3
Posted By: Hugh Palmer
Friday, October 2nd 2009 at 12:16PM
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