Years ago, my mentor turned me on to a little gem of a book. This little book had such an impact on my life, that since then I have read it no less than three to four times a year, because of the words that the author brilliantly put together in this masterpiece.
Like many of us, as you start out the new year, you have big goals and desires to make changes in your life. These changes are all being driven by one thing, your thoughts. What you think about is what controls you. This books lays out how powerful your thoughts are.
The book itself is barely one hundred pages, but with words and concepts as powerful as they are, anything longer would have been just taking up space.
If I haven’t convinced you by now to read the book. Maybe reading the following quotes and excerpts from the book may encourage to read the book.
Another one of my favorite authors and best-selling authors Napoleon Hill said “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” This quote says a lot in a few words. However, the book by James Allen tells you exactly how and what to think.
James Allen: Born November 28, 1864 – January 24, 1912 was an author and philosopher. His philosophy on writing was very simple and it is one that I live by myself today.
“He never wrote theories, or for the sake of writing; but he wrote when he had a message, and it became a message only when he had lived it out in his own life, and knew that it was good. Thus he wrote facts, which he had proven by practice.”
As a Man Thinketh can be purchased online or at any bookstore. There are usually several copies of the classic on the shelves. You can also go online and type in the title and a free PDF will usually pop up. I would encourage you to get the hard copy of the book. The words are too powerful to read only online. You will want a copy of this book in front of you that you can constantly go back to and highlight different words and concepts that strike you every time you read it.
Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from the book.
There can be no progress nor achievement without sacrifice, and a man’s worldly success will be by the measure that he sacrifices his confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his plans, and the strengthening of his resolution and self-reliance. The higher he lifts his thoughts, the greater will be his success, the more blessed and enduring will be his achievements.
In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results. The strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort. They are thoughts completed, objectives accomplished, visions realized.
Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which cannot err.
Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.
Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.
The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed. At the bidding of unlawful thoughts the body sinks rapidly into disease and decay; at the command of glad and beautiful thoughts it becomes clothed with youthfulness and beauty.
If you would perfect your body, guard your mind. If you would renew your body, beautify your mind.
As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.
The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do. Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step.
My hope is that one of these excerpts provoke a strong desire in your mind that you have more ability than you ever thought. These words hopefully inspire you to take action towards your goals and make the changes you need to make to have the year you have always wanted to have.
To your success and your future.
James Allen: As a Man Thinketh, 1903
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