The Law Of Success – Lessons 3 & 4

Manifesting Your Desires: The Law of Success & Law Of Attraction

Lesson Three: Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is essential when you go out in the world and try to achieve anything.

And the thing that stops most people from going out into the world is fear.

Fear of one kind or another, usually appearing as a little voice inside which says something like “you can’t do it, this is too much, what will people think, what are you even thinking of, trying to do this?” And much, much more of the same.

How are you going to overcome such fear if you want to achieve power, presence and success in the world?

I think what is needed more than anything is just the ability to be “a little bit braver”. To try doing something that is beyond your comfort zone.

And yet I know how hard that can seem to many people. Years ago I experienced massive anxiety about going out into the world, meeting people, asserting myself … it doesn’t matter why, but I can tell you that I really saw the true meaning of fear.

Somehow, I came across a book called “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”. You might have heard of it. I thought that would be the answer to all my problems!

Yet the truth of the matter was that almost nothing in the book helped me. And the reason why? Because people who have never lived with extreme fear don’t know how crippling and pervasive it can be. Even authors of self-help books on how to overcome fear.

But taking small steps can be one way to overcome fear: trying things that are just a little bit more risky than you’ve previously attempted.

By finding out that you can be in the world and still be safe, you can grow in confidence and achieve more and more. Of course, the problem with this approach is that it might take some time to change and become fully confident…

So perhaps a better way is to seek out therapy or counseling, or to take workshops specifically designed to help people who are fearful.

One thing’s for sure, though: unless you’re confident of your ability to do what you need to do to achieve what you want to achieve, your ability to call upon Law Of Manifestation or the eternal Law Of Attraction is going to be seriously hampered.

I’ve seen people make massive strides in overcoming fear by doing deep practical therapeutic work — shadow work is a particular favourite of mine because it has produced some of the biggest leaps forward in my life.

But ultimately, I think the truth is that if you want something badly enough, and you’re not getting it because your fear stands in the way of manifestation, blocking the universal Law Of Attraction and the universal Law Of Manifestation so they do not work for you, then you will find a way to overcome your fear. A way that is right for you…..

But Why Do We Feel Fear?

Once again, it’s because we hold beliefs we hold about ourselves which interfere with the working of the eternal law of attraction and our ability to manifest things or to achieve success.

Beliefs which get in the way of getting what you want, of succeeding, of achieving your objectives, need to be eradicated as quickly and completely as possible.

For example, one of the most common reasons why manifestation does not work is a person’s deep-seated belief about poverty: to be exact, that they will somehow always be poor.

Imagine this:  you’re born of poor parents, or you’re born of people who have a poor – in other words, a limited – vision of themselves and the world,  and what they can achieve. This is so common.

This financial poverty, this poverty of the imagination, this inability to see a bigger picture, or a more prosperous one, will be your experience from the day you’re born: you hear small-minded talk, talk of poverty, and you feel the icy hand of poverty on your shoulders, and of course, without you even realizing it, you quite unconsciously become a victim who believes that “being born into poverty means always being in poverty.”

And of course nothing can kill ambition faster than real poverty or poverty of the imagination: why bother to try, why bother to aspire, why bother to hope, when you know, deep down in your bones, that there’s no Law Of Attraction or Law Of Success which can help you out of poverty?

Working from the position that poverty is “your natural status” in life, unconsciously believing that you will always be poor, this belief system — this fear, if you prefer — is going to get stuck between you and your ability to manifest what you want.

And while we’re on the subject of financial struggle, I want to dispel the idea that somehow it’s inevitable that you have to struggle in any way to get what you want.

The main reason this sometimes seems to be true is because people believe that “life is a struggle”, or that things only come to them with a struggle!

The truth is this:  when you believe, consciously or unconsciously, that life is a struggle, it naturally will be.

I know people whose lives have been blessed with good fortune, and great success, both financially and in relationships, and I know that not a single one of them has ever said to me anything about life being a struggle — quite the opposite: they believe life is easy, and so it turned out for them.

We’ll examine all of this more in the section on Belief, but I want you to understand for the moment that when you’re inhibited by fear and negative beliefs about yourself, you actually have no choice but to eliminate them from your thinking if you want to succeed.

Napoleon Hill offered a self-confidence formula, which, like a lot of the self-development and advice from his era, seems to be about forcing yourself to do things differently … although Hill called it auto-suggestion. I think the nearest thing we have today is self-hypnosis, and it’s very different…..

Hill’s idea was that you wrote down a “self-confidence formula” on a piece of card, signed it, and committed it to memory, repeating it once-a-day with complete confidence that it would change your life!

And you know what? I agree. If you did this, with complete belief, it really could change your life. But would you believe beyond the first set-back?

And sure, self hypnosis can be helpful in improving your self-confidence … but  trying to change your deep-seated beliefs simply by telling yourself that things are different to the reality you live with every day isn’t likely to succeed.

It’s advice like this which is responsible for people losing faith and confidence in the power of the Law Of Attraction and the process of manifestation.

Self Confidence Formula – according to Napoleon Hill

Write this on a card.

First: I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my definite purpose, therefore I demand of myself persistent, aggressive and continuous action toward its attainment.

Second: I realize that the dominating thoughts of my mind eventually reproduce themselves in outward, bodily action and gradually transform  themselves into physical reality, therefore I will concentrate my mind for thirty days upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to be, by creating a mental picture of this person and then transforming that picture into reality through practical service.

Third: I know that through the principle of Auto-suggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some  practical means of realizing it, therefore I shall devote ten minutes daily demanding of myself the development of the factors named in the  sixteen lessons of this Reading Course on the Law Of Success.

Fourth: I have clearly mapped out and written down a description of my definite purpose in life, for the coming five years. I have set a price on my services for each of these five years; a price that I intend to earn and receive, through strict application of the principle of efficient, satisfactory service which I will render in advance.

Fifth: I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice, therefore I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to me the forces I wish to use, and the co-operation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because I will first serve them. I will eliminate hatred,  envy, jealousy, selfishness and cynicism by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring  me success. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them and in myself.

I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory and repeat it aloud once a day with full faith that it will gradually influence my
entire life so that I will become a successful and happy worker in my chosen field of endeavour.

Signed ……

Hill’s instructions: Read it every day – dwell upon it – think of it before going to sleep. Imagine as vividly as possible the outcome. Your thoughts are things; they intense focus on your desired outcome will make it manifest in reality.

Hill was correct, of course, in many ways. For example, he talks of a “subtle something” which lies in your nature, and which is waiting to be aroused so that you can reach the heights of achievement.

This “subtle something” is, as you might guess, the unlocking of your full potential, and Hill is also correct in saying that this unlocking can come in unexpected ways.

The critical factor about self-belief and self-confidence is that other people will believe in you only when you believe in yourself: if you have no faith in yourself, others will pick up on that lack of faith, and behave accordingly.

However, when you’re confident about your own abilities, about your progress on the ladder of success, and your ability to manifest your desires, others pick that up and respond to those energies.

Confidence makes you see more opportunities and notice the possibilities where otherwise you might have missed them. In general when you are confident, your mind is more highly tuned to seeking out the millions of opportunities for success which surround you every day.

Lesson Four: The Habit of Saving

Napoleon Hill talks about the Law of Habit, by which he means the way in which you shape your personality through repetition of the same behaviour patterns and ways of thinking.

As far as finances are concerned, one of the problems that smashes many people’s ability to use Law Of Attraction and manifest their desires is that they believe their earning capacity is limited to a certain amount, and they’ll never earn more than that amount.

This, for me, is all about self-worth. There can be no more practical example of how much you value yourself than how much you think you can earn.

And we all have a limit. As Hill says, you’ll never earn more than that because the natural Law Of Attraction sets a definite limit on the amount you can earn, and your subconscious will accept this limitation.

Eventually you’ll become hedged in by fear of poverty, and opportunity will no longer knock on your door.

Of course you can use this in the opposite way: you set in your mind an accurate, definite description of what you want, including the amount of money you intend to earn. You then imagine, or visualize, this every day.

And your subconscious then uses this vivid imagery as a blueprint by which it converts your thoughts and actions into plans that will allow you to achieve your objectives.

In fact, Napoleon Hill talks about demanding prosperity, not just beginning to expect it.

He also talks about developing a habit of saving: a fine way of defeating the poverty consciousness that forms as a result of thinking about lack rather than prosperity and fearing poverty.

He’s right, of course, because the way you think does indeed control how you behave. If you continuously think of prosperity rather than poverty and lack of money, you will undoubtedly change your attitude to the whole flow of financial energy through your life – and the reality with which you live.

The problem of course is always the same: how exactly are you going to do this?

My answer is always the same: to firmly believe in your natural capacity to attract money and accumulate it (rather than dispose of it and dispel it), you have to get to the root of the beliefs you hold about yourself and about money in your life – and change them so that you actually believe you can accumulate wealth (instead of whatever you are doing with wealth at the moment).

So a critical question here is this: when you receive money do you think more about how you’re going to spend it than how you’re going to save it and make it grow?

One of the most interesting things that Hill says in Lesson Four is this: “Unfortunately the most of us we are reared by parents who have no conception whatsoever of the psychology of habit, and, without being aware of their fault, most parents imbue their offspring in the development of the spending habit by overindulgence and lack of training in the habit of saving.”

That was just as true then as it is now.