I attended a meeting today and a woman there shared her nightly visualization process:  “Everynight before I go to bed I see my family all smiling and happy.  I see harmony with my co-workers and projects coming to successful completion.  I see my check book with the amount of money I want in it.  I do this as the last thing and it becomes what I dream about.  You can control your dreams by what you think about as you drop off.  Make those thoughts of things you want.”

This is very sound advice in line with the visualization process in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, and in Wallace Wattles The Science of Getting Rich.  It is a good nightly ritual and twice as effective if you repeat the process when you awaken.

Do these things and you will get to that place “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.”

As always, leave your thoughts and comments below and if you’ve enjoyed this post hit the like button to share the love.

As A Man Thinketh

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”    ~ James Allen

In 1902, a British philosopher, James Allen wrote a literary essay As the Man Thinketh, based on the notion that man’s character is the sum of his thoughts. He believed that man’s thoughts had ability to affect his circumstances. Allen’s essay offers readers the opportunity to change their circumstances if took hold of their thinking in a positive manner.

The title itself, originates from a verse in the Bible from the Book of Proverbs chapter 23 verse 7, that says “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” When his book was published, it received great attention and acclaim. Even today, his book has influenced many who seek inspiration in their lives.

His book focuses on man’s endless possibilities to experience both joy and pain. It was up to man to choose which emotion he wanted to attract in his life. He was the master of his thoughts. His thoughts made the man. His thoughts had the potential of changing his circumstances.

In short, Allen believed man was his own creation. With every thought, he was creating his own inner reality. Therefore, he was responsible for the circumstances that befall him. Allen utilized the responsibility assumption that basically states that man’s mental focus on his own experience is greater than is normally thought. This goes back to his overarching notion of choosing to experience pain or joy. He offers man the awareness and ability to change his circumstances simply by changing his thought process.

Throughout his book, Allen reiterates the importance of cause and effect. To become what or whom you desire, you must make the effort to do so. Allen calls this “right thinking.” According to Allen, “A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harboring of groveling thoughts.”

Man’s inner state consists of his mind. That said, he has the potential of destroying or building his character with his thoughts. Man’s greatest gift is also his greatest enemy. Making the right choice leads him closer to his destined goal. Making the wrong choice leads down a path of great pain. The choices in between give man nuances between success and failure.

Download the Free Audio book: As A Man Thinketh

As A Man Thinketh

“They themselves are makers of themselves”    ~ James Allen

Tempted to give in to difficult circumstances, man hardly believes that his thoughts have the ability to change his current situation. Though, this is exactly what James Allen stated in his small book As the Man Thinketh (1902). He believed that man was “literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”

His book caused a stir back then. A century later, it still continues to inspire many. His ideas that man, in a sense, has the capacity to change their destiny profoundly amaze people. They learn about the true power they inherently hold within them. If thoughts are what create man, then what man thinks creates his inner reality. If this is true, then man has the ability to change his circumstance with his thoughts. This is what Allen referred to as “right thinking.” If man made consistent efforts to think positively, then the natural result had to be positive.

According to Allen, “man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.” Faced with constant changes in circumstances, man must remember that his mind controls his fate. He has the power to dictate the outcome through his inner being. His will yields him forward or backward. It is solely his decision to call upon his mind. Allen believed in the strength of character and power of transformation in every circumstance.

When man finds himself in a somewhat hopeless state of affairs, Allen states “Man is always the master, even in his weakest and most abandoned state; but in his weakness and degradation he is the foolish master who misgoverns his “household.” But, man also has the possibility of moving forward. When he examines his situation and begins to take on a new perspective, he changes his position. He no longer misguides himself; he seeks answers within himself. Man discovers his own path.

When this journey begins, man not only changes himself but the lives of others. He practices cause and effect, attains knowledge, and patiently pays attention to the opportunities that come his way.

In 1902 James Allen Produced a classic book called As A Man Thinketh. Like many great works Allen got this one through meditation and specifically meditating on Proverbs 23:7. As A Man Thinketh is clean in it’s philosophy, and thorough in it’s coverage.

What Does Tony Robbins Have In Common With Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and Dr. Denis Waitley?

Could it just be that Robbins, Peale, and Waitley are great motivators?  That would be too obvious, but you will figure out the answer shortly.

As A Man Thinketh haw a great message for everyone.  It was written by James Allen in 1902 and is based on his meditations on Proverbs 23:7.  Your mind is like a garden, it will bring forth.  If you cultivate it, it will produce good results, results that you want.  If you let anything grow then your results will be the same as if you let your garden grow – you will get weeds.

It is important that you cultivate your vital thoughts.  This is a law that is fixed you reap what you sew.  “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.”  There is great insight to be gained from doing your own meditation on that verse.

Circumstances grow out of your thoughts, when you sincerely seek to remedy the problems in your character, which was produced by your thoughts, you will see a rapid improvement in your circumstances.  Right thinking draws you to a life of prosperity and achievement.  Keep your mind on the things you seek.  This is another statement of the law of attraction.  The book contains all the elements of the law and it’s study will help you advance in that study.

Allen talks of mental harmony where your mind and thoughts are not torn by competing ideas.  When we allow ideas to be planted by others, by media, then we are not being good gardeners and may even become share croppers with others controlling us by the messages we allowed them to implant.

Limiting beliefs plague everyman and as we cultivate our thoughts we need to examine these.  Beliefs can both protect us and hold us back.  That is why we must understand why we hold our beliefs and should we keep them..

Allen says: “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”  That is very clear and one of the main themes of the book. Our thoughts bring our environment and our environment becomes a looking glass into our minds.  If we cannot make ourselves do the things we think we should do then we need to look deeper in to what is being planted in our subconscious.  We have to cultivate the beliefs that will cause us to take action in the ways we want, in the ways that will benefit us.

The answer to the question about what Robbins has in common with Peale, and Waitley is that they were all greatly influenced by “As A Man Thinketh.”  Were you looking for a more profound answer?  Alright, they were all profoundly influenced by “As A Man Thinketh” as many thousands or millions have been.

Read and listen to “As A Man Thinketh” there is a free downloadable audio and ebook from the links on this site.

“As A Man Thinketh” James Allen is sometimes called “As A Man Thinks.”

Dream Great Dreams

Someone rewrote some lines in Edgar Guest’s poem Equipment. Guest says: “So start for the top and say I can.” The rewrite said: “So dream great dreams and say “God can.” I’ve always liked the rewrite better but I don’t know who to attribute it to. I believe that James Allen would also go with the rewrite. Allen’s words in As A Man Thinketh go like this:

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your
Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is
the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The
oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the
highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the
seedlings of realities.

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long
remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it.

Dreams are the seedlings of realities. What an awesome quote. What do you need to do to sustain your dreams so that they grow from seedlings to giant trees? The idea is the same as we see expressed by Napoleon Hill and Wallace Wattles – your thoughts are things. Your thoughts grow from seedlings into a great reality. Like the seedling thoughts need nurturing and the need some work.

A seedling needs suckering – the offshoots that just take away nutrition from it and which would stunt it’s growth need to be removed. Did you have a nice dream that has gotten confused and unclear by following too many offshoots and neglecting the real dream? You need to deal with that.

A seedling needs nourishment. You’ve got to feed your dream or it will die. You’ve got to hold it up in the light of your mind so it can get the nourishment from the light. If it’s just a seedling and blocked from light by all the other stuff that is happening in your life soon it will be crushed and lost forever. Hold that vision, see it, experience it, and be thankful for it.

Life

These dreams the seedlings are actually a microcosm of your life. People are born and endowed with promise and hope as all new babies are. Some grow to be the tall trees while others don’t fully meet their potential. The Edgar Guest poem Equipment mentioned at the beginning talks about that. You and your dreams together are these seedlings. Dreams really are all the equipment that even the great ever have, this is the promise and hope that wraps each of us as we are born. Can you get rid of the suckers in your life, can you hold your dreams and your hopes in the light and give them the appreciation and the care that they need to take you into a great future?

Read what Allen said again:

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long
remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it.

This is what Wattles and Hill are saying. It is yet another statement of the law of attraction. Hold the vision and it will come to pass. Let me say it again in another way:

I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and I will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what shall I answer when I am reproved. And the Lord answered me, and said, “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”

—Habakkuk 2:1-3, King James Bible

I have long loved that scripture. Write the vision – make it plain – because it will surely come, it will not tarry. When we were born a vision was written upon our souls but many of us have not nourished the vision and have allowed suckers to take us off into paths that will not take us to the great heights that we are intended to achieve. But as Allen says those circumstances won’t long remain if we but perceive an ideal and strive to reach for it. Again – it is the law of attraction.

“This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”

Carpe diem – seize the day. This is your day take a moment and reach for that dream and hold it in the light, hold in the “Thinking Substance” as Wattles calls it. See it, nurture it, and soon live it. But it starts with today, it starts with you, that dream and holding it up to the light, holding it in the thinking substance.

As A Man Thinketh challenges us to raise the level of our thoughts. James Allen describes some of our thoughts as “animal thoughts.” These are thoughts centered on survival and centered on momentary wants and comforts. Allen suggest that we raise the level of our thoughts and sacrifice many of these animal thoughts. A certain level of these animal thoughts are necessary for survival but other than that our thoughts should be turned to higher things. The Thought Factor In Achievement describes how raising the level of our thoughts will lead us to success.

You have responsibility for every aspect of your life. Circumstance may have contributed but you alone have the responsibility for where you are and certainly on how you will change things.

All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts

Allen discusses those who do not understand the process but only see the result and call it luck. Most people allow things to happen not aware that they can and should take the helm of the ship of life – these people settle for only these lower, survival thoughts. A ship may be tossed by the sea – and certainly there are bigger forces in life than ourselves but a good captain can navigate life’s storms and make the journey successfully.

There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice, and a
man’s worldly success will be in 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. And the higher he lifts his thoughts, the more manly,
upright, and righteous he becomes, the greater will be his success,
the more blessed and enduring will be his achievements.

If you sacrifice some of your self-centered “animal thoughts” in favor of science, theology, sports, medicine, engineering, or anything of a higher purpose you will achieve in that area. The mind is a great goal seeking mechanism but a mind focused only on survival and the needs of the moment will not accomplish outside of that small area.

Look for achievement and you will find it. As A Man Thinketh is always talking about the quality of your thoughts. The Thought Factor in Achievement leads you to higher ground if you want to do great things in life.

]]> http://www.therealmikegriffin.com/1134/notes-on-as-a-man-thinketh-chapter-5-the-thought-factor-in-achievement/feed/ 0 http://www.therealmikegriffin.com/1014/life-mapping-move-your-life-from-ordinary-to-inspired/ http://www.therealmikegriffin.com/1014/life-mapping-move-your-life-from-ordinary-to-inspired/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 07:17:16 +0000 Mike Griffin http://www.therealmikegriffin.com/?p=1014

by Michael Griffin

Feburary 2, 2009 Podcast

Visualize The Life You Want

There is an article on this site about Life Mapping. It’s about your goals in life and creating a vision of those things and of the person you want to be. What you bring to the process now and how you can grow those good things in your life by having objectives. And this is an important process to go through – have a look at the article.

The law of attraction suggests the life mapping process will help you move forward because your focus moves to the places you want to go to rather than something that may be sitting in your path in this moment, or something you see in your path a little way down the road. Life mapping is a tool that can help with the law of attraction because it focuses on where you want to be and sets aside limits.

Keep The Vision Fresh

Can you keep this vision fresh everyday when you look to it? Life mapping helps you formulate the outcomes that you use in your visualization and meditation.

From Vision To Inspiration

Allow your life map inspired vision to take on a life of it’s own. This is inspiration as the vision moves from your thoughts to changing on it’s own. Inspiration happens when there is stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity. Inspiration is divine guidance or influence exerted directly on the mind and soul of humankind.

Life mapping is an essential part of stimulating the mind in the direction you’d like to go. As you are formulating your mind map you need to let go of limits. Recall at one time no one believed that the four minute mile could be broken and now it’s done not just at the college level but also high school. The false belief has been removed and along with it artificial limitations. Clear yourself of such false limitations in order to allow your vision to take form and be truly inspired.

States of Joy

As you unleash visions based on your life mapping just know it’s a perfect day as you begin. You don’t need to know why, only that it is. If you know why – that’s fine – but that it is a perfect day is all you need.

Joy comes from gratitude and appreciation. Can you maintain a state of gratitude, can you appreciate where you are in life or do you just notice the things that aren’t quite right. Often when people make goals they stop there. If you’ve stopped there you have probably just spent a lot of time reviewing everything you don’t like about your life and want to change. I weigh too much, I don’t make enough money, and any number of other items where you don’t feel you measure up to the person you want to be. The danger is two-fold. You are focusing on your problems, you are making a lot of work for yourself. It is important to change this around a bit.

Instead of setting goals by looking at your short comings look out to that perfect day in the future where everything is right in your life. Look out and be grateful that you are that person – can you appreciate that this accomplished person is you? And that accomplished person is grateful for the good things, that person looks back at you and smiles and you see love and feel a connectedness unlike you have known. Make life mapping work for you – go into the vision and reach back to yourself now and share the joy and gratitude. Pass back the good things that you feel and enjoy them now.

Connecting To The Future

In your heart you get the message coming to you. This great accomplished person is connected with you now and loves you in a profound way and appreciates all that you are doing now because your actions have created this perfect day. And as you look to yourself and you look back you experience that moment now, you share the joy with yourself. It is the gratitude and appreciation flowing both ways on the time line that is your life.

Out of this gratitude faith comes and with faith and belief all things are possible. Don’t make yourself do anything, see the vision, see that person who is you on one of what will be many perfect days and this thing that you are considering doing, how does it connect you to this perfect day, does it have a connection, is it something that will help take you there? The joy of this perfect day and the activity you are considering, aren’t they really one? Can you do the activity with the gratitude of the person you are on that perfect day looking back and giving thanks that you did the things that are necessary to get there? It is you today who has built that life – can you enjoy that now?

And when you need some encouragement can you look out to that person, smile, and reconnect to that bond – that energy between the two of you?

Connecting To Your Past

Your life is a wheel and you sit in the hub, look down any spoke and see yourself past, present, and future. Look back the other direction from that perfect day and see the kid back there. Was he struggling or was it good. Smile back at that little person and communicate the good to him. Let him know that he is valuable and important and thank him for all he is doing – it is important and even if he has made some mistakes you’ve learned from them and he has set the foundation of your success. Go back to him often and help him see those things that he may not be aware of that will move him in the direction he needs to go.

Life mapping can help you connect with your visions in a way that will inspire you. As it does reach back and connect with that part of you in the past that also wanted to achieve and succeed. Pass some of that joy back to him and can you see that he will pass it back forward to you now and increase the joy, and resolution, and drive that is within you? Your bad memories will clear and the joyful memories will take their place, new heights of possibility and achievement will overtake you. Life mapping with the visualization that empowers the law of attraction will take you to new levels of joy, empowerment, gratitude, action and success.

Jan 20th 2009 Podcast

James Allen speaks very clearly on the need for purpose in life.

Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent
accomplishment. With the majority the bark of thought is allowed to
“drift” upon the ocean of life. Aimlessness is a vice, and such
drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of
catastrophe and destruction.

When a person loses heart, loses direction and drifts – he begins a decay process, slow at first, but increasing as time goes by. Many begin to drift when they turn loose of their dreams. The thing they envisioned that once gave them joy causes them to look to the thing that they now see as impossible, inconceivable for them and they turn loose of their moorings. When this happens has the man become “realistic” or has he begun the slow drift that will end catastrophe and destruction. If a man cannot be drawn by something he feels good about, something that he loves, then what does he have in his life anyway?

As A Man Thinketh In His Heart, So Is He…

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it.

Have you lost bearings because the thing you love seems too difficult?

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
Seneca

Do the thing and you shall have the power.
Emerson

Action cures fear, inaction creates terror.
Doug Horton

Don’t Put The Money Before The Joy

There is a book out a few years ago: Do What You Love And The Money Will Follow, why not try that idea on. Don’t put the money before the joy. Money is not a good objective but providing a contribution that gives you joy is. Expecting a reward when you have been of service likewise is a good thing.

Thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force: he who
_knows_ this is ready to become something higher and stronger than a
mere bundle of wavering thoughts and fluctuating sensations; he who
_does _this has become the conscious and intelligent wielder of his
mental powers.

A note, free audio for As A Man Thinketh is available on the resource sidebar or on this post: As A Man Thinketh Free Audio.

All my best,

Mike

By Michael Griffin

Jan 9th 2009 Podcast

How To Your thoughts create and control your circumstances

Can you see yourself a year from now, walking on the beach – the beautiful blue ocean out before you. The water is so clear you can see the fishes, small ones, larger ones, and some big ones. It is a wonderful day, perhaps you’ll take a swim later but now you are just taking it all in. You are here because a year ago you got some ideas and you immediately took action and put them to work in your business, in your life — now you are here on the beach on a perfect day.

Do you get that?

Thoughts + action taken = results

This is the underlying theme of “As A Man Thinketh.”

What kinds of thoughts is your mind churning out? It probably depends on what has gone into your head. Are you hearing how business is bad and no one has a chance. Perhaps you heard it on the news or even from some marketer who wants to use scare tactics and have you believe that his product is the only way out of your business dilemma.

The fact is the human mind is the most powerful goal seeking system on the planet. A question properly phrased, an instruction to find the answer, and the understanding and underlying belief that the result will come. In the case of the news and the marketer, information was planted in you mind by someone other than yourself. In the case of the marketer he had in mind actions that he would like you to take. In the case of the news report, perhaps a reporters bias of the facts, or a government agency, or something that is just wrong, has skewed the report causing confusion and inaction.

You have to take control of the information that feeds your mind. You have to examine what has gone into your mind that is driving the decisions you are taking today and that those decisions are driving your tomorrow.

Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad
thoughts and actions can never produce good results. This is but
saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from
nettles but nettles. Men understand this law in the natural world,
and work with it; but few understand it in the mental and moral
world (though its operation there is just as simple and
undeviating), and they, therefore, do not co-operate with it.

Could your thoughts bring such great results to your life?

Allen says:

The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours; that which it
loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its
cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened
desires,–and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives
its own.

A person must come to a decision about his life that he (he or she) is responsible for it. At that point he must begin to examine his thoughts and recognize the powerful goal seeking system that is his mind. He must look at the beliefs that would have him not make that extra sales call, or watch three or four hours of TV instead of looking for ways to produce the income that will give him the perfect days at the beach, that will insure his future.

TV wasn’t a part of the picture when Allen wrote As A Man Thinketh but there have always been plenty of ways to ‘sew nettles’ in the fertile field of the mind. The point is what beliefs are running your mind and therefore your life that would cause you to spend so much time in a way that will cause you to be only a very ordinary person? Earl Nightingale discusses this very issue, he calls it “The Strangest Secret.”

How They Laughed When I Said – my thoughts create and control my circumstances

What is it that you want to do that you’ve had on the back-burner so long that you hardly think of it at all anymore? Perhaps you bought a course quietly, to study in private, so people wouldn’t see you reach for the stars? So people wouldn’t laugh? Where did that thought – that people will laugh – come from? Is it your thought or is it just one of those thoughts generally held that keep people mindlessly doing the same thing as everyone else and causing them to trail down the road of life one-after-the-other like cattle to the slaughter?

New Thought Will Help You Put the law of attraction to work in your life, bringing you the things you want rather than what society has for normal people.

Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at
the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions
of his life.

If you direct your mind – if you tell it to seek the things that you want by holding a clear and definite picture of the outcome you want, then it will begin to target that result and not the results that people all around you are getting.

Nature helps every man to the gratification of the thoughts, which
he most encourages, and opportunities are presented which will most
speedily bring to the surface both the good and evil thoughts.

Remember that your mind is a powerful goal seeking system. Unless you want to wind up somewhere else – you need to take over what goes into it yourself, you need to be the programmer. Allen has also, without saying so, introduced the law of attraction into the mix. This is a step beyond the simple cause and effect relationship that we spoke about in part 1 of this post and have continued until now. “Nature helps every man” and from the previous quote: “rapid transformation.” These are acknowledgments of the larger force at work as we have been discussing in Wallace Wattles “The Science of Getting Rich.” We will develop the idea more as we examine the later chapters of the book but will not focus too much on it for now.

The Effect of Thought on Circumstance – As A Man Thinketh – This is the message, take charge of your thoughts and you will take charge of your life.

Next time we’ll pick up with chapter 3 of James Allen’s “As A Man Thinketh.”