How to lead a calm, successful cheerful life – Think, believe, do! By Earl Nightingale
The following are the notes I took while watching a speech by Earl Nightingale. The link to the speech is at the end of my notes. Any text in square brackets [like these] is my pondering.
THINK
You are what you think about. We are a total of our thoughts and if our thoughts are scattered and fluctuating, we are no-one and get nowhere.
You will get to where your goals take you. If you have no goals, you go nowhere.
If you wish for a thing then you must wish very strongly, and not wish for a million incompatible things just as strongly. I cannot wish to have a corporate job and wish to sleep in every day.
BELIEVE
Mark 9:23 New King James Version (NKJV) Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” [Is this the root of ‘The Law of attraction’?]
If you think of positive things you will get positive things back (and vice versa). We become what we think. Our brain does not care what you plant in it (like the soil does not care which crops the farmer plants). It will equally easily accept all thoughts and return these back to us. But you do need to do more than just ‘think’ it, as like a seed planted in soil, an idea planted in the brain needs to be nurtured.
The most important things we get in life we get for free. Sadly we don’t value anything that comes for free, or very easily, as much as the things we buy with money. But what comes for free; family, health, relationships, our bodies, dreams, ambitions friends etc., can never be replaced once lost. Yet everything we buy; houses, cars, and trinkets, can always be bought again.
DO
Goal setting: Think of goals in a relaxed clear cheerful way. Picture myself already having achieved them. Think ‘as is’ not ‘if’.
One of Isaac Newton’s 3 laws of motion applies in very context. These laws are principals of physics but they apply to every energy system [including human effort]. https://www.livescience.com/46558-laws-of-motion.html
The First Law of Motion states, “A body at rest will remain at rest, and a body in motion will remain in motion unless it is acted upon by an external force.” Also referred to as the law of Inertia
The Second Law of Motion describes what happens to a massive body when it is acted upon by an external force. It states, “The force acting on an object is equal to the mass of that object times its acceleration.”
The Third Law of Motion states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Another way to look at the third law is; “to get something we must give something of equal value”. For everything we get, there is a price (energy) that you must pay. Nothing happens by magic.
Get clear about what you want and pay the price by exerting the energy to get it.
30 day goal challenge;
Set a single clear, and reasonably ambitious goal [something you can picture very clearly, ie in realistic detail with all of my senses]. You cannot hit a target you cannot see. To know there is a red dot somewhere to the left is no good to the marksmen. So it must be within your field of vision (knowledge and ability) but not at hand where no energy is required to achieve it. The more clearly you define the goal (size, shape, weight, colour, smell etc) the better you know how to position your resources to hit it.
- Set a single, ambitious clear goal. Write it on a piece of paper and put it into your wallet.
- Think about and read this goal many times every day. Imagine each time what the consequences of having this goal are for my daily life. Think about what I will be doing, seeing, feeling when this goal is realised.
- Stop thinking about what scares me. When fear comes up, read the goal and see the consequences of my goal as if they are happening around me already.
- Give of myself (energy/price) more than I have before. Dorothy Brande wrote in her book ‘Wake up and Live’: ACT as if it is impossible to fail.
- Stay relaxed and cheerful
We do not ‘make’ money we earn it in exchange for the value we give, of our knowledge, time or physical exertion. If you want more money, you have to help people more or help more people.
I need to be be valuable first to exchange for the money.
Formula for change
- Set a definitive goal
- Stop running myself down
- Stop thinking of reasons I cannot do it.
- Trace my beliefs back to childhood, if you can, and look at when I first started to think these things and ask if my situation today is still the same.
- Change the image I have of myself by writing a description of the person I would like to be.
- Act the part of the successful person I have decided to be immediately.