Book Report: "The Power of Positive Thinking," by Norman Vincent Peale

Wow! I liked this book. It was just what I was looking for - a "how-to" format with real, do-able, pertinent suggestions. Lots of concrete info.

Dr. Peale is now one of my favorite authors (right up there with Dick Francis!). His material, while very specific and constructive, isn't at all "me" centered, it's humble and not conceited, which I found a huge relief. In the Bio section, it was explained that although Dr. Peale was a minister of the Gospel, and believed in God, he didn't always believe in himself. His faith led him to the conviction that God had placed a portion of His power in all of us (love the thought!). Therefore, each of us is capable of doing great things, so he embraced the Bible as an infallible guide for creative living. This was Dr. Peale's message: If you believe that the power of God within you is equal to any of life's difficulties, then a rewarding life will be yours. Well who wouldn't want that! He went on to explain that by practicing the suggestions in the book, you can have peace of mind, improved health and a never-ceasing flow of energy! In short, your life can be full of joy and satisfaction. Sign me up! The philosophy of positive thinking is one of faith, that does not ignore life's problems, but rather explains a practical approach to life's full potential. The book is broken down into 13 chapters, and I am going to pull the most concrete ideas from them.

1. Believe In Yourself! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers, you cannot be successful or happy. But with self-confidence you can succeed. You can develop faith in yourself. How? First, it is important to discover why you have feelings of inferiority. That requires analysis and time, and may require treatment. Next, as you carry on, repeat certain words with an attitude of faith and you will receive ability to deal with this problem. "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me" (Phil 4:13). Of the various causes of inferiority feelings, many stem from childhood, or the consequences of certain circumstances, or something we did to ourselves. Part of your solution is realizing there are God-given abilities in each of us, and we must acknowledge them and know that we can rely on them. Using these principles releases the powers which have been inhibited by feelings of inferiority. The greatest secret for eliminating the inferiority complex (another term for self-doubt) is to fill your mind with faith. Develop tremendous faith in God and that will give you realistic faith in yourself. This is accomplished by prayer, by reading the Bible, and by practicing its faith techniques. The ability to possess and utilize faith must be studied and practiced to gain perfection. To build up feelings of self-confidence, practice suggesting confidence concepts to your mind. It is possible, even in the midst of your daily work, to drive confident thoughts into consciousness. Write concepts of faith and courage onto index cards and review them throughout the day. By filling the mind with affirmations of God, you can put an end to your sense of insecurity. I discovered when I began working in Canandaigua, I lost my faith in myself like never before; I didn't trust myself or my ability to meet responsibilities. It was an enormous let-down and very frightening. I was beset within myself with a vague and sinister fear that something wasn't going to go right. I did not believe that I had it in me to do what I needed to do or be what I had to be to be successful. My personal power was frustrated, and I was defeated and afraid due to the blows of life, the accumulation of difficulties, and the lack of appropriate support and reinforcement at work. I did learn a lot, but the true status of my power was obscured, and I was spent and discouraged. Occasionally this fear still grips me. Dr. Karl Menninger observed, "Attitudes are more important than facts." Any fact facing us, even the most hopeless, is not as important as our attitude toward that fact. A confident thought pattern can modify or overcome the fact. Make a list, not of the factors that are against you, but of those that are for you. Mentally visualize and affirm and reaffirm your assets, and you will rise out of any difficulty. Your inner powers will re-assert themselves and, with the help of God, lift you to victory. A sure cure for lack of confidence is the thought that God is actually with you and helping you. o practice it simply affirm, "God is with me, God is helping me, God is guiding me." Go about your business on the assumption that what you have affirmed and visualized is true. Affirm it, visualize it, believe it, and it will actualize itself. The release of power which this procedure stimulates will astonish you. 
2. A Peaceful Mind Generates Power. The essence of the secret lies in a change of mental attitude. One must learn to live on a different thought basis, and even though thought change requires effort, it is much easier than to continue living as you are. The life of strain is difficult. The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence. The chief struggle, then, in gaining mental peace is the effort of revamping your thinking to the relaxed attitude of acceptance of God's gift of peace.
3. How To Have Constant Energy.  How we think we feel has a definite effect on how we actually feel physically.  Religion functions through our thoughts.  It is a system of thought discipline.  By supplying attitudes of faith to the mind, it can increase energy.  Religious faith suggests that you have ample support and resources of power.  Every great personality with the capacity for prodigious work has been a person in tune with the Infinite.  Invariably they are extraordinarily well organized emotionally and psychologically.  It is fear, resentment, the projection of parental faults upon people when they are children, inner conflicts and obsessions that throw off balance the finely tuned nature, thus causing undue expenditure of natural force.  If a person practices the creative and re-creative principles of Christianity, he can live with power and energy.  The practice of Christian principles will bring a person into the proper tempo of living.  The conservation of energy depends on getting your personality synchronized with the rate of God's movement.  If you are going at one rate and God at another, you are tearing yourself apart.  To avoid tiredness and to have energy, feel your way into the essential rhythm of Almighty God and all His works.  To accomplish this, relax physically.  Then conceive of your mind as likewise relaxing.  Follow this mentally by visualizing the soul as becoming quiescent, then pray as follows: "Dear God, You are the source of all energy.  I hereby draw energy from you as from an illimitable source."  Then practice believing that you receive energy.  Keep in tune with the Infinite.  People who lack energy are disorganized by their deep, fundamental emotional and psychological conflicts, such as guilt and fear.  But healing is ever possible.  The surest way not to become tired is to lose yourself in something in which you have profound conviction.
4. Try Prayer Power.  Hard work, positive thinking, fair dealing, right treatment of people and the proper kind of praying always get results.  Prayerize.  Picturize.  Actualize.
1. Prayerize: A daily system of creative prayer.  When a problem arises, talk it over with God simply and directly in prayer.  He's always nearby as a partner.  Ask Him, "What will I do about this, Lord?  Give me a fresh insight on this, Lord."
2. Picturize.  The basic factor in physics is force.  The basic factor in psychology is the realizable wish.  When either failure or success is visualized, it strongly tends to actualize, equivalent to the image pictured.  
3. Continue to surrender the picture to God's will, and follow God's guidance.  Work hard and smart, thus doing your part to achieve success.  Practice believing and hold the picture in your thoughts.  You will be astonished at the strange ways in which the picture comes to pass.
5. How To Create Your Own Happiness.  Who decides whether you shall be happy or unhappy?  You do.  When I get up in the morning, I have two choices - to be happy or unhappy.  I just choose to be happy.  Abraham Lincoln said, "People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be."  To become a happy person, have a clean soul, eyes that see romance in the commonplace, a child's heart and spiritual simplicity.  It is necessary to drive off thoughts which make for depression and discouragement.  This can be done first by simply determining to do it, and second by utilizing a booklet called Thought Conditioners.  Read one thought every day, commit it to memory.  Base your actions and attitudes upon fundamental principles of happy living.  Express human love and goodwill.  The way to happiness: Keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry.  Live simply, expect little, give much.  Fill your life with love.  Scatter sunshine.  Forget self, think of others.  Do as you would be done by.  Happiness will stay with you as long as you live a God-centered life.
6. Expect The Best And Get It.  When you expect the best, you release a magnetic force in your mind which by a law of attraction tends to bring the best to you.  When you put your trust in God, He guides you so that you do not want things that are not good for you.  Every great thing becomes for you a possibility.  Saturate your mind with the great words of the Bible.  Spend one hour a day reading the Bible and committing its great passages to memory, allowing them to recondition your personality, the change in you and in your experience will be little short of miraculous.  Belief, positive thinking, faith in God, faith in other people, faith in yourself, faith in life.  This is the essence of the technique the Bible teaches.  If God be for me, who can be against me?  If with all your heart and the full complement of your personality, you reach out creatively toward your heart's desire, your reach will not be in vain.  At least 10 times every day, affirm, "I expect the best and with God's help will attain the best."  In doing so, your thoughts will turn toward the best and become conditioned to its realization.  This practice will bring all of your powers to focus upon the attainment of the best.  It will bring the best to you.
7. I Don't Believe In Defeat.  There is no difficulty you cannot overcome.  Cultivate a positive idea pattern.  What we do with obstacles is directly determined by our mental attitude.  Perhaps you know your problems are real.  Your attitude toward them is mental.  What you think about your obstacles largely determines what you do with them.  When your mind becomes convinced that you can do something about difficulties, astonishing things happen.Visualize yourself achieving success.  Believe that Almighty God has put in you power to lift yourself out of trouble by keeping your eye firmly fixed on the source of your power.  Affirm to yourself that through this power you can do anything you have to do.  Believe that this power is taking the tension out of you, that this power is flowing through you.  Believe this, and a sense of victory will come.
8. How To Break The Worry Habit.  You were not born with the worry habit.  You acquired it.  To eliminate abnormal worry, empty the mind daily of all anxiety, fear, sense of insecurity.  Then thank God for freeing you of fear, and go to sleep.  Practice then refilling the mind.  Say such affirmations, "God is now filling my mind with courage, peace, calm assurance.  God is now protecting my loved ones from all harm.  God is now guiding me to right decisions.  God will see me through this situation."  Fear is the most powerful of all thoughts with one exception: faith.  Faith can always overcome fear.  Faith is the one power against which fear cannot stand.  Day by day, as you fill your mind with faith, there will ultimately be no room left for fear.  One man broke the worrying habit by praying, "Lord, You gave me this day.  I did the best I could with it, You helped me, and I thank You.  I made some mistakes.  That was when I didn't follow Your advice.  Forgive me.  I had some successes too, and I am grateful for Your guidance.  But now, Lord, mistakes or successes, this day is over and I am through with it, so I'm giving it back to You.  Amen."  He set his face to the future, expecting to do better the next day.  The man's sins of omission and commission gradually lost their hold on him.  He was released from the worries that accumulated from his yesterdays.  To break the worry habit, try this worry-breaking formula:
1. Say to yourself, "Worry is just a very bad mental habit, and I can change any habit with Gods' help."
2. First thing every morning before yo arise, say out loud, "I believe," three times.
3. Pray: "I place this day, my life, my loved ones, my work in the Lord's hands.  Whatever happens, whatever results, if I am in the Lord's hands, it is the Lord's will and it is good."
4. Practice saying something positive concerning everything about which you have been talking negatively.  With God's help you can do anything.
5. Never participate in a worry conversation.
6. Mark every passage in the Bible that speaks of faith, hope, happiness, glory, radiance.  Commit each to memory.  Say them over and over until these creative thoughts saturate your subconscious mind.
7. Cultivate friendships with hopeful people.
8. See how many people you can help to cure their own worry habit.  
9. Every day of your life conceive f yourself as living in partnership and companionship with Jesus Christ.  If He actually walked by your side, would you be afraid or worried?  Say to yourself, "He is with me." 
9. Power To Solve Personal Problems.  Conceive of God as a partner.  When Jesus was born, He was called Immanuel, "God with us."  In all the difficulties, problems and circumstances of this life, God is close by.  One must go past believing this, to actually practicing the idea of His presence.  Practice believing God is as real as your spouse, workmate, closest friend.  Believe that He hears and gives thought to your problem.  Assume that He impresses on your mind the ideas and insights necessary to solve your problems.  Definitely believe that in these solutions there will be no error, but that you will be guided to actions according to truth which results in right outcomes.  Take the Lord as a partner.  Tell Him, "Lord, I can't offer much in the way of a partnership, but please join with me ans help me.  I don't know how You can help me, but I want to be helped.  So I now put my business, myself, my family and my future in Your hands.  Whatever You say goes.  I don't even know how You are going to tell me what to do, but I am ready to hear and will follow Your advice if you will make it clear."  The God-Partnership method is the way to get your problems solved right.
10. When Vitality Sags, Try This Health Formula.  Resentment, hate, grudges, ill will, jealousy, vindictiveness, are attitudes which produce ill health.  Honestly ask yourself if you are harboring any ill will or resentment or grudges, and if so, cast them out without delay.  They do no harm to the person against whom you hold these feelings, but every day and every night of your life they are eating at you.  Emotional ills turn your body against itself, sapping your energy, reducing your efficiency, causing deterioration in your health.  And of course they siphon off your happiness.  What is the antidote?  Obviously it is to fill the mind with attitudes of goodwill, forgiveness, faith, love, and the spirit of imperturbability.
1. Remember that anger is an emotion, and an emotion is always warm, even hot.  Therefore, to reduce an emotion, cool it.  Deliberately oppose the heat of this emotion with coolness -- freeze it out.  Reduce your tone.  Unclench your hands.  
2. Anger expresses the accumulated vehemence of a multitude of minor irritations.  Added together, they can blaze.  Make a list of everything that irritates you.  Listing it will dry up the tiny rivulets that feed the great river of anger.
3. Every time you feel anger, say, "It isn't worth it to spend $1000 worth of emotion on a five-cent irritation."
4. When a hurt-feeling situation arises, get it straightened out as quickly as possible.  Go to someone you trust and pour it out to him until not a vestige of it remains within you.  Then forget it.
5. Pray for the person who has hurt your feelings.  Continue this until you feel the malice fading away.  Sometimes you may have to pray for quite awhile to get that result.  This is positively Guaranteed to work.
11. How To Get People To Like You.  You can attain popularity by practicing a few simple, natural and easily mastered techniques.  
1. First, become a comfortable person, one who is easy-going and pleasant.  Christianity teaches that one basic trait will go far toward getting people to like you.
2. Do not assume the reason other people do not like you is because of something wrong with them.  Assume, instead, that the trouble is within yourself and determine to find and eliminate it.  Think of each person you have met that day.  Think a kindly thought about that person.  Then pray for each one.  When you pray for others, it tends to modify your personal attitude toward them.  You lift the relationship to a higher level.  The best in the other person begins to flow out toward you as your best flows toward them.  Granted, some people are more likable than others.  Nevertheless, a serious attempt to know any individual will reveal qualities within him that are admirable, even lovable.
3. Conquer feelings of irritation with other people by making an exhaustive list of everything you could possibly admire about each person who annoys you.  Daily attempt to add to the list.  You may discover that people you thought you did not like prove to have many pleasing qualities.
4. Practice building up the ego of other persons.  Whomever you help to build up and become a better, stronger, finer person will give you his undying devotion.  Build up as many people as you can.  Do it unselfishly.  Do it because you like them and because you see possibilities in them.  Do this and you will never lack for friends.  You will always be well-thought-of.  Build people up and love them genuinely.  Do them good and their esteem and affection will flow back toward you.
12. Prescription for Heartache.  What will reduce inner suffering?  One element is physical activity.  Avoid the temptation to sit and brood.  Resolve to get back into the mainstream of life's activities.  Employ healthy, mind-relieving busyness, but be sure it is of a worthwhile and constructive nature.  Superficial escapism through feverish activity merely deadens pain temporarily and does not heal.  Be as normal and natural as possible.  The deeper remedy for heartache is the curative comfort supplied by trust in God.  Inevitably the basic prescription for heartache is to turn to God as an attitude of faith, and empty the mind and heart to Him.  Perseverance in the act of spiritual self-emptying will finally bring healing to the broken heart.  Another curative element is to gain sound and satisfying philosophy of life and death and deathlessness.  Read and believe the Bible as it tells about the goodness of God and the immortality of the soul.  Make prayer and faith the habit of your life.  Learn to have real fellowship with God and with Jesus Christ.
13. How To Draw Upon That Higher Power.  Practice resting yourself in God.  Practice depending upon Him for His support and power.  Believe He is giving it to you now and don't get out of touch with that power.  Yield yourself to it.  Let it flow through you.  Learn to take a positive, optimistic attitude toward every problem.  In direct proportion to the intensity of the faith which you muster will you receive power to meet your situation.  There is a Higher Power.  State your problem.  Ask for a specific answer.  Believe that now, through God's help, you are gaining power over your difficulty.  Why be defeated when you can draw upon that Higher Power?