“The remedy for the irregularity, pettiness, ill health, and unserviceableness of modern women seems, therefore, to lie along educational lines. Not in general and cultural lines alone, but in a special and occupational interest and practice for women, married or unmarried. This should preferably be gainful, though not onerous or incessant. Normal life without normal stimulation is impossible, and the stimulation best suited to the nervous system is some form of interesting work.”
The Psychology of Success.—Success has been defined as the accomplishment, the realization of what has been willed or wanted, the ripe fruition of the well-tended tree. The achievement of fame or fortune is what the world generally regards as success.
Before entering on an enterprise, all the premises in the case must be had in order to form correct judgments, otherwise incomplete and imperfect knowledge of the case will lead to error in judgment, in which there could be said to be “no chance of failure, it was a certainty.”
An element that always makes for success is to be able to supply a want of the public; it is partly a question of demand and supply. It is sometimes possible to create a demand. But, as a rule, success is the fruition of patience and well-directed energy.
There is nothing which tends so much to the success of volitional effort as the confident expectation of its success, while nothing is so likely to induce failure as the apprehension of it. Since the tendency of the cheerful and joyful emotions is to suggest and keep alive the favorable anticipations, while that of the depressing emotions is to bring before the view all the chances of failure, the former will increase the power of volitional effort and the latter will diminish it.
The mental condition also exerts a direct influence upon the physical powers, through the organs of the circulation and of the respiration, the heart’s impulse being more vigorous and regular, the aëration of the blood being more efficiently performed, in the former of these conditions than in the latter.
Success too easily won, or won early in life, may really be a cause of failure, because, having been once achieved, the individual may be content with what she has and not proceed to higher development. And so a very inferior success may be the tomb of energy and the satisfied goal of ambition, instead of a stimulus to higher things.
Lack of success may also be caused by indulgence or lack of courage, the individual preferring to sail along the chartered course of mediocrity rather than to strike out a new path for herself, involving risk, anxiety, and endless work.
And perhaps jealousy in the rank and file of the lazy, indifferent, and mediocre far more often impedes effectually the road to success than is dreamed of, so that a greater degree of secretiveness, warding off the scent, of the intentions, the aspirations, and the methods of work, until the object shall have finally been achieved.
Another and most important secret of success is to recognize failure as only a stepping-stone to higher things. Eggleston says, “Persistent people begin their success where others end—in failure.”