The reason why so many men fail is because they do not commit themselves with a determination to win at any cost. They do not have that superb confidence in themselves which never looks back; which burns all bridges behind it. There is just uncertainty enough as to whether they will succeed to take the edge off their effort, and it is just this little difference between doing pretty well and flinging all oneself, all his power, into his career, that makes the difference between mediocrity and a grand achievement.
If you doubt your ability to do what you set out to do; if you think that others are better fitted to do it than you; if you fear to let yourself out and take chances; if you lack boldness; if you have a timid, shrinking nature; if the negatives preponderate in your vocabulary; if you think that you lack positiveness, initiative, aggressiveness, ability; you can never win anything very great until you change your whole mental attitude and learn to have great faith in yourself. Fear, doubt, and timidity must be turned out of your mind.
Your own mental picture of yourself is a good measure of yourself and your possibilities. If there is no out-reach to your mind, no spirit of daring, no firm self-faith, you will never accomplish much.
A man's confidence measures the height of his possibilities. A stream can not rise higher than its fountain-head.
Power is largely a question of strong, vigorous, perpetual thinking along the line of the ambition, parallel with the aim—the great life purpose. Here is where power originates.
The deed must first live in the thought or it will never be a reality; and a strong, vigorous concept of the thing we want to do is a tremendous initial step. A thought that is timidly born will be timidly executed. There must be vigor of conception or an indifferent execution.
All the greatest achievements in the world began in longing—in dreamings and hopings which for a time were nursed in despair, with no light in sight. This longing kept the courage up and made self-sacrifice easier until the thing dreamed of—the mental vision—was realized.
"According to your faith be it unto you." Our faith is a very good measure of what we get out of life. The man of weak faith gets little; the man of mighty faith gets much.
The very intensity of your confidence in your ability to do the thing you attempt is definitely related to the degree of your achievement.
If we were to analyze the marvelous successes of many of our self-made men, we should find that when they first started out in active life they held the confident, vigorous, persistent thought of and belief in their ability to accomplish what they had undertaken. Their mental attitude was set so stubbornly toward their goal that the doubts and fears which dog and hinder and frighten the man who holds a low estimate of himself, who asks, demands, and expects but little, of or for himself, got out of their path, and the world made way for them.