Chapter III
THE INITIATIVE ENERGY OF SUCCESS
Sources of Persistence
In such instances as we have recounted, men have found that persistent effort along certain lines has had the effect of making presently available what would otherwise be simply unused storage batteries of reserve power. What was the source and inspiration for this persistent effort?
You will say that it was ambition or patriotism or some similar semi-emotional influence. And so it was. But what is ambition, what is patriotism, what is any desire but a picturing to the mind's eye of the things desired, an awakening of a mental image of the result to be attained, the reward that is to follow certain efforts? And these mental pictures coming into consciousness have brought with them their associated emotions and their associated impulses to muscular action, impulses appropriate to the picture and automatically tending to work its realization.
These impulses constitute the whole of man's achieving power. They are the Initiative Energy of all Success.
Importance of the Mental Setting
When you are afflicted with doubt and fear, timidity and lack of confidence, this means that your mental inhibitions are too numerous, too high or too strong. Remove them and access is had to the latent energy of accumulated and creative thought complexes. You will then become buoyant, cheerful, overflowing with enthusiasm, and ready for a fresh, definite, active part in life.
Ideas, then, when latent, may be considered as possessing an energizing influence.
The same idea does not necessarily have the same effect upon the same persons at different times. What its effect may be at any time or with any individual depends upon the make-up of the consciousness in which it finds itself.