The Only Thing You're Probably Not Doing To Achieve Your Dreams

If you listen carefully to what successful people say about accomplishing goals, you’ll find a consistent common thread: They envision their goals in detail. If you’re like me, you’ve heard this many times in interviews or read it in biographies, and completely ignored it.

I ignored it because I am “not a visual person.” I didn’t think I was very good at visualizing. But visualization is a learnable skill. You get better with practice.

I can’t believe what a difference this simple practice has made. It sometimes seems like magic. I try to stay skeptical and explain things using verifiable evidence. I know how easy it is to come to false conclusions, so I’ve explained the stunning results to myself by noting that when I envision my goals clearly, it focuses my mind and increases my motivation, which it does.

It also produces a reverse engineering effect; when I envision my goals clearly, I automatically start thinking about “how it happened.” And that gets me to thinking about what I’m doing now.

For example, one of my goals is a million subscribers for my blog. As I imagined looking at the statistics for my subscribers and seeing a million subscribers, I thought about some possible ways this could happen. I wasn’t trying to think this way; it just happened naturally while visualizing the goal.

One of the things I thought of is the possibility that someone famous, like Oprah, would mention it on their show, causing a huge number of new visitors, many of whom really liked the blog and subscribed to it. And they shared the articles with their friends, causing even more people to subscribe, etc.

But then it occurred to me if Oprah was going to mention it and all these new people were going to look at the blog, it better be really good. I realized it would be embarrassing if all these people showed up on a day when the front page article was only so-so. Up to that time I was kind of casual about what I posted because I only had 400 subscribers.

So you see what happened? By simply envisioning the goal, I automatically started thinking backwards — back in time to the present — and it altered what I was doing in the present in such a way that the goal was more likely to happen. This kind of thinking comes about without trying. All I do is visualize my goal. The reverse engineering happens all by itself.

Another practical result of clearly visualizing a goal is the production of great ideas. Somehow the process of visualizing your goal stimulates your creativity. Surprising new ideas will start popping into your head spontaneously.

Because you have such a clear picture of your future, you will see your present differently. When you regularly envision your goals, you will find that you constructively reframe “negative events.” You start seeing setbacks more as useful information and less as a cause for demoralization.

These are some of the explainable results of envisioning goals. Something else happens too. It seems almost supernatural. Maybe at least part of it is the involvement of your reticular activator. But however we explain it, envisioning goals produces a whole host of positive effects.

How to Envision Your Goals

Visualizing a goal is a pretty straightforward task. But here are a few tips to make it more effective:

1. Relax first. Use the Silva Method or self-hypnosis or any method you already know how to use, as long as it makes you deeply relaxed without putting you to sleep. It’s important to be relaxed. When you try to visualize your goal without relaxing first, negative or anxious thoughts are more likely to worm their way into your visualizations.

2. See your goal in detail. The first thing to envision is the moment you realize you have achieved your goal. If you have a goal of publishing your book, you’ll know it’s published when you’re holding the printed copy of your book in your hands. It will be sent to you by mail. So envision getting the package in the mail, and with trembling fingers opening it with your spouse, pulling out the book, and holding it in your hands. Envision it in every sensory detail. Where are you? What do you feel? What does the book smell like? What time of day is it? What expression do you see on your spouse’s face? What thoughts are running through your mind?

Every time you relax and envision your goal, try to see new details you haven’t imagined before. Make it as real and vivid as possible.

And allow yourself to imagine past that point. What will you do next? What will happen afterwards? Imagine the consequences of your achievement a week later, a month later, a year later.

3. Sit up. Don’t lie down. When you lie down, your images tend to drift more randomly and you’re more likely to fall asleep. Sitting up gives you better control of your images.

4. Do it several times a week. Spend some time on it. Ten to twenty minutes at a time is good.

5. Don’t force positivity. If something negative appears in your visualizations and keeps popping up, consider it a message from your unconscious mind or the mute right hemisphere of your brain, or your inner wisdom. Consider it a message, and seek to discover the lesson. What is it telling you that will help you achieve the goal? And then visualize yourself resolving that problem and successfully accomplishing your purpose.

6. Remember a success. It helps to first remember a goal you’ve successfully achieved in the past. And then, in the same sitting, imagine your new goal. Remembering past successes emotionally enhances your visualizations of the future, and strengthens your confidence in your ability to achieve your goals.

You have big goals. You work hard. If your goal has seemed frustratingly elusive up until now, you might have been missing this one vital ingredient: Clearly envisioning your goal.

If you have clearly envisioned your goal but it still seems elusive, a belief about yourself may be preventing you from realizing your goal. Read this to learn more about the barriers to goal achievement. And use this to change your limiting beliefs.

Adam Khan is the author of Cultivating Fire: How to Keep Your Motivation White Hot, Principles For Personal Growth, and Slotralogy: How to Change Your Habits of Thought.

Turn Hopelessness Into Realistic Optimism

When the Titanic sank, people scrambled aboard lifeboats and were set adrift in the middle of nowhere in pitch darkness. Only three hours after the liner disappeared from the surface of the water, the first relief ships arrived. But by that time some people in the lifeboats had already scared themselves to death, or had gone mad.

Ninety percent of the survivors of any shipwreck die within three days. But to die of hunger or thirst, it takes much longer than that. It is despair that kills those people. "Helpless in the night," wrote Dr. Alain Bombard, French survival researcher and author of The Voyage of the Heretique, "chilled by sea and wind, terrified by the solitude, by the noise and by the silence, it takes less than three days for him to surrender his life."

When people are in what looks like a hopeless situation and they give up hope, it not only causes a breakdown of the body, but they stop doing the things that could keep them alive.

And this doesn't only apply to life-or-death situations. We all tend to give up hope about some things — our dreams, some special goal we have, something we really want, and we stop doing the things that could make them happen.

The loss of hope is a poisonous potion. Optimism is the antidote. Here are three steps to greater optimism:

1. Be negative about the negative. Question those negative thoughts you automatically think when disaster strikes. Argue against the pessimistic conclusions you've jumped to. This must come first. When you feel negative, the next two steps are very difficult. Being negative about the negative brings you up enough to go further.

2. Appreciate what's good about your situation. There's always something good. Think about how much worse the situation could be and be glad it isn't that bad.

3. Create a future. Make realistic plans for the future and actively work toward those goals. This creates life-giving, strength-building, sanity-bestowing hope.

Your mind has no direction of its own. Without your active participation, it will be blown hither and thither by the winds of circumstance and the tides of emotions. But it is possible to grab the tiller and steer. To get to the sunny shore from the ocean of life, wrote James Allen, "Keep your hand firmly on the helm of thought."

Adam Khan is the author of Cultivating Fire: How to Keep Your Motivation White Hot, Principles For Personal Growth, and Slotralogy: How to Change Your Habits of Thought. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

All In Your Head

In 1914, a small ship sailed into the icy Weddell Sea, on its way to the South Pole. It carried a crew of twenty-seven men, and their leader, Ernest Shackleton. But unseasonable gales shoved the floating ice together and the temperature sank below zero, freezing more than a million square miles of ice into a solid mass. And they were stuck in the middle of it. They had no radio transmitter. They were alone.

For ten months the pressure increased until it crushed the ship, stranding them in the middle of an icy wasteland which could, at any time, break up and become a sea of floating ice chunks. They had to get off this ice while it was still solid, so they headed for the nearest known land, 346 miles away, dragging their two lifeboats over the ice. But every few hundred yards they ran into a pressure ridge, sometimes two stories high, caused by the ice compacting. They had to chop through it. At the end of two backbreaking days in subzero weather, they were exhausted. After all their hacking and dragging, they had traveled only two miles.

They tried again. In five days they went a total of nine miles, but the ice was becoming softer and the pressure ridges were becoming larger. They could go no further. So they had to wait...for several months. Finally the ice opened up and they launched the boats into the churning mass of giant chunks of ice and made it out. But now they were sailing across a treacherous sea. They landed on a tiny, barren, ice-covered, lifeless island in the middle of nowhere.

To save themselves, they needed to reach the nearest outpost of civilization: South Georgia, 870 miles away! Shackleton and five men took the best lifeboat and sailed across the Drake Passage at the tip of South America, the most formidable piece of ocean in the world. Gales blow nonstop — up to 200 miles an hour (that’s as hard as a hurricane) — and waves get as high as ninety feet. Their chances of making it were very close to zero.

But determination can change the odds.

They made it. But they landed on the wrong side of the island, and their boat was pounded into the rocks and rendered useless. The whaling port they needed to reach was on the other side of the island, which has peaks 10,000 feet high and had never been crossed. They were the first. They didn’t have much choice.

When they staggered into the little whaling port on the other side of the island, everyone who saw them stopped dead in their tracks. The three men had coal-black skin from the seal oil they had been burning as fuel. They had long, black dreadlocks. Their clothing was shredded, filthy rags, and they had come from the direction of the mountains. Nobody in the history of the whaling port had ever been known to enter the town from that direction.

Although all the men at that whaling port had known about Shackleton’s expedition, his ship had been gone for seventeen months and was assumed to have sunk, and the crew with it. The whalers knew how deadly and unforgiving the ice could be.

The three ragged men made their way to the home of a man Shackleton knew, followed in silence by a growing crowd of people. When the man came to the door, he stepped back and stared in silence. Then he said, “Who the hell are you?”

The man in the center took a step forward and said, “My name is Shackleton.”

According to some witnesses, the hard-faced man at the door turned away and wept.

This story is incredible, and if it weren’t for the extensive verification and corroboration of the diaries and interviews with the men on the crew in Alfred Lansing’s account, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, it might easily be disbelieved. The story is true, and as incredible as what I’ve told you seems, I’ve only given you some highlights.

Shackleton went back and rescued his friends on the other side of the island first, and then after many attempts to get through the ice, on August 30th — almost two years since they’d embarked — he made it back to that barren island and rescued the rest of his men. Every man in Shackleton’s crew made it home alive.

Fifteen years earlier, a different ship got stuck in the ice in the Weddell Sea — the Belgica, led by Adrien de Gerlache — but they didn’t do so well. During the winter in the Antarctic, the sun completely disappears below the horizon for seventy-nine days. Shackleton’s crew endured it. But the crew of the Belgica grew depressed, gave up hope, and succumbed to negative thinking. Some of them couldn’t eat. Mental illness took over. One man had a heart attack from a terror of darkness. Paranoia and hysteria ran rampant.

None of this happened to Shackleton’s men because he insisted they keep a good attitude, and he did the same. He once said that the most important quality for an explorer was not courage or patience, but optimism. He said, “Optimism nullifies disappointment and makes one more ready than ever to go on.”

Shackleton also knew that attitudes are contagious. He was fully aware of the fact that if anyone lost hope they wouldn’t be able to put forth that last ounce of energy which may make the difference. And they did get pushed to the limits of human endurance. But he had convinced himself and his men they would make it out alive. His determination to remain optimistic ultimately saved their lives.

And it can achieve great things for you too. It comes down to what you say: Either you say it’s hopeless or you say it can be done. You can never look into the future to find the answer. It’s in your head.

Make up your mind you will succeed. 

This article was excerpted from the book, Principles For Personal Growth by Adam Khan. Buy it now here.

All In Your Head

In 1914, a small ship sailed into the icy Weddell Sea, on its way to the South Pole. It carried a crew of twenty-seven men, and their leader, Ernest Shackleton. But unseasonable gales shoved the floating ice together and the temperature sank below zero, freezing more than a million square miles of ice into a solid mass. And they were stuck in the middle of it. They had no radio transmitter. They were alone.

For ten months the pressure increased until it crushed the ship, stranding them in the middle of an icy wasteland which could, at any time, break up and become a sea of floating ice chunks. They had to get off this ice while it was still solid, so they headed for the nearest known land, 346 miles away, dragging their two lifeboats over the ice. But every few hundred yards they ran into a pressure ridge, sometimes two stories high, caused by the ice compacting. They had to chop through it. At the end of two backbreaking days in subzero weather, they were exhausted. After all their hacking and dragging, they had traveled only two miles.

They tried again. In five days they went a total of nine miles, but the ice was becoming softer and the pressure ridges were becoming larger. They could go no further. So they had to wait...for several months. Finally the ice opened up and they launched the boats into the churning mass of giant chunks of ice and made it out. But now they were sailing across a treacherous sea. They landed on a tiny, barren, ice-covered, lifeless island in the middle of nowhere.

To save themselves, they needed to reach the nearest outpost of civilization: South Georgia, 870 miles away! Shackleton and five men took the best lifeboat and sailed across the Drake Passage at the tip of South America, the most formidable piece of ocean in the world. Gales blow nonstop — up to 200 miles an hour (that’s as hard as a hurricane) — and waves get as high as ninety feet. Their chances of making it were very close to zero.

But determination can change the odds.

They made it. But they landed on the wrong side of the island, and their boat was pounded into the rocks and rendered useless. The whaling port they needed to reach was on the other side of the island, which has peaks 10,000 feet high and had never been crossed. They were the first. They didn’t have much choice. Three of them took their best equipment and set out.

When they staggered into the little whaling port on the other side of the island, everyone who saw them stopped dead in their tracks. The three men had coal-black skin from the seal oil they had been burning as fuel. They had long, black dreadlocks. Their clothing was shredded, filthy rags, and they had come from the direction of the mountains. Nobody in the history of the whaling port had ever been known to enter the town from that direction.

Although all the men at that whaling port had known about Shackleton’s expedition, his ship had been gone for seventeen months and was assumed to have sunk, and the crew with it. The whalers knew how deadly and unforgiving the ice could be.

The three ragged men made their way to the home of a man Shackleton knew, followed in silence by a growing crowd of people. When the man came to the door, he stepped back and stared in silence. Then he said, “Who the hell are you?”

The man in the center took a step forward and said, “My name is Shackleton.”

According to some witnesses, the hard-faced man at the door turned away and wept.

This story is incredible, and if it weren’t for the extensive verification and corroboration of the diaries and interviews with the men on the crew in Alfred Lansing’s account, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, it might easily be disbelieved. The story is true, and as incredible as what I’ve told you seems, I’ve only given you some highlights.

Shackleton went back and rescued his friends on the other side of the island first, and then after many attempts to get through the ice, on August 30th — almost two years since they’d embarked — he made it back to that barren island and rescued the rest of his men. Every man in Shackleton’s crew made it home alive.

Fifteen years earlier, a different ship got stuck in the ice in the Weddell Sea — the Belgica, led by Adrien de Gerlache — but they didn’t do so well. During the winter in the Antarctic, the sun completely disappears below the horizon for seventy-nine days. Shackleton’s crew endured it. But the crew of the Belgica grew depressed, gave up hope, and succumbed to negative thinking. Some of them couldn’t eat. Mental illness took over. One man had a heart attack from a terror of darkness. Paranoia and hysteria ran rampant.

None of this happened to Shackleton’s men because he insisted they keep a good attitude, and he did the same. He once said that the most important quality for an explorer was not courage or patience, but optimism. He said, “Optimism nullifies disappointment and makes one more ready than ever to go on.”

Shackleton also knew that attitudes are contagious. He was fully aware of the fact that if anyone lost hope they wouldn’t be able to put forth that last ounce of energy which may make the difference. And they did get pushed to the limits of human endurance. But he had convinced himself and his men they would make it out alive. His determination to remain optimistic ultimately saved their lives.

And it can achieve great things for you too. It comes down to what you say: Either you say it’s hopeless or you say it can be done. You can never look into the future to find the answer. It’s in your head.

This article was excerpted from the book, Principles For Personal Growth by Adam Khan. Buy it now here.

The Secret of Rudy's Persistence

I love the movie, Rudy. It's a true story about a boy who wants to play football for Notre Dame even though he’s small, not very strong, not very quick, doesn’t have the money for college (and neither do his parents), and gets lousy grades in high school.

But because of his formidable persistence and consistently great attitude, because of his willingness to keep moving toward his goal no matter what obstacles barred his way, he actually achieved his goal. It is truly inspiring to watch.

The real Rudy Ruettiger was a consultant for the movie, and made sure the movie was an accurate depiction of his life. But it leaves out some interesting facts. You can’t put a whole life into one movie without omitting something.

One of the things the movie left out is what I consider to be a vital part of the story: How he became so incredibly persistent. Luckily, he wrote about his experience in more detail, so we know the answer. A particular event changed his life.

In the movie, only one person supported Rudy's dream to play football for Notre Dame — his best friend, Pete. When Pete died in a tragic accident, something happened to Rudy, and he realized if he was going to make his dream happen, he’d better get on with it because life is short.

A few days later he was in a bookstore and found a paperback copy of Psycho-Cybernetics. “I took the book home and read it cover to cover,” says Rudy, “and then I started again at the beginning.”

The book made a profound impression on Rudy, and he immediately started acting on his newfound understanding of how to accomplish goals.

“Although I was already 23, I immediately headed for Notre Dame with the attitude, ‘I'm going to do this, period, end of sentence,’ and new opportunities were created just by me showing up.”

I’ve had similar experiences where my commitment to a goal — all by itself — seemed to make things happen, almost like magic. You probably have too.

“Maltz said if you take action, the plan will unfold in front of you,” wrote Rudy. “You can develop your game plan as you move toward your goal. Sometimes it’s better not to have everything all laid out; focusing too much on how you think it should go can cause you to miss opportunities.”

According to Rudy, the book changed his life.

If you have important goals (and I’ll bet you do) find yourself a copy of Psycho-Cybernetics and read it. It’s one of the best self-help books ever written.

Two things make the book exceptional: First, it’s easy to read. Second, it is complete. It talks about the value of setting goals and how to set goals, and how to visualize your goals to make them real. But it also talks about one of the most important barriers to achievement: Your self-image.

If you have a goal but believe you’re a loser, no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to accomplish your goal. Something will always cause you to fail before you reach it.

If this has been happening to you, dig into the self-image psychology in Maltz’s book and follow the practical suggestions for eliminating the internal barriers to your success. Rudy said, “I learned from Psycho-Cybernetics that it’s all in what you think.”

But that doesn’t mean “just think positive thoughts and everything will turn out well.” There is more to it. Maltz goes into detail about exactly how to use your mind effectively to overcome the psychological obstacles to achievement. Read a summary of Psycho-Cybernetics.

Rudy wrote, “Every one of us uses our mind to create our life. My story can be your story — if you are willing to swim against the stream, fight against the odds, and believe you can be whatever you want to be.

Adam Khan is the author of Slotralogy, Direct Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of What Difference Does It Make?: How the Sexes Differ and What You Can Do About It. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Sometimes You Shouldn't Listen

When Winston Churchill was a young man, his father concluded that Winston was “unfit for a career in law or politics” because he did so badly in school.

Barbra Streisand’s mother told her she wasn’t pretty enough to be an actress and she could never become a singer because her voice wasn’t good enough.

Conrad Hilton, who created a business empire with his Hilton Hotels, once overheard his father say to his mother: “Mary, I do not know what will become of Connie. I’m afraid he’ll never amount to anything.”

When Charles Darwin was getting ready to set sail on his five-year expedition on the Beagle, his father was extremely disappointed. He thought his son was drifting into a life of sin and idleness.

George Washington’s mother was a harping, complaining, self-centered woman by all accounts. She belittled Washington’s accomplishments and didn’t show up at either of his presidential inaugurations. She was always whining that her children neglected her, and she was especially enraged when her son George ran off to command the army for the American Revolution. She honestly believed it was his duty to stay home and take care of her.

In his youth, the late Leonard Bernstein, one of the most talented and successful composers in American history, was continually pressured by his father to give up his music and do something worthwhile, like help out in his family’s beauty-supply business. After Leonard became famous, his father was asked about that, and he answered, “Well how was I supposed to know he was the Leonard Bernstein?!”

People may criticize you or make fun of your ideas or actively try to stop you. Often their efforts are only attempts to protect you from failure. But failure is only a possibility if you stop. If you keep going, a “failure” is just another learning experience. And besides, giving up on a heartfelt aspiration is worse than failing. “Many people die,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes, “with their music still in them.” That’s true tragedy. So listen politely to the worries and criticisms of your friends and family, and do your best to put their minds at ease, but then carry on. Listen last to your own heart. You know yourself better than anyone on earth. Make sure your song is sung.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

why optimism can be a self-fulfilling prophesy

Optimism includes the assumption I can do something to change this situation for the better. Defeatism or pessimism includes the assumption probably nothing I do will make any difference.

Of course, when you're optimistic, you are more willing to take action to change things for the better, which increases the likelihood that things will change for the better. That's how optimism becomes self-fulfilling.

Pessimism can also become a self-fulfilling prophesy. If there is some area of your life that you have decided you cannot improve, you will no longer even try, which makes it more likely it will stay the way it is (or get worse).

Optimism is not the same as thinking positively, and it is actually easier than thinking positively. But it has far more evidence from scientific experiments proving its effectiveness than positive thinking does.

Read more: Optimism and Optimism is Healthy

how to persist without willpower

The secret of success is persistence. But what happens when you hit a setback and feel defeated? When you conclude your goal is impossible, it takes a tremendous amount of willpower to persist.

But when you feel defeated, you have almost surely concluded something that is false: Nobody will ever want my product, I'm just a loser, Everything I touch turns to crap, etc. When a setback occurs, it brings you down. When people are down, their thoughts become overly negative, distorted, and exaggerated.

Learn to seek out the mistakes in your thinking and correct them.

Don't try to persist by forcing yourself to continue even when you feel defeated. Learn to poke holes in your defeated conclusions and you will persist naturally. Without willpower.

Read more: Pillar Of Strength
and Positive Thinking: The Next Generation

If You Relapse

A therapist once told me he had a client, Dirck, who's wife didn't feel loved. The therapist helped Dirck find out what his wife needed to feel loved. She craved physical demonstration: Hugs, touches, kisses, holding hands. That was something that really got through to her and meant the most to her. Dirck had been simply telling her how much he loved her without doing much physical demonstration. So although she knew intellectually Dirck loved her, she didn't feel loved.

The therapist helped Dirck learn to demonstrate his love physically. Dirck returned a week later to say, "It worked!" His wife felt loved!

Six months later, Dirck was back. His wife didn't feel loved any more. The therapy apparently hadn't succeeded like he thought.

With some careful questions, the therapist found out Dirck had stopped doing what he was doing before and was merely professing his love with words again!

As stupid as that sounds, you will have to be careful to avoid making the same mistake. When things are going fine, you will tend to take your attention off the problem, which is good. But if you stop doing the things that help manage your anxiety, it will creep back into your life, and one day you'll realize you've relapsed, and you may even throw up your hands in despair because "Apparently this stuff doesn't work as well as I thought it did."

Well guess what? It works just fine. But the knowledge doesn't do anything. You have to take the steps if you want to reap the benefits. The only thing that makes this difficult is: It's hard to notice the absence of a negative condition (except immediately after it goes away). That's just a fact of life. And it causes relapses and backsliding. But it is really no big deal. Just remember what works. And when it seems you've relapsed, start doing again what worked before.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Should You Give Up On Your Goal?

The following is a letter I wrote to a friend of mine who was splitting up with his wife. I had lunch with him and we talked for several hours. He told me his problems and asked for my help. Afterwards I wrote him this letter. It is about commitment and overcoming your own mind's decision to give up on your goal.

Hi Tim,

Since having lunch with you, I've been thinking more about it, of course. I want you to know I am impressed with your commitment and your willingness to change. I believe in you, Tim. I think you are a better man than you think you are.

Here's what I was thinking about. I just watched a movie last night called Door to Door. It is the true story of Bill Porter, a man with cerebral palsy who got a job as a door to door salesman, selling soap and other goods, and became a top salesman. He has a difficult time walking, writing, carrying things, and speaking, and yet he won Salesman of the Year at his company. When he showed up at their doors, some people were automatically put off by his appearance and inability to speak clearly, but he was persistent. He accepted people's responses, and after awhile his kindness and goodness and courage and persistence overcame everyone's initial resistance.

I love movies like that. Rudy is my favorite — a true story of persistence and courage and overcoming tremendous odds. Or the movie October Sky. These are true stories. These guys really did go through all that heartache and tribulation and really did ultimately achieve their goal.

Having just watched Door to Door, and being inspired by someone overcoming tremendous odds with everything stacked against him, and people making fun of him and automatically wanting nothing to do with him because he was a "freak," and then hearing you today saying you’re going to give up (and stop reading books on relationships because they give you “false hope”), I don't know...it made me think.

I know it's painful for you to keep trying with Karen. I know you want to give up. I know you think she has given up, and you might even be right. But she has been through a lot. Even you say so. You have caused her pain. And that's what I was thinking: That now she is causing you pain, so you want to give up. But haven't you caused her pain? Doesn't it somehow seem a basic justice that she should cause you pain too?

What if you thought of the pain as amends you are making for all the stupid stuff you've done to hurt others in your lifetime? Wouldn't that change your willingness to feel the pain? I know you are capable of tolerating pain. Nobody succeeds as a bodybuilder as well as you have unless they can experience and accept pain and keep going.

But you think of the pain during weight lifting as good for you, right? Just part of the process. And you consider the pain you feel when Karen cries or criticizes as bad for you. But maybe it is just as good for you. Maybe it's good for your personal growth if you took it the right way. Maybe it's good for your relationship. Maybe it's good for your future.

And not only that, your willingness to take the pain and listen anyway might soften her heart. It could change her mind. It could prove to her you really are different.

This about this. If you are willing to cause pain but not experience it yourself, that’s one kind of person. But if you are no longer willing to cause pain but are willing to experience the pain of guilt and remorse — if you are willing to make up for your past deeds — that is a different kind of person. That’s a man of character strength.

This kind of character strength changes peoples' hearts. Have you ever seen the movie Gandhi? They showed a scene where Gandhi had organized a protest march on a salt manufacturing company (owned by the government). Government troops were guarding the salt company. Four by four, the Indians marched up and all of them get hit over the head with police batons. Brutal. The Indians didn't even raise their hands to defend themselves. Down they went. This event really happened.

The next group of four marched forward, and they were hit on the head and carried off. Rows of four marched up all day and all night. When this story broke, it sent shockwaves throughout the world, and through the pain of the Indians, British people had a change of heart. They didn't want their government or their troops to inflict pain and suffering on the Indians any longer. Without firing a shot, without inflicting violence against the British, with this kind of commitment and character strength, the Indians were able to make one of the most powerful countries in the world eventually stop the military occupation of India.

Given all this, what about you? Can you stick with it even though it seems hopeless? Can you stick with it even though it causes you pain? Can you learn to see the pain as a kind of justice, and righting of wrongs? Can you set a completely awesome example for your two little daughters? And for their sake? I think you can.

Today at lunch you kept using the phrase "false hope." I have read a huge number of true stories about people in impossible situations who were determined to succeed and who were able to achieve the seemingly impossible. So the phrase "false hope" doesn’t have any meaning to me. That is what someone calls it who is giving up.

When Rudy couldn't get into Notre Dame the first time or the second time or the third time or the fourth time he tried, someone with less determination could easily have said he had "false hope." In fact, I think that is the exact phrase his high school teacher used when he told Rudy he should forget about going to Notre Dame because he couldn’t possibly do it.

But he did do it. And now we would never say his hope and his determination were false. In fact, I don't even like the word hope. It's too wimpy. I like commitment and determination. Don't hope for it. Make it happen instead. Not with force, but with character strength. With your actions, with what you are willing to suffer through, with your commitment. You have it in you. I've looked in your eyes and I see it. You can do this, but not with a half-assed, one-foot-out-the-door kind of approach.

I'm not putting you down. You have really impressed me with what you've done. But stop thinking about "false hope" and stop thinking this pain is bad for you.

And start memorizing that list of thought-mistakes I gave you, and work hard to find those mistakes in your thinking. Catch yourself pessimistically making those cognitive mistakes over and over. Just catch yourself. After awhile, you'll stop making those mistakes, and your thinking will clear up, and it will help your determination and positive mood return.

I'm still rooting for you. And I'm rooting for your girls. And I hope someday to come over to your house and play with your daughters again and see you and Karen happily married. It can happen. If you decide it can happen, if you have enough courage and persistence and determination, it really can happen. It is only false hope if you stop short and give up. Even if she moves out, the game is not over. Not until you say it is. She obviously loved you once. And you loved her. And still love her. There was a reason the love was there. And it can be again, and when it is, you will have changed in a way you’ll be proud of. And so will she. And so will your daughters.

Adam

The follow up to this story is that Tim didn't give up. He straightened up and solved his problems, and he and his wife got back together. It is two years later, and he is a better man, they have a better relationship, and they're both very glad he committed himself to change. And his daughters' lives will benefit ever after.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Direct Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Paracelsus

Have you ever heard of a man named Paracelsus? He did a very good thing for you and me. In the year 1500 AD, the doctors in Europe studied the work of a man named Galen. His works had been respected for 1300 years. That's an incredibly long time. You talk about well established! What he wrote became like sacred doctrine. If Galen wrote it, it was so, and that's all there was to say about it.

Now a lot of the things he wrote were accurate. But a lot of it was garbage. For example, supposedly inside each person were what were called the Four Cardinal Humors. Humor comes from the Latin umor meaning fluid or moisture.

The four Humors were Phlegm, Choler, Blood, and Melancholy. In order to be in good health, so the theory went, a person had to have a proper balance between these humors. The whole thing sounds pretty humorous, don't you think? But if you didn't have enough of one of these humors, or if you had too much of one, then you were sick. That's what disease was. So to make you well, the doctor's job was to restore the balance.

Galen also believed that each person had a certain balance that was just right for that particular individual. Therefore, each illness in each person was unique.

So the doctor, with his special knowledge, might find you had, say, too much of one of your humors, like blood for example. And he would treat you by making you bleed for awhile. One of their techniques was to attach leaches to your body to suck out some of your blood. And then you would be well. Now this sounds like a good Monty Python gag, but here were well-respected authorities, diligently studying for years to get their "Doctor of Physic" degree so they could go out and make people sweat and purge and bleed and vomit, and thereby supposedly make them healthy. A lot of the time, as you can probably imagine, the treatment killed the patient. But after 1300 years, this was a very well-established status quo.

Then along comes a rebel by the name of Paracelsus, who came up with the scandalous idea that something from outside your body, like smoke or germs, could make you sick. What a radical! He was viciously attacked by the medical profession so he never stayed in one place very long, and he lived his life in poverty.

But he never gave up. He felt pretty sure he was right, and he knew if he was right, it would have an enormous impact on the health of everyone.

Since he had no Doctor of Physic degree, he was never allowed to publish his ideas — including his studies of people who worked in mines who all seemed to die of the same thing (now called Miner's Disease) which seriously put in question one of Galen's "sacred" ideas that all diseases were unique.

It wasn't until a couple of decades after Paracelsus died that his work became known and published. He turned out to have been right, and although he never knew what he did, he opened up the way for a whole new approach toward disease, and doctors dramatically increased their effectiveness because of that persistent rebel.

Now some people might consider themselves a failure if they lived a life like Paracelsus — in poverty and scorned and all. But there are more important things in life than just winning or getting everyone's admiration, or collecting and spending a lot of money. Nothing wrong with these things. Not at all. But there's at least one thing that's more important: Being true to your own aspiration.

If it stirs you, if that vision captivates you, if the ideas for that invention haunt you and won't leave you alone, if you have a goal that may even seem petty to others, but it's something you feel is good and right, and you want to try...then do it, no matter how long it takes or who thinks you're a fool. Never give up on something that matters to you.

Adam Khan is the author of Slotralogy, Direct Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of What Difference Does It Make?: How the Sexes Differ and What You Can Do About It. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

The Fate We Make

If you decide your fate is in your own hands, it is. If you decide you are pushed around by circumstances beyond your control, you are.

The truth is, our fate is in our own hands to some degree, and also there are a lot of things that influence us and are out of our control or have been preordained (like where we were born).

But if you decide your fate is in your hands, your fate becomes more in your hands, and as time goes on, it becomes more and more true, like a small wave catching more of the wind and becoming an ever larger wave.

It is only a matter of where you put your attention. For example, if you pay attention to the forces that influence you beyond your control, you'll feel helpless, at least a little. Depression, or some degree of it, follows like thunder after the flash. When people feel helpless, they don't take actions they could take that would make their situation better. A belief in one's helplessness actually makes one more helpless.

Put your attention on what you can effect, however, and your life will go more the way you want it to. You're concentrating your attention where it counts. This makes you more likely to take action, and makes your actions more effective. Optimism follows. And as numerous studies have shown, including the thorough work of Martin Seligman, PhD, Kogod Professor and Director of Clinical Training in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the side-effects of optimism are better health, more success, higher self-esteem, and a greater feeling of control. You'll have a greater feeling of control because you actually have more control. Your decision that your fate is in your own hands has given you more control of your life.

Your fate is, to a considerable degree, what you make it.

Persistence and Determination Are Omnipotent

When you run into obstacles on the way to an important goal, and you feel your motivation starting to fade, or if people have been telling you you’re foolish to keep trying, I urge you to watch Lorenzo's Oil. It’s a true story of a husband and wife (Augusto and Michaela Odone) and their five year-old boy, Lorenzo.

They were a happy family who moved to the U.S. after living for awhile in the Comoros Islands. Lorenzo began having behavioral problems, so they took him to one doctor after another, trying to get a diagnosis. Nobody seemed to know what was wrong with him.

Finally they found a doctor who did the right kind of tests. The doctor sat the parents down in a quiet room and gravely told them the diagnosis: “Your son has a fatal disease. He might live another two years, but during that time, the white matter of his brain will slowly liquefy, and then he will die. There is no treatment for this disease. Nothing can be done about it.”

They were at the best facility they could find. The tests were thorough and extensive, and there was no mistake: Lorenzo has a disease called adrenoleukodystrophy (known simply as ALD).

What would YOU do if it happened to you? They were, of course, devastated by the news. No matter how well-schooled you are in the science of determination, news like that will knock you down, at least at first.

Very little was known about the disease, but Augusto (Lorenzo’s father) started reading about it. He found the progression of the disease unthinkably horrible. Kids go blind and deaf, become autistic, lose their ability to speak, become paraplegic, have seizures, and so on over a period of two years. And then they die.

And nobody knew how to stop it.

Augusto and Michaela were plunged into a black despair that would be hard to imagine. When anyone hits a setback, demoralization is almost always the first response. The only question is, “How quickly will you recover your fighting spirit?” How soon, if ever, will you regain your determination?

The answer depends entirely on how you explain the setback to yourself. If the Odones believed the doctors, they would have given up on their son. They would have felt helpless and depressed.

But they decided there must be a way.

In other words, the setback was: Lorenzo has ALD.

The explanation the doctors gave was: It is a fatal disease without a cure. That’s a demoralizing belief, and makes four thought-mistakes: overcertainty, negative guessing, self-defeating conclusions, and false hopelessness. Many people felt sorry for the Odones because the couple were obviously living on “false hope.” But if you look at the the doctor’s conclusion (there is no cure for ALD) you can easily see it was a premature conclusion. It was not a certainty that a cure was impossible. And it was unnecessarily demoralizing to say it with any certainty.

The Odone’s explanation of the setback was not demoralizing. They believed the cure had not been found…YET. And they decided to help find the cure. Their explanation was the opposite of demoralizing — it was powerfully motivating.

Even if they wanted to do something about it, most people would not because of another set of demoralizing beliefs: Who am I to think I could help? I’m an ordinary person. How could I find a cure if all these doctors and researchers haven’t found one? These thought-mistakes would prevent most people from trying. They would give up.

But the Odones knew better. Augusto said to Michaela, “What did we do when we first arrived in Comoros? We read about it. We read about their culture, their history, their laws. That’s what we need to do now. We don’t know enough about this disease.”

So they went to libraries and started reading as if their son’s life depended on it. They stayed up late and got up early. They read books on biochemistry, biology, neurology. They read microfiche, pursued references, talked to researchers, and followed every clue they could find. They shared with each other what they were learning and what ideas they came up with, they argued with each other, and they kept trying.

Why did they keep trying? This is the crucial question. They kept trying and stayed motivated because the way they explained their setback to themselves set them on fire with determination and commitment. Please remember that. When you feel demoralized by the setback, look at your explanations. Use the antivirus for your mind. Your motivation depends on it.

They discovered several researchers in different places working on the disease, but they worked in isolation from each other. The Odones thought they might speed up the process of discovery by funding a symposium, so they did. They got all the experts together in one room to discuss ALD. Maybe pooling their insights would help them find a new approach.

The Odones were trying to find a way. And they were urgent because the clock was ticking. Every day their son was losing more myelin (the protective sheath that covers the neurons in his brain). Lorenzo was going blind, couldn’t speak, and was no longer able to feed himself.


Lorenzo’s Oil

At the symposium, in a conversation between scientists who each brought different pieces of the puzzle to the table, they concluded a particular oil might help. The Odones tracked down a manufacturer who could make it, and tried it on their boy. Their goal was to keep his level of long-chain fatty acids low. Those were the acids destroying his myelin.

The oil helped some, but not enough. They did more reading and found another line of possibility. They needed another oil extraction of a different kind but it couldn’t be made legally in the U.S. So they found a chemist in England who could do it.

And the combination of the two oils achieved the goal! The level of fatty-acids in Lorenzo’s blood became normal. The oil is now used as a treatment for boys with ALD (girls don’t get the disease) and if it is started early enough, it stops the disease completely in many of them, allowing them to lead normal lives.

Lorenzo, however, did not return to normal. He had lost too much myelin. But he recovered some of his functions (including his eyesight) and is now 28 years old.

Have the Odones given up? Of course not! They started The Myelin Project, aimed at finding a way to re-myelinate neurons. It has already been successfully done in dogs.

The movie is one of the most inspiring I’ve ever seen. If you would like to see a demonstration of determination in action, if you would like to see a real-life example of the power of persistence, if you would like to put the difficulty of your own goals into perspective, watch Lorenzo's Oil.

Adam Khan is the author of Cultivating Fire: How to Keep Your Motivation White Hot, Principles For Personal Growth, and Slotralogy: How to Change Your Habits of Thought.

Slotralogy and Positive Thinking

Many people have told me they dislike trying to think positive because it feels forced and phony. They say things to themselves they don’t really believe and it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Saying these positive things doesn’t really make them feel any better.

I think cognitive psychology has made an important contribution to this discussion. They’ve come up with a kind of anti-negativity process. It is arguing with negative thoughts. Finding mistakes in negative explanations. This is what I've called The Antivirus For Your Mind.

And since you already feel negative when you start doing this, it is fairly easy to do something negative, like find mistakes in your negative thoughts, to criticize your thoughts, to argue with your thoughts.

On the other hand, it is exceedingly difficult to say or believe something positive when you feel so negative.

After doing a little antivirus for the mind, you have lifted some of your bad feelings, so you are in a better frame of mind to do something more positive, like practicing slotras.

Slotralogy is different than positive thinking, although, of course, there is some overlap. The thoughts you’re practicing don’t necessarily have to be positive or cheery. The purpose is not only to make you feel positive, but to direct your attention in a good direction. When Dougal Robertson said to himself, “We must get these boys to land,” he said it with a kind of grim determination, not cheerfulness or enthusiasm. He would have had to fake any enthusiasm, and it was unnecessary. Grim determination worked just fine and it was way better than despair.

Nelson Mandela describes himself as an optimist. Not a perpetually cheery person, but one who “keeps one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward.” I like that definition. “There were many dark moments,” wrote Mandela, “when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lay defeat and death.”

Notice that he didn’t give himself up to despair, not because he was naturally buoyant. His refusal to sink into despair was a decision. He saw the practical implications of directing his mind deliberately, and used it. Most survivors of trying conditions, and most successful people do the same.

Al Siebert, author of the The Survivor Personality, puts it this way, “The will to live is different from hopefulness or optimism. The survivors I have interviewed have not talked about being sustained by hope.” They are sustained by their determination, grim or not.

One of the reasons optimism is so powerful is that it is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Or at least it has a tendency to become self-fulfilling. Assume something is changeable, assume you can do it, and you’re more motivated to try than if you assume you can’t or that it is unchangeable.

When Jim Carrey first decided to become a comedian, his father, Percy, helped him out. Percy played the saxophone when he was younger and dreamed of playing it for a vocation, but he gave it up to become an accountant.

Now he didn’t want Jim to give up his dream. Jim says of his father, “He taught me it’s better to go after something special and risk starving to death than to surrender.”

When he was only 15, Percy managed to get Jim an opportunity to try his talent on stage. In a Toronto comedy club, dressed in a yellow polyester suit his mom bought for him, Jim had his first experience entertaining people. It was a nightmare. The emcee made Jim the entertainment by making fun of him the whole time Jim was trying to do his bit.

Jim Carrey, who went on to become one of the most successful entertainers of his time, was so demoralized by this experience, he didn’t try again for two years.

“I have no idea what motivated me to try again,” he said, “I just felt like giving it a shot. Failure isn’t the end unless you give up.”

Although Jim may not realize what motivated him to try again, he reveals in that last sentence a principle, a statement, a belief that encourages persistence. It would make an excellent slotra. If you’re experiencing a setback, try practicing this thought: “Failure isn’t the end unless you give up.” Excellent.

Read the next chapter: Love is a Great Motivator

This article was excerpted from the book, Slotralogy: How to Change Your Habits of Thought.

Unremitting Resolution Can Accomplish What Seems Impossible

Relentless resolve can accomplish what seems impossible. In India people called fakirs (which doesn’t mean they fake anything) do something amazing that takes years to master, and they do it as a spiritual discipline. What they choose to do varies.

For example, some hold a particular pose, like a certain religiously appropriate position, and they just keep holding it. This takes intense resolve, because of course, it becomes uncomfortable after only twenty minutes. So they go as long as they can, and then they rest. And then they go as long as they can again, and they keep this up, doing it longer and longer until they are permanently frozen in that posture!

They eventually can’t move, even if they wanted to. Their disciples have to force feed them and carry them to the river like a statue to wash them off.

This shows the amazing power of unremitting resolution. Personally, I think this particular application of will power is stupid. There are so many worthwhile things to accomplish in this world, and these guys have developed their powers of resolve to an unbelievable degree and all they have accomplished is to turn themselves into a statue! I’m sure you can use the power of focused resolve for something better.

Robert B. McCall, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh and his colleagues have kept track of 6,700 people for 13 years. Specifically, they were tracking people who were underachievers in school — people who, according to aptitude tests, had a lot of potential to get good grades, but who, in reality, had low grade-point averages. After 13 years, only about 15% of them had achieved a career success equal to their abilities.

What did they lack? Two things, according to McCall: “persistence in the face of challenge,” and they were too self-critical. The lack of persistence can be changed. It is simply a missing thought-habit.

You are persistent in the face of challenge if you are in the habit of being persistent in the face of challenge, and you are in the habit of persisting if you are in the habit of thinking in ways that make you persistent.

Get in the habit of telling yourself at key moments, “stay on track.” Other good things to tell yourself are “focus creates power” and “do what needs doing.”

Persistence is an extremely important habit. You can’t really develop competence at anything unless you persist through the rough parts, whether it’s playing the piano or doing your job. Any task you undertake, if it’s worth your trouble, will have some challenge in it. Some parts of it will be tough. No new abilities can be created without having to persist in the face of challenges, even if the main challenge is suffering through the boring repetition of playing scales on the piano.

For some goals, it will take everything you’ve got to accomplish it. As a matter of fact, it will take more than you’ve got — you’ll have to become more than you are now in order to accomplish it. You’ll need to learn more than you now know. You’ll need to gain skills you don’t have yet.

Practice staying on purpose no matter what distracts you. You will be taken off track again and again until you learn to stick with your purpose. With practice, you can get to the level of Einstein’s concentration. And when you can focus like that, you will be a laser beam, cutting through obstacles and barriers with hardly a pause, flying strait to your objective with power and speed.


SUMMARY OF SLOTRALOGY

All the stuff about the antivirus for your mind, and all the stuff about slotralogy can be summed up as forming mental habits. The difference between someone who is feels bad and doesn’t get much done and someone who feels good and gets a lot done is simply their mental habits.

The way you think is a habit just like any other habit. When you learn to drive a car, you really have to pay attention to it. But the more you do it, the more you can do without your conscious attention. Behaviors become habits. Whole series of even complex behaviors happen on automatic pilot. When you drive, your body is on automatic pilot. You pay attention to cars around you, adjust your speed, move the steering wheel so you stay in the center of the lane, adjust your foot to keep your speed just right, and you’re doing all this on automatic pilot – by habit – while you carry on a lively conversation with your passenger.

The same is true of thought. The first few times you think a new thought, you may do it deliberately, but after you’ve thought a certain way about something over and over several times, it starts to become automatic. Thoughts influence the way you perceive the world. And thoughts alter how you feel. And for the most part, the thoughts you normally think are habit. They aren't deliberate. They're not what you would choose if you were choosing your thoughts deliberately.

Change your mental habits and you dramatically change your life.

How? Take a situation where you’re having trouble or where you’d like to feel or do something differently. Now figure out what you want to say to yourself in that situation. What would be helpful to think in that situation? Avoid any statements you don't believe. Try to boil it down into a few short sentences, or even down to one.

Now practice saying that to yourself. In your head, or ideally out loud and with lots of feeling. Say it again and again. Practice thinking that thought. Make it smooth. Make it familiar with repetition. Make it come easy. Make the thought come easily to mind by repeating it.

Practice several times a day for awhile so the slotra feels grooved in. Keep practicing until that pathway through your brain seems well-worn. Write the slotra down and carry the paper with you to remind yourself to practice thinking it. Then when the right situation comes up, try to remember to say it to yourself.

It might not work out the first time. But after awhile, you’ll start to form a new mental habit. Keep practicing, and it will become automatic and you won’t have to try to remember.

To speed up the process, close your eyes and say your slotra with feeling over and over, and as you do, think about all the different situations in which you would like to think that thought. Think of the situations, one after the other, where you want that slotra to come to mind, all the while, repeating it to yourself. This is a way to future-practice, and helps the thought come to mind at the right time. It is also running back and forth on the pathway of your mind, helping to make the slotra easy to think. To form mental habits to serve you for a lifetime: Create good slotras and practice thinking them until they come to mind automatically.

This article was excerpted from the book, Slotralogy: How to Change Your Habits of Thought.

Doubt Funks

I am occasionally beset with what I call a doubt funk. It usually happens when I am in the middle of a big project and I start thinking maybe there is a better use of my time; maybe I should be doing something different; maybe this project will fail; maybe my destiny lies somewhere else and I'm wasting my time.

I never seem to get a doubt funk between projects. I'm great at thinking up new goals and I get very enthusiastic about them. But I suppose it is "the grass is always greener" because no matter what I am working on, I can think of a hundred other projects that might be a better use of my time and I have doubts about what I'm doing. I've aborted a lot of perfectly good projects because of it. I have several half-finished books sitting in my filing cabinets. Lots of projects of different kinds down through the years never saw the light of day because a doubt funk came along and deflated my motivation.

I just had a doubt funk recently about this article, but doubt funks don't stop me any more. A few years ago I learned the right way to handle one: Finish the project. That will get the most done with the greatest fun in my lifetime. Half-finished projects are a waste of time. To spend all that time getting something halfway done and then stopping means all the hours spent on the project were wasted. Wasting time is demoralizing.

I got the answer to doubt funks when I read a true story by A.J. Cronin. When Cronin was 33, he was a doctor in London. Once in awhile, he experienced doubt funks, thinking maybe he should specialize in a different kind of medical practice. He worried that what he was doing wasn't good enough. He eventually developed an ulcer and his doctor prescribed the standard treatment of the time: six months "complete rest in the country on a milk diet."

He went to a small farm outside a village in the Scottish Highlands. After about a week, this man with overactive adrenal glands was climbing the walls. His mind was thrashing around for something to do. Then he realized he'd always wanted to write a novel if he ever found the time, and now he had the time! So he began.

After three months of being engrossed in the project, he sent his handwritten pages to his secretary to type up for him. When he received his first chapter and read it, he was devastated. It was terrible. He realized he had no business trying to be a writer. In his anguish he grabbed the whole manuscript and threw it into the trash.

Feeling glad and relieved that he had come to his senses, he went for a walk. He saw Angus, the farmer, and stopped to chat, as he often did. When Cronin told Angus what he had just done, Angus was silent for a long time; then he said, "My father ditched this bog all his days and never made a pasture." He stopped digging and looked at Cronin. "I've dug it all my days and never made a pasture. But pasture or no pasture," said Angus as he pushed the shovel back into the bog, "I canna help but dig. For my father knew and I know that if you only dig enough a pasture can be made here."

Angus kept digging. Doggedly. Relentlessly. Unmercifully. Cronin stood there watching him, and while he watched he experienced an intense personal crisis and then a revelation. Cronin saw his situation as the pattern he'd followed all his life: He would start off in a particular direction and never get anywhere because doubt would overtake him halfway through it.

And then he saw it as a pattern and revelation not just for himself, but for all of humanity. He wrote later, "In this present chaos, with no shining vision to sustain us, the door is wide open to darkness and despair. The way to close that door is to stick to the job that we are doing, no matter how insignificant that job may be, to go on doing it, and to finish it."

Cronin stomped back to his room and pulled his manuscript out of the trash. He was angry, ashamed, determined. He got back to work on the manuscript and would not stop, no matter what kind of doubt or frustration he encountered, he kept working until he finally finished the damn thing.

He randomly chose a publisher out of a catalog and mailed off the manuscript. Then he relaxed and recovered from his ulcer.

Just as he was finally preparing to head back to London, he received a telegram from the publisher: they were interested. Unbelievably, this manuscript that he had thrown away was published as a novel and sold three million copies. It was even made into a Hollywood movie.

The answer to a doubt funk is the same for you and me as it was for Cronin: to go to work on the current project, determined and resolute, and to finish it.


BONUS TIPS

After you finish your project, then think about what you want to do next. When you think of other projects during a doubt funk, write down those ideas and file them. Then get back to your current project. When you are finished and you're thinking about your next project, look to your file for ideas.

Another key is to spend more time choosing your projects in the first place. Take the time to carefully weigh the possibilities. Make your decision a project. Don't choose carelessly or on a whim. But once you've made up your mind that a project is the best use of your time, do not allow a temporary feeling of doubt to stop you. Finish the project.

Doubt funks seem to be related to excess carbohydrates. Confidence seems related to protein. I'm sensitive to the effects of food and the effects are sometimes subtle. And, of course, different people have different reactions, so take this as merely a place to look you might not have thought of. But I have noticed for me a definite link between eating too little protein and the occurrence of doubt funks.

Another extremely important factor is your "explanatory style," that is, the habitual way you explain setbacks to yourself. Some ways of explaining setbacks leave your determination intact or even strengthen it. Other ways demoralize you and can lead to doubt funks. Learn more about solving that problem here.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Direct Your Mind, and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Some is Better Than None

Carrots are good for you. They provide a lot of fiber and beta-carotene. I once had a bag of them handy and munched away on them while I was reading a book. I wasn't really paying attention to how many I was eating, and didn't really worry about it because after all, carrots are good for you.

Later I began to get a stomach ache. It progressively got worse. I tried to go to sleep but felt sick to my stomach and the pain and queasiness kept increasing, until about three in the morning I went to the emergency room. I was in dead earnest. Something was seriously wrong, and it was only getting worse.

The doctor asked me some questions and then pressed on my middle in a specific place, and I threw up. Aren't you glad I'm telling you this?

The point is, you can do too much of a good thing. Carrots expand as they absorb water. And I'd eaten so many carrots that they expanded so much they completely clogged the place where my stomach empties into the small intestine. Nothing could pass through it.

Some carrots are better than none, and some carrots are also better than too many.

Consider this quote from the September 1995 issue of Consumer Reports on Health:

At least 10 studies...[assigned] depressed volunteers either to exercise, to receive another treatment, or just to remain inactive [studies have shown depressed people tend to be rather sedentary]. All 10 studies confirmed that exercise significantly reduces mild to moderate depression. And the three studies that compared exercise to psychotherapy found that exercise was at least as effective.

There is lots of evidence that moderate and even mild exercise has significant effects on depression, and yet when people exercise too much or too vigorously, it can actually cause depression or make it worse. Some is better than none — and better than too much.

I use this principle when I lift weights, something I very much enjoy. Several times I've injured myself lifting and every time the injury was caused by doing too much. Working out intensely makes me euphoric and I used to go too far because it felt so good. Too many sets, too much weight, moved too fast, or pulled too far. Since I've been using this principle, I have been injury free. I haven't gained strength as fast as I have in the past, but in the long run I'll get further with fewer injuries.


DREAMS OF GLORY

This principle is not just for food and exercise. Not that those are trivial, but you can also apply it with profit to other areas. Many young people awaken to their potential and want to do something to make the world a better place. As they go along, they realize the world is a very big place and it would be nearly impossible to have an impact on the "whole world."

But we can all have an impact on our world. We can make a difference to the people in our lives. But that doesn't seem good enough. The dream of making a difference in the world can sometimes be replaced by apathy as people give up. It's a form of all-or-nothing thinking. The world is almost never all-or-nothing anything. Some is better than none.

As the political writer, Edmund Burke wrote, "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." Doing a little, in almost every circumstance, is better than doing nothing. It's a good rule of thumb because first of all, it is more enjoyable to do something than to do nothing. And secondly, you never know where your little thing will lead.

Paul Rokich just wanted to replant an area in Utah that had been devastated by a copper smelter. The sulfur dioxide poured out of the refinery and made a desolate wasteland out of what was once fourteen thousand acres of beautiful forest. Paul wanted to bring it back.

It's a big goal, but he wasn't trying to save the world. Just fourteen thousand acres in Utah. He grew up nearby and there were no animals, no trees, no bushes, no birds. Nothing but black and barren earth that even smelled bad. As a child, he made it his goal to bring the land back to life.

When he grew up, he contacted the smelter office and asked them if they'd let him onto their property to plant trees. They said no.

He went to college and studied botany. One of his professors was an expert in Utah's ecology, and told Paul his goal was hopeless. Even if he planted trees there, and even if they grew, the wind would only blow the seeds 40 feet per year, and that's all the spreading you'd get because there weren't any squirrels or birds to spread the seeds. And the seeds from the trees would need another 30 years before they started producing seeds of their own. So, in essence, the professor said it would take approximately twenty thousand years to revegitate that six-square-mile piece of earth. It would be a waste of his life to try to do it.

He tried to go on with his life. He got married, had some kids, got a job operating heavy equipment. But his dream would not die.

Then one night, based on the logic that some is better than none, he sneaked onto the smelter's property with a backpack full of seedlings and started planting. For seven hours, he planted seedlings.

A week later, he did it again. Every week he made a secret pilgrimage into the wasteland and planted trees, shrubs and grass. But most of it died.

Even so, some of it lived, and that's better than none.

For fifteen years Paul Rokich did this. Freezing winds, blistering heat, floods, landslides and fires destroyed his work again and again. But he kept planting. Some is better than none.

One night he discovered a highway crew had come and taken tons of dirt for a road grade, and all the trees he had painstakingly planted in that area were gone.

But he just kept planting.

Week after week, year after year, he kept at it, against the opinions of the authorities, against the trespassing laws, against the devastation of road crews, against the wind and rain and heat — even against plain common sense. He just kept planting.

And something began to happen.

Things started to take root. Then gophers appeared. Then rabbits. Then porcupines. The old copper smelter gave him permission to be on their land. They eventually hired Paul to do what he was already doing, and provided him with machinery and crews to work with. Progress accelerated.

Today the place is fourteen thousand acres of trees and grass and bushes, rich with elk and eagles, and Paul Rokich has received almost every environmental award Utah has.

He said, "I thought that if I got this started, when I was dead and gone people would come and see it. I never thought I'd live to see it myself!"

You never know how things will turn out. Sometimes just doing something, however small that something seems, can lead to something great.

Adam Khan is the author of Cultivating Fire: How to Keep Your Motivation White Hot, Principles For Personal Growth, and Slotralogy: How to Change Your Habits of Thought.

You Don't Need to Be Positive to Succeed

You will often read or hear someone say that in order to succeed you must visualize your goal and believe it will happen. You must have a positive mental attitude in order to succeed.

I've often come across examples in my own life and in the lives of others that contradict this premise. Although positivity may help, and certainly a totally helpless defeatism will not help, and giving up will guarantee failure, great things can be accomplished without a positive attitude.

The reason I think this is important is because many of us, including me, find it difficult and unnatural to be positive all the time. If you feel that way too, take heart. You can still accomplish your goals without being perpetually cheery. I just watched a true story of survival that demonstrates this principle very well. The movie is Touching the Void, a story about mountain climbers who experience tragedies and danger during a climb.

Although it's a movie, it is interspersed with clips of interviews with the real people depicted in the movie, letting you know what they felt inside and what was going through their minds at the time. One of the men did something that should have been humanly impossible, and he tells you what he was thinking.

The most important thing he said was, "You have to keep making decisions." He was in situations more than once during the ordeal where he had to make difficult decisions in order to move forward. He didn't have all the information he needed and there was no way for him to get that information before making the decisions. But if he made no decisions, he would have died. If he put off making a decision too long, he would have died.

That's true for us too. We may not die, but if we don't make any decisions, we will fail. And if we put off decisions too long, we will fail. And sometimes we don't have all the information we need. We have to keep making decisions anyway.

That's the necessary ingredient to succeeding: Keep making decisions and keep moving toward your goal. If you have a positive attitude, it's a nice bonus. It might make your trip more enjoyable. But luckily, it isn't essential for success.

Adam Khan is the author of Cultivating Fire: How to Keep Your Motivation White Hot, Principles For Personal Growth, and Slotralogy: How to Change Your Habits of Thought.