13 Principles to Manifesting Money! – Principle 8

We often associate powerful, successful men as being cold-blooded and ruthless.  But more often than not, what they really have is will-power and persistence to insure their “Desire” becomes reality. Whereas, most people are more than willing to give up on their goals at the first signs of problems, difficulties or opposition.

If your intention is to use all the knowledge in the book Think and Grow Rich, your first test in Persistence is following the six (6) steps in the second chapter on “Desire.”  Having a definite goal and creating a definitive plan to attain it is essential/are key, without them you won’t go any farther.  Lack of persistence is one of the major causes of failure and a common weakness in men and women.  But it can easily be overcome by increasing the fire of your “Desire” – the starting point of all achievement.

Once you have learned all Hill’s principles, go back to the chapter on “Desire” and immediately start completing the 6 Steps. The eagerness you have in doing these steps clearly indicates how much you rally desire to accumulate money.  If your persistence is weak, pay attention to the chapter on the Principle of Power and surround yourself with a Master Mind group – their cooperative efforts can help  you develop persistence.  The principles of Autosuggestion and the subconscious mind will also help.

Then you must ask yourself, Are you ‘money conscious’ or ‘poverty conscious?’  if you are indifferent to accumulating money and only apply the principles occasionally, you have not acquired the ‘money consciousness’ necessary to attain your goals.  Poverty is voluntarily attracted to those whose minds are available to receive it, without any conscious effort. Whereas, ‘money consciousness’ must be created in your mind and maintained through effort and persistence or the ‘poverty consciousness’ takes over.  Your mind will hold either one or the other – not both.  You may have to snap yourself out of a mental inertia.  Be persistent no matter how slowly you move at first until you eventually can control your will. Persistence will bring success.

But what if you don’t have “Persistence?”   Well, the good news is since Persistence is a state of mind, it can be cultivated – you can train yourself to be Persistent!  Here are 8 Factors of Persistence:

1. Definiteness of Purpose – knowing what you want is the first and possibly the most important step toward persistence.
2. Desire – having an intense desire for something is strong motivation for gaining persistence.
3. Self-reliance – belief in your own ability to carry out your plans makes persistence easier.
4. Definiteness of Plans – an organized plan helps you carry it out with persistence.
5. Accurate knowledge – knowing you have good plans based on experience or observation encourages persistence.
6. Cooperation – sympathy, understanding and harmonious cooperation with others helps persistence develop.
7. Will-power – making it a habit to concentrate your thoughts on building plans to attain a goal leads to persistence.
8. Habit – persistence is the direct result of habit.  Fear, the worst of all enemies, can be cured by forcing yourself to do over and over that which you fear.

Now take inventory of yourself – honestly.  Where among the previous 8 Factors of Persistence are you lacking? These are the enemies standing between you and your achievement.  You can find not only the symptosubshowing where your weakness in persistence is, but the deep seated subconscious causes of your weakness.  You must be totally honest with your self.

Fear of Criticism is the #1 weakness everyone must conquer before they can accumulate riches.  Huge numbers of people allow friends, relatives and others to influence their decisions because they fear criticism.  People make mistakes in marriage and don’t  correct it because they fear the criticism that could follow.  Millions of people never go back to school or take chances in business because they fear criticism if they should fail.  We set a goal far beyond anything we’ve ever done and our minds immediately create alibis and excuses like – You can’t do it; it’s too big,’ people will think you are crazy; how will you make a living; it’s not possible or someone would have already done it!!

 The Fear of Criticism is at the root of all these. Most ideas meed some life blown into them through specific plans of action. The longer the ideas live, the better their chance for survival. It is the Fear of Criticism which kills off most ideas before they ever get to the planning stage.

There are four (4) simple steps to develop Persistence and require no great intelligence, education, time or effort.  They are:

1. Definite Purpose backed by a burning desire to fulfill it.
2. Definite plan with continuous action.
3. A mind tightly closed to ALL negative and discouraging influences.
4. An Alliance with one or more people who encourage you to follow through on both plans and purpose.

These 4 Steps are essential for success.  The whole purpose of the 13 Principles in Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich is to enable you to take these four steps as a matter of Habit.

Get ready to read the next article in this series and learn the ninth of “13 Principles to Manifesting Money” …based on information gleaned from Napoleon Hill’s book, Think & Grow Rich.

As always please leave your comments…they may just inspire someone’s road to success!

(The excerpts noted in this and the following articles in this series are not meant to replace or supplant reading Napoleon Hill’s complete book Think & Grow Rich.  My intention is to pique your interest and your desire to read Hill’s book by providing an overview of its concepts.  In fact, I highly encourage you to read the entire book, re-read it, then read it again.  No matter if reading a few marked passages or entire chapters, I always reap from this book some new understanding to apply in my life.  And we never know what will stir the ‘AHA’ or mindset shift that begins our Journey to Success!)