Hold the right thoughts persistently in mind, and you cannot help working steadily on toward the goal you are thinking of.  Keep steadily at work with the right thoughts persistently in mind and success is sure to come.

Success, then, lies in the concentration of mental energies.  And this concentration is to be brought about by holding in consciousness only those ideas that harmonize.

[Sidenote:  Ideas That Harmonize]

There must be the greatest discrimination and care used in the selection of these ideas that are to constitute such a co-ordinating consciousness.  There must be a “re-imaging” or imagination in a literal and practical sense of those ideas only that carry with them impulses to motion in the same general direction.  You must have a set purpose in life, and you must yield your powers without hindrance and without reservation to the accomplishment of that set purpose.

[Sidenote:  Five Rules for Conserving Energy]

I. You must exercise deliberate, patient and persistent watchfulness to detect and repress all useless bodily movements.  You have all sorts of silly habits, twitchings, jerkings, itchings, winkings, shrugs, frowns, coughs, snifflings and odd and meaningless gestures.  Watch yourself.  Do these things no more.  Save your eyes and ears and hands and nerves, all your mental energy, for useful effort.

II. You must give yourself, mind and body, to one thing at a time, disregarding all that would lure you from your chosen task.

III. You must acquire a self-conscious sense of your own self-mastery. It will help you to acquire this feeling if you will continually assert, “I can and will accomplish anything that I am determined upon!  I have the power of will!  I will accomplish this thing!  I will!” Make these assertions with all the force and intensity of your whole being until you are pervaded with a sense of your own power.  Do this faithfully, and in time this courageous and manly attitude will become an inherent part of your personality.

IV. You must have confidence. And when we say confidence we do not mean a purely intellectual conviction.  We mean a profoundly emotional faith.  It will help you to cultivate this feeling of confidence if you will affirm many times a day, “I have implicit confidence in myself!  I have perfect faith in my own powers!  I am absolute master of myself and of my career!” Practice affirmations of this kind persistently, and in time your mind will have permanently acquired the habit of facing the facts of life in the way essential to success.

V. You must exert a favorable influence upon the mental attitude of those about you.  This is not so difficult as it would appear.  You cannot yourself acquire will-power, confidence and courage without impressing others with your possession of these qualities.  Personalities are revealed one to another by faint and suggestive activities all unconsciously perceived.  Your concentration of energy will inspire others.  You will radiate an “atmosphere” of success.  You will subtly influence your associates.  You will be a force to reckon with, and the world will know it.  Your air of success will draw others to you, will bring business and goodwill, and men and money will seek a share in your enterprises.