When one thinks of positivity, one must always think of the trailblazing positive thinker, the Reverend Doctor Norman Vincent Peale… and, especially of his phenomenal worldwide best seller.
Norman Vincent Peale authored “The Power of Positive Thinking,” which was first published in 1952 and the book went on to become an international best seller. Millions of people credit the man and the book with helping them to bring about powerful positive changes in their lives.
Dr. Peale’s book was written with “the sole objective of helping the reader achieve a happy, satisfying, and worthwhile life” and he achieved this by putting faith and a positive attitude into action.
In chapter 13 of the book, Dr. Peale presents several points that are particularly powerful:
Inflow of New Thoughts Can Remake You
“For the next twenty-four hours, deliberately speak hopefully about everything, about your job, about your health, about your future. Go out of your way to talk optimistically about everything. This will be difficult, for possibly it is your habit to talk pessimistically. From this negative habit, you must restrain yourself even if requires an act of will.
After speaking hopefully for twenty-four hours, continue the practice for one week, then you can be permitted to be ‘realistic’ for a day or two. You will discover that what you meant to be ‘realistic’ a week ago was actually pessimistic, but what you now mean by ‘realistic’ is something entirely different; it is the dawning of the positive outlook. When most people say they are being ‘realistic’ they delude themselves; they are simply being negative.
You must feed your mind even as you feed your body, and to make your mind healthy you must feed it nourishing, wholesome thoughts. Therefore, today start to shift your mind from negative to positive thinking. Start at the beginning of the New Testament and underscore every sentence about Faith. Continue doing this until you have marked every such passage in the four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Particularly note Mark 11, verses 22, 23, 24. They will serve as samples of the verses you are to underscore and fix deeply in your consciousness.
Then commit the underscored passages to memory. Commit one each day until you can recite the entire list from memory. This will take time, but remember you have consumed much more time becoming a negative thinker than this will require. Effort and time will be needed to unlearn your negative pattern.
Make a list of your friends to determine who is the most positive thinker among them and deliberately cultivate this society. Do not abandon your negative friends, but get closer to those with a positive point of view for a while, until you have absorbed their spirit, then you can go back among your negative friends and give them your newly acquired thought pattern without taking on their negativism.
Avoid argument, but whenever a negative attitude is expressed, counter with a positive and optimistic opinion.
Pray a great deal and always let your prayer take the form of thanksgiving on the assumption that God is giving you great and wonderful things; for if you think He is, He surely is. God will not give you any greater blessing than you can believe in. He wants to give you great things, but even He cannot make you take anything greater than you are equipped by faith to receive. ‘According to your faith (that is, in proportion to) be it unto you. (Matthew 9:29)’
The secret of a better and more successful life is to cast out those old dead, unhealthy thoughts. Substitute for them new vital, dynamic faith thoughts. You can depend upon it – an inflow of new thoughts will remake you and your life.”
This is powerful and valuable advice by Dr. Peale. He helps the reader to see that faith and positive thinking are directly connected and that by consciously choosing to focus on healthy, good, productive and positive thoughts, we can significantly change our perception of ourselves and improve our life. In essence, we can transform and remake our life for the better, simply through the desire, will power and the faith to do it.
