THE SECRET OF MENTAL EFFICIENCY
[Sidenote: Where Energy Is Stored]
You are called upon to master and conserve the innate energies of your
mind. This means that you must (1) find out where these energies are
stored, and (2) learn the conditions that determine their activity.
_All past experiences are conserved within us in the form of
complexes. These complexes consist of ideas, emotions and impulses to
muscular activity. By the primary law of association the recall to
consciousness of any one of these component elements of a complex
brings with it all the rest_.
[Sidenote: _Bodily Effects of Ideas_]
For example, the ideas pertaining to any terrifying experience, when
recalled to consciousness, bring with them the trembling, the wildly
beating heart, the shaking knees, with which they were originally
accompanied. The victim of stage-fright feels his knees give way and
that he is sinking to the floor; his heart beats tumultuously, cold
perspiration covers his body, he blushes, his mouth is dry, and his
voice sticks in his throat. Afterwards, alone in his own room, the
memory of that dreadful moment, the thought of another appearance
before that audience, will be accompanied by the same physiological
effects.
[Sidenote: _Impulses and Inhibitions_]
Every such bodily movement is an expression of energy. The recall to
consciousness of the terrifying experience, the recall of the picture
of the assembled audience, these things automatically produce bodily
activities. So we must conclude that _Every idea in memory has
associated with it the potential energy necessary for the production
of muscular movement_.
It does not necessarily follow that the recall to consciousness of a
given idea will be invariably followed by an outwardly visible
muscular activity expressive of its energy. Just as the mere presence
of an idea in consciousness tends to bring about a movement, so _the
presence of a contrary idea will tend to inhibit it_.
Try to imagine that you are bending your forefinger. At the same time
hold it straight. Your finger will actually tremble with the dammed-up
energy of the repressed impulse. But the finger will not actually
move, because the idea of its not moving is just as much a part of
your consciousness as the idea of its moving. Put out of your
consciousness this thought of the finger's not moving, and forthwith
the finger will bend.
Your conduct during your waking hours is thus always the result of
opposing forces, _some tending in one direction, others tending to
counteract the first._ Thus there comes about a great waste of mental
power and an appalling loss of individual efficiency.
[Sidenote: _Training for Mental "Team-Work"_]
In the language of sport, you are suffering from a lack of mental
"team work." The effect is the same as if the members of a football
team, instead of combining their forces against the opposing side,
should spend their time in restraining one another.
It requires but one step, and not a difficult one at that, to lead you
to the conclusion that the solution of this problem lies in having in
consciousness at any one moment only such ideas as harmonize. Let that
condition prevail, and the potential energies of all ideas in
consciousness must flow together in a broad stream of useful and
exhilarating activity.
[Sidenote: _Rust and the "Daily Grind"_]
Your work should be a source of pleasure to you. If it is simply a
disagreeable task that has to be performed, if it is a "daily grind,"
if you have to hold yourself to it by unremitting effort of the will,
you are no better than a rusty engine, and all your workings will be
accompanied by jars, frictions, and complaining squeaks that bespeak a
positively wicked loss of power.
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.
Master your mental energies, train them, concentrate them,--thus only
may you win riches with honor.
Thus broadly put, there is, or perhaps it would be more accurate to
say there seems to be, nothing startlingly new about this proposition.
The world has always realized that singleness of purpose,
concentration of effort, is essential to success.
_But in the past the world has possessed no formula by which these
qualities might be acquired_.
Men have endeavored to create in themselves the necessary qualities
for success, having no knowledge of the mental elements that went into
their composition.
_They have tried to run the mental engine knowing nothing of its
mechanism_.
[Sidenote: _Business Luck and "Blue-Sky" Theories_]
Some few have been lucky, but the path has been strewn with a thousand
failures to one that passed on to success.
There are some business men who look upon psychology as "blue-sky"
theorizing or "new thought." There are others who have a hazy idea
that it is a sort of unfathomable mystery intended to amuse
long-haired scientists. The truth is that every one of these same
business men, if he is getting ahead, is unconsciously using
psychological principles to the profit of his own business every day
in the year.
[Sidenote: _Devices for Commercial Efficiency_]
In the books that are to follow we shall show you the immense
practical value of a truly scientific psychology. You shall come into
the psychological laboratory with us and work out rational, scientific
and exact methods by which, without possibility of failure and with
but reasonable effort, you can at any moment completely concentrate
your mental powers. You shall be instructed in simple devices for
mastering scattered energies, repressing wasteful habits, banishing
depressive moods and raising yourself to a far higher level of
commercial efficiency.
End of Project Gutenberg's Initiative Psychic Energy, by Warren Hilton