Maximum Achievement

by Brian Tracy

  One of our seminar graduates, who was unemployed at the time, told me that he began saying to himself every morning, “I believe something wonderful is going to happen to me today.”

  He repeated this over and over until he developed an expectant attitude that caused him to look forward to every event of the day. The amazing thing was that a series of wonderful things began to happen to him. After being unemployed for six months, he received two job offers within the first week after beginning this exercise. His financial problems and legal difficulties seemed to clear themselves up miraculously. Wonderful things began to happen to him at every turn.

  Just imagine if you went around all day believing that some thing wonderful was about to happen to you. Think how much more positive, optimistic and cheerful you would be if you were absolutely convinced that everything was conspiring to make you happy and successful.

  I can promise you this: If you try this exercise for just three days, at the end of the third day, so many wonderful things will have happened to you that you will not be able to recount them all.

  You can never rise any higher than your expectations of yourself. Since they are completely under your control, be sure that your expectations are consistent with what you want to see happen. Always expect the best of yourself.

  When you start consciously working with this mental law, you will have a power for good that is virtually unlimited. The power of positive expectations alone can change your whole personality, and your life as well.

  5. THE LAW OF ATTRACTION

  Many books have been written about this law, and many people feel that it is central to understanding the human condition. The Law of Attraction says that you are a living magnet. You invariably attract into your life people and situations in harmony with your dominant thoughts. Like attracts like. Birds of a feather flock together. Everything in your life you have attracted to yourself because of the person you are, and especially because of your thoughts.

  Your friends, your family, your relationships, your job, your problems and your opportunities have all been attracted to you because of your habitual way of thinking in each area.

  There is an example of this in music, called the principle of sympathetic resonance. If you have two pianos in a large room and you strike the note C on one piano and then walk across the room to the other piano, you will find that the string of C on the other piano is vibrating at the same rate of vibration as the C string on the first piano. By the same principle, you will tend to meet and become involved with people and situations that are vibrating in harmony with your own dominant thoughts and emotions.

  As you look around you at every aspect of your life, positive or negative, you will see that your entire world is of your own making. And the more emotion you attach to a thought, the greater will be the rate of vibration and the more rapidly you will attract people and situations in harmony with that thought into your life.

  You see this law in action all around you. You think of a friend and just then, the phone rings with him or her on the other end. You will decide to do something and immediately afterward you start getting ideas and assistance. You become like a magnet attracting iron filings.

  Many people hold themselves back because they don’t know how to get from where they are to where they want to go. But because of the Law of Attraction, it’s not necessary for you to have all the answers before you begin. As long as you’re clear about what you want and the kind of people you want to be associated with, you’ll draw them into your life.

  Your thoughts are a form of energy that vibrates at a speed determined by the level of emotional intensity accompanying the thought. The more excited, or scared, you are, the more rapidly your thoughts radiate out from you and attract similar people and situations back into your life.

  Happy people seem to attract other happy, pleasant people. A person with a prosperity consciousness seems to attract money-making ideas and opportunities. Optimistic, enthusiastic salespeople attract bigger and better customers. Positive businesspeople attract the resources, customers, suppliers and bankers they need to build successful businesses. The Law of Attraction works everywhere all the time.

  Like the other mental laws, the law of attraction is neutral. It can help you or hurt you. Actually this law could be considered a variation of the Law of Cause and Effect, or sowing and reaping. That is why the philosopher says:

  Sow a thought and you reap an act;

  Sow an act and you reap a habit;

  Sow a habit and you reap a character;

  Sow a character and you reap a destiny.

  You can have more and be more and do more because you can change the person you are. You can change your dominant thoughts by exercising rigorous mental mastery. You can discipline yourself by keeping your thoughts on what you want and refusing to think about what you don’t want.

  People who use the Law of Attraction in a positive way are often called lucky. This is just another way of attempting to explain why so many good things and helpful people are drawn into the lives of those who are clear about their goals and consistently optimistic about achieving them.

  6. THE LAW OF CORRESPONDENCE

  The Law of Correspondence is one of the most important laws of all, and is in many ways a summary law that explains many others. It says, “As within, so without.” It says that your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. This law declares that you can tell what is going on inside you by looking at what is going on around you.

  In the Bible, this principle is explained in the words, “By their fruits, ye shall know them.” Everything in your life is from the inner to the outer. Your external world of manifestation corresponds with your internal world of thought and emotion.

  Your outer world of relationships will correspond to the person you really are inside, your true inner personality. Your outer world of health will correspond to your inner attitudes of mind. Your outer world of income and financial achievement will correspond to your inner world of thought and preparation. The way people respond and react to you will reflect your attitude and your behavior toward them.

  The car you drive and the condition that you keep it in will correspond to your state of mind at any given time. When you are feeling positive and confident and in control of your life, your home, your car and your workplace will tend to be well-organized and efficient. When you feel overwhelmed with work, or frustrated and unhappy, your car, your workplace, your home, even your closets will tend to reflect this state of disarray and confusion. You can see the effects of this Law of Correspondence everywhere.

  Everything is from the inner to the outer. My big mistake when I was younger was concentrating on doing rather than on being. I felt that I could get the things I wanted by practicing certain methods and techniques. I eventually learned that proper practice was necessary but not sufficient.

  The German philosopher Goethe said, “One must be something to be able to do something.” You must change yourself. You must become a different person on the inside before you see different results on the outside. And you can’t fake it for very long, if at all.

  Most people try to improve or change aspects of their lives by trying to get other people to change. They don’t like what they see reflecting back to them in the mirror of their lives so they work at polishing the mirror instead of going to the source of reflection.

  Emerson wrote, “What you are shouts at me so loudly, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” You always come across to others as you really are. You seldom fool anyone. And the only way you can permanently change the outer things is to change the inner things.

  William James wrote, “The greatest revolution of my life is the discovery that individuals can change the outer aspects of their lives by changing the inner attitudes of their minds.”

  One of the most important questions you can ask yourself is, “What kind of a person do I have to be to earn the respect of the people I care about and live the kind of life I want to live?”


  7. THE LAW OF MENTAL EQUIVALENCY

  The Law of Mental Equivalency is also called the Law of Mind and could actually be considered a restatement of the previous laws. Essentially, it says that thoughts objectify themselves. Your thoughts, vividly imagined and repeated, charged with emotion, become your reality. Almost everything that you have in your life has been created by your own thinking, for better or for worse.

  Put another way, thoughts are things. They take on a life of their own. First you have them, then they have you. You act in a manner consistent with what you are thinking most of the time. You eventually become what you think about. And if you change your thinking, you change your life.

  Everything that happens in your life first begins and takes place in the form of thought. This is why thoughtfulness is a key quality of successful men and women. Becoming a skilled thinker in your own life means using your mental powers in such a way that they serve your best interests all of the time.

  • • •

  When you begin thinking in a positive, confident way about the main aspects of your life, you take control over what is happening to you. You bring your life into harmony with cause and effect. You sow positive causes and reap positive effects. You begin to believe more intensely in yourself and your possibilities. You expect more positive outcomes. You attract positive people and situations, and soon your outer life of results will begin to correspond to your inner world of constructive thinking.

  This entire transformation begins with your thoughts. Change your thinking and you will, you must, change your life. The one thing you must do is to create the mental equivalent of what you want to experience in your reality. Everything else will follow from that.

  PUTTING THESE IDEAS TO WORK

  In Chapter One, you began the transforming exercise of painting a mental masterpiece by defining your ideal goals and aspirations in each major area of your life. Now, take some time, based on the action of these mental laws, to think about how your habitual modes of thought have created every aspect of your life today.

  First, your relationships. What is it in your attitudes, beliefs, expectations and behaviors that is causing your problems with other people?

  Second, your health. What are your ideas and beliefs about your weight, level of fitness, personal appearance, diet and rest? How do these beliefs help or hinder you?

  Third, your career. How do your thoughts affect your position, your progress, the quality of your work and the amount of satisfaction you get from what you do?

  Fourth, your level of financial achievement. What would you like to increase or improve? What are your beliefs and expectations concerning your material well-being? How much would you like to earn, and why?

  Fifth, the quality of your inner life—your thoughts, feelings, peace of mind and happiness. What beliefs, attitudes and expectations are creating your world today? Which of them do you need to change?

  If you are honest with yourself, you will find that you have self-limiting ways of thinking in one or more of these areas. This is quite normal. Honestly facing the facts about yourself is the starting point of rapid self-improvement.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Master Program

  Everything that happens to you, everything you become and accomplish is determined by the way you think, by the way you use your mind. As you begin changing your mind, you begin changing your life. But how did you get to where you are today? What formative influences have combined to make you the person you are right now? Why do you think and feel the way you do, and what are the factors that have brought you to your current situation?

  In this chapter, you will learn about your “master program” and how you have been put on a form of autopilot, starting from an early age. You will learn how to begin taking control of your internal guidance system, and how to remove influences and obstacles that have been interfering with your happiness without your even knowing about it. You will learn how to alter your master program to make it more consistent with the results you want.

  When I was twenty, I was living in a small apartment with no job. It was the middle of winter and it was thirty-five degrees below zero. I was alone in a new city, thousands of miles from where I grew up.

  Eleven years later, when I was thirty-one, I was again living alone in a small apartment. Again it was cold outside, thirty-five degrees below zero. I was deeply in debt, unemployed and a thousand miles from my family and friends.

  After eleven years of working and traveling very little had changed. I was older and wiser but I still felt that I was spinning my wheels.

  I felt frustrated. I felt that I was making very little progress. I had always harbored a secret belief that I had the potential to do more with my life, but I had no idea how to tap that potential.

  I had heard that the average person uses only 10 percent or less of his or her potential in the course of a lifetime. Albert Einstein, one of the great geniuses of the twentieth century, was estimated to have only used about 15 percent of his.

  Research at Stanford University concluded that the average person uses only about 2 percent of his or her mental abilities, based on studies of the neocortex, the “thinking brain” of the human being.

  This subject fascinated me. What was the potential of the average person? What was my real potential? How could I get more out of myself? I was trying to open a combination lock without the right numbers. So I read and reflected, and I eventually discovered the answers, one by one. I learned the combination to the lock on the door of human potential. This combination enabled me to change my life, as it will enable you to change yours.

  To begin with, in the entire history of the human race, there never has been, and never will be, anyone just like you. The odds that another person with your unique combination of characteristics and qualities will ever be born are more than 50 billion to one. You have the potential to do something special, even extraordinary, with your life, something that no one else can do. The only real question you have to answer is: Are you going to do it?

  It’s true that some people are born with extraordinary gifts, but most of us start off with talents and abilities that are more or less average. Most men and women who achieve great success in any field do it by developing their natural talents and abilities to a very high degree in some special area of interest. Your individual potential is there, inside you, but it has to be identified and developed if you want to get more of what is really possible out of yourself.

  A SIMPLE EQUATION

  One definition of individual potential is contained in the equation [IA + AA] x A = IHP. The first two letters, IA, stand for inborn attributes. These are what you are born with, your natural tendencies, your temperament, and your general mental ability.

  The next two letters, AA, stand for acquired attributes. These are the knowledge, skill, talent, experience and ability that you have gained or developed as you have grown and matured.

  The next letter, A, stands for attitude, or the kind of mental energy that you bring to bear on your combination of inborn and acquired attributes. IHP stands for individual human performance. So the formula is Inborn Attributes plus Acquired Attributes multiplied by your Attitude equals your Individual Human Performance.

  Your inborn attributes, your natural talents and abilities, the “inner aspects” of your personality are largely fixed at birth. They are your genetic heritage. You can’t do much to change them.

  Your acquired attributes are the skills and abilities you develop by channeling your natural talents through your education and experience. These are your areas of competence and potential mastery.

  You can develop, improve and change your acquired attributes over time through study and practice, but the process is slow and deliberate, requiring patience, discipline and considerable effort.

  The only wild card in the equation is A, or attitude. And here’s one of the insights that changed my life.

  Since the quality of your attitude can be improved almo
st without limit, even a person with average inborn attributes and average acquired attributes can perform at a high level if he or she has a very positive mental attitude. And your attitude can be improved immediately and almost without limit. This is why it is your attitude as much as your aptitude that determines how much you accomplish. And your attitude is under the direct control of your will. You can decide what it is going to be every minute of every day.

  Earl Nightingale referred to attitude as the most important word in the language. We know we should have a positive mental attitude. We’ve heard that for years. But what is that exactly?

  Your attitude is the way you approach life. It is your “angle of attack.” It is your general mental tone and the outward expression of your thoughts and feelings. A positive mental attitude is a generally optimistic and cheerful way of greeting the people, problems and events that you encounter throughout your day.

  Your attitude is one of the best indicators of the person you really are inside. And people reflect back to you your attitude toward them. This is why happy, cheerful people seem to get along well wherever they go.

  Developing this kind of positive attitude toward yourself and your life is the first step to unlocking your full potential. And the only way you can tell what kind of attitude you really have is by observing how you react when things go wrong. As Epictetus wrote, “Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him to himself.” You can tell best what you’re made of by watching the way you behave when you’re under pressure. Your real self comes out, for better or worse.

  But where does your attitude come from? What causes one person to be positive and another to be negative? Your attitude is determined by your expectations. Your expectations about yourself and your life are very powerful. They exert an immense influence on your personality.