All creatures on earth are supplied
at birth with everything
they need for successful survival.
All creatures except one are
supplied with a set of instincts that
will do the job for them. And because
of that, most creatures don't need
much of a brain. In the Pulitzer
Prize–winning playwright Archibald
MacLeish's play The Secret of
Freedom, a character says, "The only
thing about a man that is man is his
mind. Everything else you can find in
a pig or a horse." That's uncomfortably
true.
Take the magnificent bald eagle for
example. To see one of them swooping
down and pluck a live and sizeable
fish from the water on a single pass is
astonishing. More astonishing still is
the eagle's eyesight. And because of its
need to see small rodents moving in
the grass from high altitudes or a fish
just inches under the surface of the
water, its incredible eyes take up just
about all the space in its head. For the
eagle, its eyes are the most important
thing, and everything else works in
unison with them. Its brain is tiny and
rudimentary. It doesn't think or plan
or remember; it simply acts in accordance
with stimuli.
And it's the same with most other
living creatures. Even the beautiful
porpoise, with a much larger brain,
and the chimpanzee are easily tamed
and taught. Only one takes 20 years to
mature and has dominion over all the
rest on the earth itself, and has today
the power to destroy all life on earth in
a couple of hours. Only one is given
the godlike power to fashion its own
life according to the images it holds in
its remarkable mind.
The human mind is the one thing
that separates us from the rest of the
creatures on earth. Everything that
means anything to us comes to us
through our minds, our love of our
families, our beliefs, all of our talents,
knowledge, abilities. Everything is
reflected through our minds. Anything
that comes to us in the future will
almost certainly come to us as a result
of the extent to which we use our
minds.
And yet, it's the last place on earth
the average person will turn to for
help. You know why? You know why
people don't automatically turn their
own vast mental resources on when
faced with a problem? It's because
they never learned how to think. Most
people will go to any length to avoid
thinking when they're faced with a
problem. They will ask advice from
the most illogical people, usually people
who don't know any more than
they do: next-door neighbors, members
of their families, and friends
stuck in the same mental traps that
they are. Very few of them use the
muscles of their mind to solve their
problems.
Yet living successfully, getting the
things we want from life, is a matter of
solving the problems that stand
between where we are now and the
point we wish to reach. No one is
without problems. They're part of living.
But let me show you how much
time we waste in worrying about the
wrong problems. Here's a reliable estimate
of the things people worry about:
Things that never happen: 40%.
Things over and past that can never be
changed by all the worry in the world:
30%. Needless worries about our
health: 12%. Petty miscellaneous worries:
10%. Real legitimate worries: 8%.
In short, 92% of the average person's
worries take up valuable time,
cause painful stress, even mental
anguish, and are absolutely unnecessary.
And of the real legitimate worries,
there are two kinds. There are the
problems we can solve, and there are
the problems beyond our ability to
personally solve. But most of our real
problems usually fall into the first
group, the ones we can solve, if we'll
learn how.
The average working person has at
his or her disposal an enormous
amount of free time. In fact, you'll
see if you'll total the hours in a year
and subtract the sleeping hours: If
we sleep 8 hours every night, we
have about 6,000 waking hours, of
which less than 2,000 are spent on
the job. Now this leaves 4,000 hours
a year when a person is neither working
nor sleeping. These can be called
discretionary hours with which that
person can do pretty much as he or
she pleases.
So that you can see the amazing
results in your own life, I want to recommend
that you take just one hour a
day, five days a week, and devote this
hour to exercising your mind. You
don't even have to do it on weekends.
Pick one hour a day on which you can
fairly regularly count. The best time
for me is an hour before the others are
up in the morning. The mind's clear,
the house is quiet, and, if you like,
with a fresh cup of coffee, this is the
time to start the mind going.
During this hour every day take a
completely blank sheet of paper. At
the top of the page write your present
primary goal clearly, simply. Then,
since our future depends on the way
in which we handle our work, write
down as many ideas as you can for
improving that which you now do. Try
to think of 20 possible ways in which
the activity that fills your day can be
improved. You won't always get 20,
but even one idea is good.
Now remember two important
points with regard to this. One, this is
not particularly easy, and, two, most of
your ideas won't be any good. When I
say it's not easy, I mean it's like starting
any new habit. At first you'll find
your mind a little reluctant to be
hauled up out of that old familiar bed.
But as you think about your work and
ways in which it might be improved,
write down every idea that pops into
your head, no matter how absurd it
might seem.
The most important thing that this
extra hour accomplishes is that it
deeply embeds your goal into your
subconscious mind, starts the whole
vital machine reworking the first thing
every morning. And 20 ideas a day, if
you can come up with that many, total
100 a week, even skipping weekends.
An hour a day, five days a week,
totals 260 hours a year and still leaves
you 3,740 hours of free leisure time.
Now this means you'll be thinking
about your goal and ways of improving
your performance, increasing your
service six full extra working weeks a
year, 61/2 40-hour weeks devoted to
thinking and planning. Can you see
how easy it is to rise above that socalled
competition? And it'll still
leave you with seven hours a day to
spend as you please.
Starting each day thinking, you'll
find that your mind will continue to
work all day long. And you'll find that
at odd moments, when you least
expect it, really great ideas will begin
to bubble up from your subconscious.
When they do, write them down as
soon as you can. Just one great idea
can completely revolutionize your
work and, as a result, your life.
Each time you write your goal at the
top of the sheet of paper, don't worry
or become concerned about it. Think
of it as only waiting to be reached, a
problem only waiting to be solved.
Face it with faith and bend all the
great powers of your mind toward
solving it. And believe me, solve it you
will. This puts each of us in the driver's
seat.
Each of us has a tendency to underestimate
his or her own abilities. We
should realize that we have deep within
ourselves deep reservoirs of great
ability, even genius that can be tapped
if we'll just dig deep enough. It's the
miracle of your mind.
Everything fashioned by human
beings is a result of goal setting. We
reach our goals. That's how we know
that the diseases that plague us will be
conquered. We've set goals to eradicate
every disease that plagues us and
eradicate them we will, one by one.
We have never set a goal that we have
not reached or are now in the process
of reaching.
Learn more about Earl
Nightingale and his all-time
bestselling programs The Strangest
Secret and Lead the Field.