A definite major purpose and a plan for carrying out that purpose. These keep us from vacillating in our efforts. Think of a situation in which you were part of a smooth, well-organized plan. You were content with the way the situation was handled. You felt at ease and comfortable. Your mind is always most satisfied with the harmony of action shown in a well-organized plan. Anxiety is the feeling you develop in a poorly organized situation.
Controlled attention, self-discipline, accurate thinking, personal initiative, learning from defeat, and going the extra mile are mental tools you can use to organize and carry through your plan. These satisfy your mind since they help you to carry your plan forward to a successful conclusion. Thus they give you satisfaction in the achievement of each step in your plan, and satisfaction in the progress towards your goal. Satisfactions are one of the most important foods for a healthy mind.
A change in mental attitude often aids in the development of bodily resistance against disease.
Probably the most important single quality necessary to sound mental health is a positive mental attitude, and all that this entails. Two of the greatest destructive forces in the human mind are fear, and its close partner, anxiety. They kill enthusiasm, destroy faith, blind vision, blunt creative effort and destroy harmony and peace of mind – all the qualities necessary for a positive mental attitude.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE MIND
As we are one with the world about us, so are we one with ourselves: a mind-body. And as we are affected by the world we live in, and in tum affect that world, so our body influences our mind, and in turn, our mind influences our body.
The proper perspective would suggest that the highest function of all living things is present in man, and in no other of the Creator’s products. We are the only thinking animal, and with this power we have been able to modify our environment and to learn its laws. We have only to conceive the idea and believe the idea to achieve the idea.
This is the story of Edison, Marconi, the Wright brothers and of all the successful people who have changed the path of civilization. It took life fifty million years to develop through evolution to a bird that could fly. Yet the Wright brothers, with simple childlike faith in their own idea, had man airborne in a mere twenty years. Here is the power of this mind-body of ours, prophetically revealed to us in many tongues and many ways, by Infinite Intelligence, as when the Nazarene said, all things are possible even unto the end of the world.
The proper perspective of this mind-body of ours is that the mind is the higher function of the two, and that the body is an exquisitely functioning machine for carrying the mind about and executing the dictates of this tremendous powerhouse. Yes, a smoothly functioning mind is necessary to a smoothly functioning body.
Think of those unfortunate individuals who have been bed-ridden, unable to do more than just talk or move a few fingers, who have lived full creative lives. This story can be multiplied and retold, with many names and places of those who refused to let crippled bodies stay them in their quest for greatness: Helen Keller, Pavlov, Nurmi the great runner, and Beethoven, to name a few.
The story of civilization is punctuated with greatness achieved by various individuals in spite of physical bankruptcy because these individuals possessed smoothly functioning minds. Each of them had a definite major purpose, faith in that purpose and plan, and faith in Infinite Intelligence. They understood clearly where they were going and what their problem was.
Dr. Coyne Campbell, a well-known psychiatrist, said in one of his lectures on the problems of the maladjusted that they all had one problem in common. They were unable to tell him clearly what was the matter – they were unable to put their difficulties into words. He went on to say that when he had taught them to state their problem, they no longer needed his services. Once they had a clear picture of themselves and their problem and developed a definite major purpose and a definite plan to attain that purpose, these unfortunates were back on the road to a useful life.
Individuals with weakened bodies like those mentioned earlier, seem always to have known their plan, or to have learned it at an early age. On the wings of a definite major purpose, faith, enthusiasm, and a positive mental attitude, they rose further and further from the vague despondency of maladjustment towards great heights of brilliance and achievement. This is the power of a man’s mind. Thus it would seem that even when we cannot achieve sound physical health, we can achieve sound mental health if we have a definite major purpose.
To realize a smoothly functioning mind, let us reconsider some of the qualities we have found essential to success and happiness, for they are also essential to a sound mind.
Source: PMA: Science of Success by Napoleon Hill