13-14. Definitely plan your work & Bounce your thoughts
Some of us may think we're too depressed right now to start on a new course of personal motivation. Or we're too angry. Or we're too upset about certain problems.
But Napoleon Hill insisted that that's the perfect time to learn one of life's most unusual rules: "There is one unbeatable rule for the mastery of sorrows and disappointments, and that is the transmutation of those emotional frustrations through definitely planned work. It is a rule which has no equal."
Once we get the picture of who we want to be, "definitely planned work" is the next step on the path. Definitely planned work inspires the energy of purpose. Without it, we suffer from a weird kind of intention deficit disorder. We're short on intention. We don't know where we're going or what we're up to.
When I was a training instructor at a time-management company many years ago, we taught people in business how to maximize time spent on the job. The
primary idea was this: One hour of planning saves three hours of execution.
However, most of us don't feel we have time for that hour of planning. We're too busy cleaning up yesterday's problems (that were caused by lack of planning). We don't yet see that planning would be the most productive hour we spend. Instead, we wander unconsciously into the workplace and react to crises. (Again, most of which result from a failure to plan.)
A carefully planned meeting can take a third of the time that an unplanned free-for-all takes. A carefully planned day can take a third of the time that an unplanned free-for-all day takes.
My friend Kirk Nelson manages a large sales staff at a major radio station. His success in life was moderate until he discovered the principle of definitely planned work. Now he spends two hours each weekend on his computer planning the week ahead.
"It's made all the difference in the world," he said. "Not only do I get three times the work done, but I feel so in control. The week feels like my week. The work feels like my work. My life feels like my life." It is impossible to work with a definite sense of purpose and be depressed at the same time. Carefully planned work will motivate you to do more and worry less.
14. Bounce your thoughts
If you've ever coached or worked with kids who play basketball, you know that most of them have a tendency to dribble with only one hand—the one attached to their dominant arm.
When you notice a child doing this, you might call him aside and say, "Billy, you're dribbling with just the one hand every time, and the defender can easily defend you when you do that. Your options are cut off. You need to dribble with your other hand, too, so that he never knows which way you're going to go." At this point Billy might say, "I can't." And you smile and say, "What do you mean you can't?"
And Billy then shows you that when he dribbles with his subdominant (weaker) hand and arm, the ball is all over the place. So, to his mind, he can't.
"Billy," you say. "It's not that you can't, it's just that you haven't." Then you explain to Billy that his other hand can dribble just as well if he is willing to practice. It's just a matter of logging enough bounces. It's the simple formation of a habit. After enough practice dribbling with his other hand, Billy will learn you were right.
The same principle is true for reprogramming our own dominant habits of thinking. If our dominant thought habit is pessimistic, all we have to do is dribble with the other hand: Think optimistic thoughts more and more often until it feels natural.
If someone had asked me (before I started my journey to self-motivation that began with Napoleon Hill) why I didn't try to be more goal oriented and optimistic, I would have said, "I can't. It's just not me. I wouldn't know how." But it would have been more accurate for me to just say, "I haven't."
Thinking is just like bouncing the basketball. On the one hand, I can think pessimistically and build that side of me up (it's just a matter of repeatedly bouncing those thoughts). On the other hand, I can think optimistically—one thought at a time—and build that habit up.
Self-motivation is all a matter of how much in control you want to be. page_43
Page 44
I read somewhere that we humans have up to 45,000 thoughts a day. I can't vouch for the accuracy of that figure, especially because I know some people who seem to have no more than nine or 10. However, if it is true that we have 45,000 thoughts, then you can see how patient we have to be about turning a pessimistic thought habit around.
The overall pattern won't change after just a few positive bounces of the brain. If you're a pessimist, your bio-computer has really been programmed heavily in that direction. But it doesn't take long before a new pattern can emerge. As a former pessimist myself, I can tell you it really happens, however slowly but surely. You do change. One thought at a time.
If you can bounce it one way, you can bounce it the other.