“Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment.” – As A Man Thinketh

In her book, Unstoppable, Cynthia Kersey writes that a prominent psychologist asked 3,000 people, “What have you to live for?” An amazing 94% answered by saying they had no definite purpose for their lives – 94% percent!! With those kind of results, is it any wonder that there are so many unhappy people in our world today?

James Allen also tells us on this subject that, “They who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to worries, fears, troubles, and self-pity.” When I was part of the 94% without a purpose, my life was constantly dark with all types of worries, fears and troubles. I was a ship without a rudder floating aimlessly in a raging sea. Nothing in my life seemed to go right.

I believe we were created with a purpose in our heart, and part of our journey here is to discern that purpose and to act on that purpose.

Purpose puts power and excitement in our lives. It keeps us from looking at the little picture of “me” and causes us to look at the big picture of “we.”

Ralph Marston, who writes The Daily Motivator, says “Your wishes, desires, hopes, dreams, opinions, likes and dislikes, at their very deepest level, revolve around a purpose. You can sense it. It is there. Pay attention to the times you really feel good about yourself. Ask yourself why this is so. Keep asking until you touch a purpose so fundamental it cannot be explained in any other way.”

Napoleon Hill, writing in the classic Think and Grow Rich, said that having a purpose was so important to success that people would have a different (and better) story to tell about their lives “if only they would adopt a DEFINITE PURPOSE, and stand by that purpose until it had time to become an all-consuming obsession!”

And that’s worth thinking about.

“Great is the heartfelt joy when, after innumerable and apparently unsuccessful attempts, some ingrained fault of character is at last cast out to trouble its erstwhile victim and the world no more.” – The Mastery of Destiny

James Allen is sharing with us the reward (heartfelt joy) for finally overcoming a personal character deficit. However, what he’s really sharing with us is the value of persistence.

If I had to pick one character trait that I think is a “must have” in order to be successful in any endeavor, it would be persistence. In fact, it seems to be the one trait that is the dominant trait in every single, super-successful individual I know. I believe it to be the one trait that any ordinary person can use to become extraordinary (“extra-ordinary”).

Napoleon Hill, who wrote Think and Grow Rich, devoted an entire chapter to Persistence and said that the only thing that was different about Henry Ford and Thomas Edison was their persistence.

I’ve long since forgotten where I read it, but I’ve never forgotten the story of the tribe in Africa that confounded all of the anthropologists. It seems that this tribe had for centuries enjoyed a 100% success rate with its rain dance. In comparing this tribe to other tribes who did rain dances but who didn’t always experience success, the experts couldn’t find anything that differentiated the one tribe. They performed the same rituals, praying the same incantations to the same gods, in the same costumes. Like all the tribes, they sometimes danced for days, even weeks on end.

Finally an astute observer noticed something very telling. The successful tribe did one thing – and only one thing – different than the other tribes. It ALWAYS danced UNTIL it rained!

If your head is hanging low today as mine has done on many a day, I hope you’ll find the encouragement to know that you really only need to do one thing at this point — PERSIST. And that means taking just one step in the right direction — even a half step in the right direction.

Yes, maybe you need to review your plan or change your plan or maybe you even need to create a plan in the first place 🙂 But the one way you can ensure that you will meet with success (it’s absolutely guaranteed) — is to “dance until it rains!”

And that’s worth thinking about.

Note: This was previously published in Day by Day with James Allen, but its message bears repeating many times.

“What you are, so is your world. Everything in the universe is resolved into your own inward experience. It matters little what is without, for it is all a reflection of your own state of consciousness. It matters everything what you are within, for everything without will be mirrored and colored accordingly.” — Path to Prosperity

Although we rarely want to admit it, the world (as we see it) is simply a mirror, reflecting back to us our own inner state. If we are inwardly in turmoil then we are certain to see a tumultuous world. Just as certainly, a seemingly joyful world is only returning to us our own inward joy.

Those days when everything seems to go wrong from the moment we wake up, usually begins with one bad event (car won’t start, alarm didn’t go off, etc.) that we allow to affect our state of mind. That leads to another, and then another and before you know it, the world looks like an ugly place to us.

Put enough of those days together and life can become almost unbearable. Yet, nothing in the world created our misery — it was our response —- our own state of consciousness — that created the ugliness.

In the mid-1990’s I allowed a few negative events (brought on by living by the wrong principles) to drastically change my state of consciousness. In the middle of one of the greatest economic expansions in the history of the world, I barely lived above the level of poverty. Where others saw opportunity, I saw lack. It was simply a reflection of my inner state.

By 1998 I had gained control of my inner self and, accordingly, the sun once again began to shine in my world. The same circumstances that had once appeared as lack, now appeared as opportunities. Today there are so many opportunities in my life that I am only able to act on a tiny fraction of them. My table truly overfloweth.

During my dark days I came across a tiny booklet called 12 Ways to Develop a Positive Attitude. The author, Dale Galloway, writes from experience. He was a well-known pastor whose wife suddenly left him one year a few days before Christmas.

One of the many gems he offered was: “No matter what happens, look for the good and you’ll find it. A positive thinker does not refuse to recognize the negative – he refuses to dwell on it. Positive thinking is a form of thought which habitually looks for the best results from the worst conditions. It is always possible to look for something good; to expect the best for yourself even though things look bad. And the remarkable fact is that when you seek good, you will find it.”

And that’s worth thinking about.