“Faith and purpose constitute the motive-power of life. There is nothing that a strong faith and an unflinching purpose may not accomplish.” — The Path to Prosperity

In my darkest hours, when it appeared I didn’t have a whole lot to hang onto, I somehow managed to develop the most important element of success in any undertaking: Faith.

I remember driving down the road in the 12-year-old automobile I had borrowed from a friend (because I had lost mine), telling myself over and over that it was just a matter of time before my fortunes were going to improve. It was a principle that I had borrowed from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich: “Repetition of affirmation of orders to your subconscious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith…This is the equivalent of saying that any impulse of thought which is repeatedly passed on to the subconscious mind is, finally, accepted and acted upon by the subconscious mind, which proceeds to translate that impulse into its physical equivalent, by the most practical procedure available.”

One of the most quoted verses of the Christian Bible is Paul’s instructions that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.” That in itself tells us that we must see our desired outcome despite our present condition. In a similar way, Answers.com defines Faith as “belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.”

Faith is so important to success that Hill devoted an entire chapter to it, calling it “the second step toward riches (or success in any endeavor).” James Allen was even stronger in his statement above that “There is nothing that a strong faith and an unflinching purpose may not accomplish.”

As Napoleon Hill also tells us:

FAITH is the starting point of all accumulation of riches!
FAITH is the basis of all “miracles,” and all mysteries which cannot be analyzed by the rules of science!
FAITH is the only known antidote for FAILURE!

And that’s worth thinking about.

“Most beginnings are small, and appear trivial and insignificant, but in reality they are the most important things in life.” – Byways of Blessedness

In this one of James Allen’s lesser known books, Byways of Blessedness, he devotes the entire first chapter to beginnings. Mostly the right beginnings.

In my experience, it’s not only the right beginning that is important, it’s beginning in the first place. In other words that powerful six-letter-word: Action.

Without action, you could have the greatest idea and the greatest plan in the world and you would still fail. Whereas a modest idea and an incomplete plan often produces success when accompanied by enough action.

Hugely successful people, the kind who go from mediocre to millions almost overnight, know that the major key to their success was taking MASSIVE ACTION. When Jeff Bezos decided to start Amazon.com, he left his job on the East Coast and headed to Washington State. He had his wife drive him and their belongings across the country so that he could stay on the phone constantly, convincing potential investors and vendors why Amazon would be a success.

Even the smallest of actions, the ones James Allen called trivial and insignificant, can lead to great success. Sir Isaac Newton’s principle that a “body at rest tends to remain at rest and a body in motion tends to remain in motion,” definitely applies to the action principle. Once you’ve taken the first step (even a baby step), the next steps seem easier to take.

My brother shared an incredible insight on this subject with me yesterday: “Actions, like pictures, are worth a thousand words.”

And that’s worth thinking about.

“A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses.” — As A Man Thinketh

You are not limited to the life you now live. It has been accepted by you as the best you can do at this moment.

Any time you’re ready to go beyond the limitations currently in your life, you’re capable of doing that by choosing different thoughts.

We each earn the income we do today because that is the amount we have limited ourselves to earn. We could easily earn 5, 10, 20 times or more if we did not limit ourselves through the thoughts we maintain.

Don’t believe that’s true? Surely you know people who earn much more than you who don’t have your education, your skills, or your intelligence. So why do they earn more than you?

I love the story of George Dantzig that Cynthia Kersey wrote about in Unstoppable. As a college student, George studied very hard and always late into the night. So late that he overslept one morning, arriving 20 minutes late for class. He quickly copied the two math problems on the board, assuming they were the homework assignment. It took him several days to work through the two problems, but finally he had a breakthrough and dropped the homework on the professor’s desk the next day.

Later, on a Sunday morning, George was awakened at 6 a.m. by his excited professor. Since George was late for class, he hadn’t heard the professor announce that the two unsolvable equations on the board were mathematical mind teasers that even Einstein hadn’t been able to answer. But George Dantzig, working without any thoughts of limitation, had solved not one, but two problems that had stumped mathematicians for thousands of years.

Simply put, George solved the problems because he didn’t know he couldn’t.

Bob Proctor tells us to “keep reminding yourself that you have tremendous reservoirs of potential within you, and therefore you are quite capable of doing anything you set your mind to. All you must do is figure out how you can do it, not whether or not you can. And once you have made your mind up to do it, it’s amazing how your mind begins to figure out how.”

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.