How to Develop the Habit of Enthusiasm by Napoleon Hill

How to Develop the Habit of Enthusiasm
by Napoleon Hill

You can develop the habit of controlled enthusiasm by taking the following steps:
• Adopt a definite major purpose.
• Write out a clear statement of both your definite major purpose and the plan by which you hope to attain it. Include a statement of what you intend to give in return for its realization.
• Back your purpose with an enthusiastic motive and let that motive become a burning (obsessional) desire. Fan it, coax it, and let it become a dominating factor in your mind at all times.
• Go to work immediately to carry out your plan, starting right when you are.
• Follow your plan accurately and with persistence, fed by all the enthusiasm you can generate.
• If you are overtaken by temporary defeat, study your plans carefully and change them if necessary, but do not change your major purpose simply because you have met with a temporary setback.
• If the nature of your definite major purpose requires it, ally yourself with others whose aid you require, following the instructions given in the lesson on the master mind.
• Keep far away from joy-killers and pessimists and associate with those who are optimistic. Tell your plans to those who are in sympathy with you, such as members of your master mind alliance.
• Never let a day pass without devoting some time, though it be ever so little, to furthering your plans. Remember, you are developing the habit of enthusiasm, and habits call for repetition through physical action.
• Autosuggestion is a powerful factor in the development of the habit of enthusiasm, as well as in the development of any other habit. Therefore, keep yourself sold on the belief that you will obtain the object of your definite major purpose, no matter how far removed from you it may be. Your own mental attitude will determine the nature of the action your subconscious mind will take in connection with the fulfillment of your purpose.
• Keep your mind positive at all times. Enthusiasm will not mix with fear, envy, greed, jealousy, doubt, revenge, hatred, intolerance and procrastination. Enthusiasm thrives only on positive thought and action.
Your job will never be any bigger than your imagination makes it.
Remember, every person lives in two worlds: the world of his own mental attitude, which is greatly influenced by his associates and his surroundings, and the physical world in which he must struggle for a living. The physical world in which you make a living may be beyond your control, but you can, to a great extent, shape the circumstances of your immediate physical world. It can be done by the way you relate yourself to your mental world, for your mental attitude attracts to you those aspects of the physical world which harmonize with your mental attitude. Thus, pessimism will attract misery and ill fortune. But enthusiasm, properly controlled, will attract happiness and good fortune.

Source: PMA Science of Success Course. Pgs. 248, 249, & 250.

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