Believe in Yourself, Joseph Murphy

From Believe in Yourself by Dr. Joseph Murphy

"A great industrialist told me one time how he started in a small store. He said that I used to dream (Joseph was a dreamer) of a large corporation with branches all over the country. He added that regularly and systematically he pictured in his mind the giant building, offices, factories, and stores, knowing that through the alchemy of the mind, he could weave the fabric out of which his dreams would be clothed. He prospered, and began to attract to himself by a universal law of attraction the ideas, personnel, friends, money, and everything needed for the unfoldment of his ideal. He truly exercised and cultivated his imagination, and lived with these mental patterns in his mind until imagination clothed them in form.

I liked particularly one comment which he made as follows, "It is just as easy to imagine yourself successful, as it is to imagine failure, and far more interesting."

"We have said previously that all our mental at­titudes are conditioned by imagination. If you imagine: It is going to be a black day today; business is going to be very poor; that it is rain­ing; no customers will come into your store; they have no money, etc., you will experience the re­sult of your negative imagery.

One time Troward (Thomas Troward*) was walking the streets of London, and he imagined he saw a snake on the street. Fear caused him to become semi-paralyzed. What he saw looked like a snake, but Troward had the same mental and emotional reaction as if it were a snake.

Imagine whatsoever things are lovely, noble, and of good report, and your entire emotional attitude toward life will change. What do you imagine about life? Is it going to be a happy life for you? Or is it one long series of frustrations? "Choose ye whom ye will serve."*

You mold, fashion, and shape your outer world of experience according to the mental images you habitually dwell on. Imagine conditions and cir­cumstances in life which dignify, elevate, please, and satisfy. If you imagine life is cold, cruel, hard, bitter, and that struggle and pain are inevitable, you are making life miserable for yourself."



* Thomas Troward is one of the authors credited with inspiring "The Secret" film.
* Joshua 24:15