Think and Grow Rich: Faith

I'll admit I slacked off on reading for a couple months. I've been back at it for for a couple of weeks and have had a hard time putting the book down. Think and Grow Rich, though a business book, is a great motivational book too. I'm using a lot of the information I find in this book for my challenge groups and as a coaching tool.

This second chapter is about faith.
"Faith is a state of mind which may be induced or created by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind, through the principle of auto-suggestion"

Here I came to the conclusion that one can learn to have faith. While reading this chapter, I thought of The Little Engine That Could and the now famous line "I think I can I think I can." This seemed to be the general message behind this chapter. That if you tell yourself something long enough, you'll start to believe it and it will come true. If you tell yourself you can, you'll believe you can and then you will.

Napoleon Hill states that

"faith is the only known antidote for failure"

In this context, I understand faith to mean hope, meaning believing in yourself, in your dream, in your work. Dictionary.com states that faith is

1- confidence or trust in a person or thing

2- belief that is not based on proof         

This means that beyond all the evidence or closed doors you come across, you must have faith in you and your idea. Now, I don't consider myself to be a business person, so I often put things in a context that applies to me. I put this in a fitness context (obviously) and that's when it really made sense to me. If you don't have faith in yourself, if you don't believe you can reach your goals or keep that belief when you hit a few bumps along the way, your lack of faith will leave you discouraged and unmotivated. 

"Every man is what he is because of the dominating thoughts which he permits to occupy his mind"

Think of failing and you will fail. Think of succeeding and you will succeed.