In The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale says there is no problem or obstacle you can’t overcome with faith, positive thinking, and prayer. This self-help classic outlines the practical techniques of applied Christianity to help you take control of the events in your life rather than be directed by them. As a result of these methods, Peale says you can enjoy better relationships, a greater sense of well-being, robust health and energy, and a stronger sense of purpose in the world.
Peale was a Reformed minister who served as the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City from 1932-1984. He was also an influential author and public speaker, largely because of The Power of Positive Thinking's success.
Peale held a Master of Arts degree in Social Ethics from Boston University, and a Doctor of Divinity degree from Syracuse University.
While Peale—who was a Christian minister—drew upon his faith for inspiration and strength, you don’t have to be Christian yourself to benefit from The Power of Positive Thinking.
In many ways, The Power of Positive Thinking is comparable to Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was also founded based on Christian teachings and beliefs, but it has expanded to welcome people of all faiths, as well as those who don’t follow any religion.
To do so, AA reframed God and “Higher Power” (both phrases are prominent in the Big Book) to mean any power that you accept as greater than yourself.
Peale’s ideas fall into three categories:
Those three categories form the foundation of his system for living a rich, fulfilling life and accomplishing your goals. We’ll begin with Faith, as your underlying beliefs are the basis for everything you do. Next, we’ll discuss Positive Thinking, which is about actively keeping yourself in a healthy, happy, and productive mindframe. Finally, we’ll move on to specific, practical techniques that Peale suggests for putting his ideas into practice.
In this guide, we’ll compare and contrast Peale’s Christianity-based ideas with those found in other schools of thought, both religious and secular. Additionally, we’ll examine ways to put Peale’s suggestions into practice, regardless of your personal faith (or lack of it).
The first part of Peale’s system is Faith—meaning both faith in the religious sense, and faith in yourself. Peale believes that both types of faith are necessary in order to achieve your goals and live your best life.
Peale says that faith in yourself is important to a happy and successful life. Self-confidence leads to achievement and self-realization, helping you release your inner power.
However, Peale adds, not everyone has the power to believe in themselves. Too many people are hampered by feelings of inadequacy, often called an “inferiority complex.” To build up self-confidence, he suggests that you understand the root causes of your sense of inferiority and develop faith in yourself through prayer. He also suggests that you discipline your thoughts by filling your mind with “confidence concepts:” positive affirmations that remind you of your own worth and importance. Finally, he advises you to keep an optimistic attitude in the face of difficulties and remember that God is with you.
(Shortform note: Many people find the root causes of their self-esteem issues in their childhood experiences, such as overly critical parents or poor performance in school. However, the same problems can come from an abusive partner, life events like divorce and unemployment, or ongoing medical issues, just to give a few examples.)
Peale contends that faith can be a powerful factor in overcoming health obstacles. From his readers and listeners, Peale received numerous examples of healing in which the element of faith is present. In each of these instances, the best resources of medical and psychological science are used in combination with spiritual resources.
In the cases of faith-enhanced healing Peale investigated, he found certain factors to be present. First, the patient is willing to surrender their health into God’s hands. Second, they let go of sin and want their soul cleansed. Third, they believe in the combination of medical resources and the healing power of God. Fourth, they are willing to accept whatever answer God has for them. Finally, they have an unquestioning faith that God can heal.
A researcher’s review of scientific studies on faith healing didn’t reach any strong conclusions about its efficacy. Some of the studies showed that faith healing had positive impacts on health, others showed no effect at all, and a few even showed that faith healing had a negative impact on the patient. Furthermore, the author of the review noted that there are a lot of uncontrolled variables, which make the outcomes of any study on faith healing suspect at best.
However, Peale isn’t advocating for faith healing alone—he repeatedly says that faith power should be used alongside science-based medicine. Whether you believe in divine intervention or think that faith healing is just the placebo effect in action (recovering because you believe that you’re getting help), Peale’s suggestion that we use every type of help available to us is a good one.
Prayer can be a source of great power, helping to change your life positively, tapping forces and strength that aren’t normally available to you. Prayer can even restore physical health and well-being, and it’s used by therapists and other practitioners to help others.
Peale sees prayer as a manifestation of energy and says that there are ways to release spiritual energy through the mechanism of prayer. Prayer power can slow down the aging process, helping you keep youthful energy as you age. Prayer can help keep your spirits up, send you out each morning refreshed and renewed, guide you in solving problems, help you react properly to situations around you, and release power and keep power flowing freely.
(Shortform note: Studies show that there is a strong connection between mental health and physical health; each bolsters (or harms) the other. Peale suggests prayer as a way to cultivate inner peace, which in turn promotes outer health.)
Now that we’ve discussed the underlying beliefs that make Peale’s system possible, we’ll move on to the thought patterns and attitudes that he says will help us to live happy, fulfilling lives.
We create our own happiness in this life. Peale believes that one way of choosing happiness is to cultivate the habit of being happy. When you develop the happiness habit, life becomes more enjoyable every day. Because habits are something you can cultivate, you have the power to create your own happiness.
You develop the happiness habit by thinking happy thoughts. Peale recommends making a mental list of happy thoughts and running them through your mind throughout the day. If an unhappy thought pops in, eject it by substituting a happy thought.
Atomic Habits by James Clear teaches you how to intentionally form a new habit, such as the happiness habit that Peale recommends here.
There are four parts to a habit:
Cue. This is what triggers the habit, the way the smell of cigarette smoke might make a smoker want to indulge. For Peale’s happiness habit, the cue might be waking up in the morning, or feeling negative emotions creeping in.
Craving. This is the emotional response that the cue triggers. In other words, it’s what prompts you to perform your habit. For someone with a happiness habit, the craving would be the desire to feel good.
Response. This is the actual behavior, like when the smoker from the previous example lights a cigarette. With a happiness habit, the response would be doing as Peale suggests: replacing a negative thought with a positive one.
Reward. This is the satisfaction you gain from performing your habit. As your brain comes to associate that satisfaction with the previous three steps, you’ll form a habit.
In short, you’ll remember what prompted you to do a certain thing, and that you felt better after doing that thing. Therefore, you’ll be compelled to keep repeating that behavior.
Peale insists that when you expect the best in life, you get the best. When you expect the worst, that’s what you get. When you change your mental habits to a state of constant belief instead of doubt, everything becomes possible. Doing so requires faith.
Your thoughts are powerful; they dictate the type of life you lead, the kind of person you are, and the experiences you have. Positive thoughts create positive outcomes; negative thoughts lead to negative outcomes.
If you’re unhappy with your current circumstances, Peale suggests remaking your life by getting rid of your old, negative thoughts and filling your mind with new thoughts that reflect faith, creativity, love, and goodness. When you start thinking differently, the conditions around you will change.
In Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins suggests beginning to break out of doubtful, self-defeating thoughts or expecting the worst with a two-step process: 1) Identify a problem (large or small) that you can fix, and 2) fix it.
It sounds simplistic, but the act of consciously recognizing and fixing a problem will begin to show you that you’re not helpless, and that you can accomplish what you set your mind to. According to Peale, your faith will give you the courage to begin this process.
When you think about defeat, you tend to get defeated. Instead, Peale advises, adopt a mindset where you don’t believe in defeat. This mindset requires faith; remember one of Peale’s favorite Bible passages, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
The first step is to not be afraid of whatever obstacle you’re facing; instead, stand up to it. Practice believing God is with you, and that together you can handle whatever the problem is. When you stand up to your obstacles, the obstacles don’t seem quite as strong.
In this section, Peale warns against the fear of defeat. Purple Cow, by marketing guru Seth Godin, offers a tidbit on the dangers of fear.
Godin says that fear creates a logical paradox:
When things are going badly, we think we can’t afford to take risks.
When things are going well, we think we don’t need to take risks.
In short, fear paralyzes us—we’ll always find a reason not to act. Peale is suggesting that we adopt a mindset where defeat doesn’t exist so that we don’t get paralyzed by that fear.
Another reason Peale believes that positive thinking is important is that the way we handle obstacles stems from our mental attitudes. In fact, most of our obstacles are mental in nature. Even when there is an external problem, our attitude toward that obstacle still dictates our response.
Peale says that, if you take the mental attitude that an obstacle is impossible to overcome, you won’t get past it. But, when you firmly believe that the obstacle is removable, you start the process that leads to the obstacle’s defeat.
We all face difficulties and obstacles. While real, they aren’t as insurmountable as they seem. Peale advises you to keep faith, believe that God has given you the power to lift yourself out of the situation, and affirm that you have the power to do anything.
Use Faith or Reason Against Obstacles
While Peale suggests that we overcome obstacles with faith, other schools of thought claim that we can do so with logic.
Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is one of the definitive books on Stoicism. In it, Aurelius urges us to examine every situation rationally, instead of emotionally. By doing so, Aurelius says, we’ll realize that the only thing that can really impede us is ourselves—no external force can prevent us from doing what we know is right, or force us to do something that we know is wrong. Therefore, the only reason we haven’t been able to overcome a certain obstacle is that we’ve convinced ourselves that we can’t do it; that the situation is too difficult or too unfair.
In truth, all we have to do for any problem is approach it rationally, determine the solution, and then do what needs to be done. To give a simple example: If you’re about to eat an apple and you find that it’s rotten, you simply throw it away. You immediately recognize that there’s no benefit to complaining about the rotten apple, or keeping it in your house; you just solve the problem and move on.
For this third and final section, we’ll examine some of the specific, practical techniques and habits that Peale advises us to use.
Peale points out that living with strain and anxiety is difficult, while living in a state of harmony makes for an easy, calm existence. There are several methods by which you can gain a mind full of peace, serenity, and calm attitudes:
(Shortform note: While Peale doesn’t explain how to empty your mind of negativity, one way is the Jewish ritual of tashlich (“casting away”). On the first day of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year), congregants symbolically cast their sins—often physically represented by bread crumbs—into a body of running water. This ritual helps Jews to let go of their fears and regrets from the past year, and face the coming year with a fresh mindset.)
(Shortform note: What Peale calls “suggestive articulation” is a practice more commonly referred to as reciting a mantra; a word or simple phrase that you can repeat many times in a row. Doing so focuses your attention and your willpower on what you want to do, or who you want to be. For example, someone struggling with self-esteem issues might repeat, “I am strong, I am intelligent, I am worthy.”)
The two exercises that Peale suggests—emptying your mind and sitting in silence—are different forms of meditation.
The first is a variation on candle meditation. The idea of candle meditation is to either look at a candle flame or picture one in your mind, and think of nothing else. You should acknowledge any thoughts that intrude on your meditation, and then dismiss them; as you continue to practice, those intrusive thoughts should come less frequently and disappear more quickly. This is because candle meditations help you to develop focus and mental discipline.
Peale’s second exercise is a type of visualization meditation that’s designed to put you into a calm, content state of mind. Some would call this particular exercise a “happy place” visualization.
Peale’s emphasis on silence and solitude is meant to help you avoid distractions so that you can just be alone with your thoughts.
Peale says that if you feel guilty, it’s because you’re blaming yourself for something that you’ve done or think you’ve done. Marcus Aurelius (the author of Meditations, one of the definitive Stoic texts) offers this advice about blame:
Blame is pointless. People often cause harm because of ignorance, or by accident. Blaming people (including yourself) for what they don’t know, or because they made a mistake, is pointless; it’s much better to teach them (or learn) how to avoid that issue in the future.
Blame is useless. Even if you could reasonably blame someone (again, including yourself), doing so wouldn’t make the situation any better. Therefore, assigning blame is a waste of time and energy.
Peale observes that we often make life more difficult for ourselves by getting agitated and worked up about situations. Work stress, for example, is common. People have difficulty relaxing and this stops them from living a full life. Peale calls this “fuming and fretting.” To gain power and live our lives to the fullest, we have to stop this behavior.
To reduce tension in your life, try:
Mark Manson’s colorfully titled book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck explores the ways in which society drives us to want more of everything, with the result that we’re constantly stressed, exhausted, and unhappy.
Like Peale’s advice to “slow down,” Manson suggests that we take a hard look at our lives, determine what’s actually important, and stop giving a f*ck about everything else. Commit yourself deeply to just a few things (for example: your marriage, charity work, or a hobby that you’re passionate about), instead of chasing every fad and passing high that advertising and social media push on you.
(Shortform note: Peale is correct that our bodies can convince our minds to calm down. For example, a 2020 study found that smiling—even faking a smile—can improve your mood and cause others to respond to you more positively. This effect seems to stem from a subconscious connection between the physical act of smiling and the good mood that usually accompanies it.)
Worry is a destructive and unhealthy mental habit. Peale warns that worry can cause health problems and even shorten your lifespan. He says worry is dangerous also because when you fear something for a long time, you can actually draw it to you, helping the fear come to pass.
The good news is that worry is a habit, and because you can change any habit, you have the ability to break the worry habit. There are three steps to this process:
Tara Brach, in Radical Acceptance, offers a Buddhist perspective on worrying: Obsessing over the past and worrying about the future are unhealthy coping mechanisms. They create the illusion of control in our lives but disconnect us from our moment-to-moment experiences.
Brach says we must realize that thinking about the past and the future only serves to build up walls around our present experiences. Instead, we should simply accept each experience (positive or negative) as it comes, and move on with life once the experience has passed.
Peale promises that you can increase your energy by changing your mindset because our thoughts affect how we feel physically. When your thoughts tell you you’re tired, the body accepts this and feels tired. But when your mind and thoughts are engaged and interested in what you’re doing, you have the energy to keep going indefinitely.
Peale suggests doing the following:
God’s Rhythm and Flow
What Peale calls “God’s rhythm” is better known by another name: flow. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term in his book of the same name. Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as an optimal state in which we’re both completely focused and completely happy. While in a state of flow, we can do our best work seemingly without effort, and we often lose track of time.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, reaching a state of flow requires a few conditions:
Your task must be enjoyable.
You must have a clear goal.
Your task must be challenging, but not frustrating.
Problems are a fact of life. However, Peale says that faith-based techniques can help you solve your problems in a correct manner that brings you the best outcome.
He suggests:
(Shortform note: Studies have shown that meditation puts you into an open and insightful mindframe, which is helpful for solving problems. It’s also known that prayer and meditation have similar effects on the mind. Therefore, whether you believe that God is helping you find the answers to your problems, or just that you’re putting yourself into a productive mental state, the fact remains that Peale is correct: Praying and discussing your problems with God can help you find solutions to difficult issues.)
Grief, sorrow, and other forms of heartache and inner suffering are part of being human. Peale suggests some concrete things you can do when you are hurting emotionally: For example, getting back to your normal routine, being physically active, and staying busy can help you to cope with emotional pain. However, he also says that it’s important to feel your grief; it’s natural and helpful to cry when sorrow comes.
There is no greater heartache than the death of a loved one. One way to live with this heartache is to understand the deeper meaning of life and death. When you carry with you the faith that all life is connected—and when you die, you merely continue your journey in another form—you gain a deep peace and comfort about the loss of a loved one.
Visiting Heaven?
People of many different faiths take comfort in the belief that there’s some sort of afterlife waiting for us. Some people even claim to have seen it; that’s the case with Heaven is For Real, a book by pastor Todd Burpo, who relates his young son’s memories of a near-death experience.
When Colton Burpo was just under four years old, he became extremely sick. The doctors concluded that there was nothing they could do to save him. That night, Todd’s congregation came together to pray for Colton; by the next day, he had almost completely recovered.
Colton told his father that he’d visited Heaven while he was in the hospital. Todd was initially skeptical, but Colton’s memories of that time were so vivid that the pastor came to believe that his son had indeed seen the afterlife.
Of course, there’s no way to prove that what Colton saw was really Heaven. However, Colton’s parents—and Colton himself—found great comfort in the belief that Heaven was real and their loved ones were waiting for them there.
Being liked has more benefits than just boosting your ego; it’s important to your success in life and in relationships. However, striving for popularity won’t work; plus, no matter what you do, you won’t get everyone to like you.
Still, Peale contends there are ways to make yourself into a pleasing person who gets along well with others:
Counterpoint: Love Yourself First
Peale’s advice for becoming a “comfortable person” is to develop a sincere love of others. However, he doesn’t mention that being a comfortable person requires being comfortable with yourself.
In No More Mr. Nice Guy, Robert Glover discusses the so-called “Nice Guy” phenomenon. “Nice Guys” think that, if they make others happy, those people will naturally reciprocate by giving them what they want—and they can get extremely angry if that doesn’t happen. Furthermore, their people-pleasing behavior often comes off as insincere or desperate.
Therefore, Glover’s advice for how to be liked is to put yourself first—people will find you much easier to be around.
Many people are depressed and unhappy, but they don’t have to live that way. Peale’s ultimate answer is to draw upon God or the Higher Power. The Higher Power can do everything for you.
How do we do that? State your problem, then ask for a specific answer. Believe you will get that answer and believe that right now you’re gaining the power to deal with your problem. An important element of drawing upon the Higher Power is to relax and rest into that power.
Remember to keep an optimistic attitude toward every problem. Peale asserts that the level of your faith is the level of power you will receive to meet your obstacles. No matter what your problem is, drawing upon the Higher Power can help you through it.
Counterpoint: The Power of Negative Thinking
The Power of Positive Thinking focuses on keeping a positive attitude and having faith that you can accomplish anything. However, Peale essentially encourages us to bull through our problems with sheer willpower and confidence, an approach that some critics feel is simplistic and shortsighted.
For example, famous basketball coach Bob Knight wrote The Power of Negative Thinking specifically to rebut The Power of Positive Thinking.
Knight argues that while everyone wants to win, the winner will be the one who wants to prepare. In other words, you can’t just walk into a situation believing that your desire and your faith will get the results you want; you have to put in the work and prepare for the worst.
The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale, is a classic of the self-help genre. In it, Peale asserts that we can overcome any hardship and achieve any goal through optimism and faith in God.
Norman Vincent Peale was a Reformed minister who served as the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City from 1932-1984. He was also an influential author and public speaker, largely because of The Power of Positive Thinking's success.
Peale was a close friend and advisor of former president Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984.
Peale held a Master of Arts degree in Social Ethics from Boston University, and a Doctor of Divinity degree from Syracuse University.
Explore Peale’s Ideas:
Norman Vincent Peale passed away in 1993. However, the Peale Foundation—a self-help group founded by Dr. Peale and his wife Ruth Peale—is still active.
The Power of Positive Thinking was originally published in 1952 by Prentice Hall. The book was on the New York Times’s bestseller list for three and a half years and was the Times’s #1 nonfiction bestseller for almost a full year.
Since then, The Power of Positive Thinking has been reprinted numerous times and translated into dozens of languages. We wrote this guide using the 2003 Touchstone edition (ebook).
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Imprint: Touchstone (defunct)
The Power of Positive Thinking came out in 1952, a time when the U.S. population—and its interest in Christianity—was growing quickly. The surging church attendance was due at least in part to the Cold War: The threat of nuclear war drove many to seek comfort in religion. Also, as the U.S. was still recovering from the Great Depression and World War II, struggling people flocked to Peale’s promises that faith and positive thinking would bring them prosperity.
Several notable self-help books related to positive thinking and confidence came out in the early 20th century. James Allen’s 1902 book As a Man Thinketh argued that we quite literally become what we think about—that a person is defined by his or her thoughts—and therefore positive thoughts will lead to a positive life.
Napoleon Hill’s 1937 bestseller Think and Grow Rich took the concept a step further, drawing on the ideas of the 19th century New Thought Movement: Hill believed that thoughts not only shape a person’s character, but that person’s entire life experience. In other words, if you know what you want and pursue it with single-minded focus, you can imagine your perfect life into reality.
The Power of Positive Thinking adds what Peale calls “faith power” to the equation. For Peale, it wasn’t enough to simply imagine what you wanted; you had to ask God (or your “Higher Power” of choice) to help you create your ideal life. According to Peale, deep meditation and earnest prayer are the keys to taking control of your mind and your life.
More recently “New Age Philosophy” has taken these ideas to the extreme with books like Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, which puts total faith in the power of belief to create desired outcomes and shape reality—for good or ill.
The Power of Positive Thinking is one of the best-selling non-fiction books ever written, having sold some 15 million copies at the time of Peale’s death. Readers all over the world say that Peale’s message changed their lives for the better. For example, former U.S. President Donald Trump—whose family attended Peale’s NYC church—credits The Power of Positive Thinking for much of his personal and business philosophy.
Many people laud The Power of Positive Thinking for its depth and practicality. For example, this review from Citywire compares the book to a bag of reliable and often-used tools for clearing away pessimism and despair.
Others, however, find Peale’s heavy reliance on God and the Bible to be off-putting. Some argue that the book’s methods are shallow and outdated; that they boil down to, “Just pray enough and everything will be fine.” Readers also criticize Peale’s reliance on anecdotes instead of scientific evidence.
Even other preachers criticized Peale’s work, saying that it wasn’t in line with the church’s teachings—they argued that God decides what happens to us; we don’t ask Him for what we want. Others said that the teachings weren’t wasn’t framed in proper clerical language; Peale acknowledged that they were right, but countered that he’d written The Power of Positive Thinking in simple, secular language because he meant it for everyday people.
Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking in the hopes that everyday people would use the lessons it taught. Therefore, the book uses simple language and approachable concepts, and it includes a large number of anecdotes to illustrate Peale’s points.
While The Power of Positive Thinking does succeed in presenting lessons that laypeople can understand and follow, the heavy emphasis on religion (specifically Christianity) may deter some modern readers from embracing them.
Individual chapters read somewhat like sermons: Peale teaches a lesson and illustrates it with stories about people who have benefited from that lesson. Some chapters end with lists of suggestions about how to put the lesson into practice.
However, the book as a whole is scattered, and later chapters tend to circle back to topics that Peale covered earlier. For example, the book’s final chapter is about how to draw upon your “Higher Power” (that is, God) to help you through hard times—something that Peale encourages you to do from the beginning of the book.
In this guide, we’ll compare and contrast Peale’s Christianity-based ideas with those found in other schools of thought, both religious and secular. Additionally, we’ll examine ways to put Peale’s suggestions into practice, regardless of your personal faith (or lack of it).
We’ll also organize Peale’s lessons into three categories: Faith (underlying beliefs), Positive Thinking (mindset), and Practices (good habits and practical techniques). By rearranging the book in this way, we’ll clarify what each of Peale’s teachings is meant to help you with, and make it easier for you to find and study specific topics.
Norman Vincent Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking as a practical guide to help regular, everyday people live a happy, worthwhile life. In this book, he outlines a system intended to improve your life. He claims you will take control of the events in your life, rather than being directed by them. Your relationships will improve, you’ll become more popular, have a greater sense of well-being, better health, and an increased zest for life, and you will become more useful to the world and influential to other people.
Peale’s system is rooted in Christian teachings and focuses on faith, positive thinking, and specific practices you can use to improve your life. For this guide, we’ve divided his teachings among those three categories as follows:
Faith:
Positive thinking:
Practices:
We conclude with Peale’s statements about what calling upon God (or your higher power of choice) can do for you; in essence, those statements are a brief summary of the book as a whole.
While Peale—who was a Christian minister—drew upon his faith for inspiration and strength, you don’t have to be Christian yourself to benefit from The Power of Positive Thinking.
In many ways, The Power of Positive Thinking is comparable to Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was also founded based on Christian teachings and beliefs, but it has expanded to welcome people of all faiths, as well as those without any faith.
To do so, it reframed God and “Higher Power” (both of which are prominent in the Big Book) to mean any power that you accept as greater than yourself. To give some examples, that power might be:
A deity
Your family
Your community
AA itself
Your ideal self
You can take the same approach to The Power of Positive Thinking: Rather than taking Peale’s talk of God and Jesus literally, you can choose to envision whatever higher power will inspire and comfort you.
Much of The Power of Positive Thinking is about the importance of having faith in God. However, in this first chapter, Peale discusses the importance of having faith in yourself. He says that self-confidence is necessary for a happy and successful life because it helps you release your inner power—he’ll explain in later chapters how worry and anxiety impede the power of positive thinking.
However, Peale continues, not everyone has the necessary self-confidence to fully harness their power. Too many people are hampered by feelings of inadequacy, often called an “inferiority complex” or a lack of self-confidence. Inferiority complexes create barriers in our personalities, stopping us from achieving our full potential. They are often the result of emotional damage done to us in childhood, or may be the result of childhood circumstances.
(Shortform note: In the 1920s, Dr. Alfred Adler coined the term inferiority complex to describe a disorder wherein a person has such low self-esteem that it interferes with his or her daily life. Interestingly, he also noted that low self-esteem can cause the opposite effect—a superiority complex—where the person overcompensates for those feelings with an inflated sense of self.)
Peale reassures us that it’s possible to overcome an inferiority complex and start believing in ourselves. Here’s his method:
(Shortform note: Many people find the root causes of their self-esteem issues in their childhood experiences, such as overly critical parents or poor performance in school. However, the same problems can come from an abusive partner, life events like divorce and unemployment, or ongoing medical issues, just to give a few examples.)
(Shortform note: If you don’t want to use Peale’s concept of God (the Christian God), this would be an excellent time to decide what your Higher Power will be. It doesn’t even have to be a specific entity; some people use vague concepts like “energy” or “the universe” as their Higher Power.)
In The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin Sharma suggests a similar technique, which he calls opposition thinking: You recognize when you’re having a negative thought, and replace it with a positive thought.
For example, if you catch yourself thinking, “I messed up that presentation, that must mean I’m stupid and worthless,” you could replace it with the thought, “Everyone makes mistakes, and one presentation doesn’t define my career or my life.”
Peale’s “confidence concepts” and Sharma’s “opposition thinking” both rely on the fact that you can only hold one thought at a time; therefore, by filling your mind with positive thoughts, you leave no room for negative ones.
Dale Carnegie’s 1948 book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living suggests various methods for developing the sort of positive, confident attitude that Peale suggests here. A few examples are:
Recognize minor problems for what they are. If you take a step back and think about the situation, you’ll often find that you’re overreacting to something that’s really just an annoyance or an inconvenience. For example, if you’re getting angry because your flight was delayed, ask yourself whether that’s really going to ruin your entire vacation experience.
Consider probability. If you’re worried about a particular event or outcome, ask yourself how likely it really is. For example, some people are afraid of flying, but dying while on an airplane is extremely unlikely. According to one study, the odds that you’ll die in a car crash are approximately 1 in 107, while the odds that you’ll die on an airplane are too low to calculate.
Set limits. Ask yourself how much time and energy you’re really prepared to spend worrying about something, then stick to that decision. For example, if you have a friend who always shows up 30 minutes late, next time you make plans tell him or her that you’ll only wait for 10 minutes and then you’ll leave. Either your friend will get there in time, or you’ll have only lost 10 minutes instead of 30.
Let go of the past. Remember that what’s done is done; no amount of worry or regret can change it. Learn from your past experiences, but don’t waste time and energy brooding on them.
(Shortform note: Scientific studies have shown that affirmations have positive effects on people’s confidence and sense of self-worth. If you aren’t using God as your Higher Power, you may find it helpful to replace Peale’s suggested affirmation with one of your own choosing.)
Peale offers these suggestions to boost your faith in yourself.
Peale’s rules for self-confidence are a diverse array of self-help strategies, primarily falling into three categories:
Visualization techniques: Visualization is a sort of “active meditation” where you imagine what you want as clearly as you can. Practitioners believe that holding an image in your mind will spur you to turn it into reality.
Affirmations: An affirmation is an assertion of something—in this case, an assertion that you can accomplish anything. Affirmations are common techniques for building confidence and self-esteem. In essence, you repeat positive thoughts to yourself until you believe them.
Professional counseling: Peale acknowledges that there are some issues we simply can’t work through with prayer and faith alone. In those cases, we should seek professional help to truly understand our problems and how we can start to fix them.
However, one important thing that Peale leaves out of this list is physical activity and the connection between physical health and mental health. Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression can seriously harm your physical health—both because they put you under a lot of stress and because they make it harder to take proper care of yourself. Conversely, regular exercise can help reduce the symptoms of those conditions.
Is something deep inside you holding you back?
Is there a particular area of life where you tend to lack self-confidence? What is it, and what’s a specific time it affected your life negatively?
Peale says it’s important to deconstruct the source of an inferiority complex. Where do you think this particular lack of self-confidence stems from?
What are some “confidence concepts” you could use to infuse your mind with confidence and drive out feelings of inferiority?
Faith, when understood and applied in the right manner, can be a powerful factor in overcoming health obstacles, according to Peale. One great surgeon who combined science with faith, Dr. Hans Finsterer, believed that the “unseen hand of God” helped in his surgeries. He felt that true progress in medicine would be made only when doctors became convinced of the importance of God's help in the treatment of patients.
There are many examples, backed by medical evidence, of the role of faith—in combination with medical science—in healing. Faith is the added element that boosts the efficacy of medicine.
Peale argues that faith is not used enough in modern treatments. He claims that faith can work miracles, but these miracles are actually the result of scientific principles.
A researcher’s review of scientific studies on faith healing didn’t reach any strong conclusions about its efficacy. Some of the studies showed that faith healing had positive impacts on health, others showed no effect at all, and a few even showed that faith healing had a negative impact on the patient. Furthermore, the author of the review noted that there are a lot of uncontrolled variables, which makes the outcomes of any study on faith healing suspect at best.
However, Peale isn’t advocating for faith healing alone—he repeatedly says that faith power should be used alongside science-based medicine. Whether you believe in divine intervention or think that faith healing is just the placebo effect in action (recovering because you believe that you’re getting help), Peale’s suggestion that we use every type of help available to us is a good one.
For many centuries, religious faith was tied to healing activities. It’s generally understood that there’s a connection between how a person thinks and how he or she feels: The mental state has an effect on bodily health. Since religion deals with thoughts and attitudes, it fits that the science of faith would be involved in the healing process. Therefore, to keep yourself healthy and happy, it’s important to use medical science to the fullest but also apply the techniques of spiritual science.
Peale claims that God works through both doctors and ministers, and many physicians agree. Peale encountered many doctors who believed the physical and spiritual are closely interrelated, finding that people’s feelings of fear, guilt, and hate were often connected to health problems. In that case, spiritual leaders like Peale can play an important role in healing patients.
Robin Sharma’s parable The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is about a (fictional) man named Julian who experienced exactly the sort of healing that Peale alludes to here. Julian was a wealthy and successful lawyer, but after suffering a heart attack mid-trial he quit his law practice and traveled to India to seek spiritual guidance.
When he returned several years later, Julian—a formerly overweight, middle-aged man—was more physically fit than he’d ever been, and he looked decades younger than he really was. He attributes the physical transformation to his improved spiritual health. The rest of the book is devoted to Julian teaching his old friend John how he can achieve a similar transformation.
From his readers and listeners, Peale received numerous examples of healing in which the element of faith is present. In each of these instances, the best resources of medical and psychological science are used in combination with spiritual science resources.
Peale says that faith can boost the effects of medical therapies and bring about well-being if it is in God’s plan for the patient to live (naturally, we all have to die eventually). In the cases of faith-enhanced healing Peale investigated, he found certain factors:
In The Secret, Byrne takes the idea of faith healing to the extreme, claiming that the Law of Attraction can prevent or cure any disease by “attracting” good health. She does note that medicine can help this process, but implies that it’s only because medicine often helps to manage pain—she says that you may not be able to use your full abilities if you’re distracted by pain.
Peale’s approach is more holistic (and more scientifically supported) than Byrne’s absolute reliance on the power of the mind.
In his research, Peale found that cases involving heart attacks respond particularly well to faith. People who have experienced a heart attack who practice faith in God’s healing, along with doing everything their doctors say, go on to remarkable recoveries.
They may even gain greater health because they come to understand the strain they were putting their heart under when they were ill. By surrendering themselves to God’s healing, they opened their consciousness to the vitality and energy available in the universe. They had previously been choking off that energy with their tension and inner conflict.
(Shortform note: The American Heart Association agrees that reducing stress is important for recovering from heart attacks, and for avoiding them in the first place. Therefore, Peale’s idea that faith helps people recover from heart attacks because it reduces strain on the heart has some scientific backing.)
When medicine meets faith, healing can occur.
Do you currently have any health concerns? What do you think about Peale’s assertion that physical ailments are often tied to emotional issues such as guilt, fear or resentment? If so, what lingering negative feelings do you hold?
While adhering to your doctor’s advice, try praying about your physical problem and surrendering it into God’s hands. How does this make you feel?
Problems are part of life—but with faith-based techniques, you can solve your problems in a manner that brings you the best outcome. This chapter explores some of Peale’s suggestions for how to tackle personal problems.
Peale believes that putting your problems in God’s hands helps you solve them in the right way. Understand that the power to solve your problems is within you; having faith in God lets you find the clarity to work out solutions and create a plan of action.
Counterpoint: Responsibility vs. Blame
In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Manson says that it’s important to take responsibility for everything that happens in our lives. (Note that taking responsibility is not the same thing as taking blame—your current situation might not be your fault, but it’s still up to you to deal with it.) Manson would probably not agree with Peale’s suggestion that you leave everything in God’s hands.
However, personal responsibility and faith in God (or your Higher Power of choice) aren’t as incompatible as they seem. Even Peale says that faith is a way to find the clarity to figure out solutions—not that God will magically fix all of your problems for you.
While the power to solve problems is within you, Peale also says that it’s important to have a clearly defined plan to solve your problems when they arise. A good plan will allow you to make the best use of your inner powers, rather than waste your faith energy on ineffective solutions—or, worse, harmful solutions.
Remember: Peale says that positive thinking techniques can turn your thoughts into reality, but he warns that your subconscious can’t distinguish between helpful and harmful thoughts.
How to Make a Plan
Peale advises us to have clear and specific plans to harness our faith power, but he doesn’t give us any guidance on how to do that effectively.
Extreme Ownership, by former SEAL officers “Jocko” Willink and Leif Babin, agrees that planning is crucial for success. While their book is designed for a team leader, their steps for making a plan work equally well when dealing with personal problems.
Define the mission. What, specifically, do you want to accomplish? In this case, what problem do you want to solve?
Review your options. Take stock of your resources: time, assets, and people who can help you. Consider the most effective uses for each of those resources.
Brainstorm. Come up with possible courses of action. If possible, ask others to come up with plans as well; ask them what they would do in your situation.
Commit to a plan. Choose which plan of action you want to pursue—the simplest solution is often the best one. Once you’ve made a choice, commit to it 100%.
Flesh out the plan. Hash out the details of your plan. Be as thorough and as specific as possible. Again, asking others for help will be useful, as they might think of things that you overlooked.
Make contingency plans. Look for weaknesses in your plan, or problems that could cause it to fail. Do what you can to prevent those situations, and make backup plans in case they do arise.
Constantly reassess. As you carry out your plan, stay on the lookout for changing circumstances and new information. Continually ask yourself whether you’re still pursuing the best possible course of action.
Brief your team (if applicable). If others are helping you with your problem, explain the plan that you’ve come up with. Make sure that everyone understands not only the plan, but the reasoning behind it.
Debrief. After carrying out your plan, make an honest assessment of how it went and what you can do better in the future. If you had a team helping you, include them in the debriefing process.
Another of Peale’s problem-solving techniques is to imagine God as your partner. Christianity teaches that God is always close by, available for us to talk to, lean on, and get help from. Many believe this in a general way, but when trying to get solutions to your problems, you have to see God as truly present—as real as your spouse or friend. This divine-human relationship creates great outcomes in sorting out practical problems.
To do this, Peale advises talking over your problems with God and believing that he hears you and is thinking about your problem. Know that you will receive the right ideas and insights to solve your problem. Know that you will be guided to the right actions, driven by truth.
In essence, Peale is suggesting that you practice thinking out loud. Even if you don’t believe that you’re engaging with a Higher Power who will give you the answers you need, thinking out loud has some notable benefits.
According to clinical psychologist Jessica Nicolosi, thinking out loud forces us to slow down and engage more deeply with our thoughts. Speaking also engages different areas of the brain, which may help when trying to come up with creative ideas.
Praying alone is powerful, but Peale says that praying or meditating with others can boost its effectiveness even further. Adding others’ thoughts and energy to your own can help keep you focused, guide you to answers that you may not have found on your own, and increase the amount of faith energy you can direct at a problem. Therefore, Peale suggests that you try praying with two or three close friends.
Many spiritual traditions emphasize the importance of praying or meditating in groups. For example, in Judaism, certain blessings and rituals can’t be performed without a minyan: A group of 10 or more Jewish adults.
While individuals can say their own prayers, a minyan is required in order to read from the Torah. Certain blessings like the Kaddish (the traditional prayer of mourning) also require a minyan in order to symbolize that the Jewish community is joining together in prayer.
Peale offers the following strategies for overcoming a vexing problem:
Notice that many of Peale’s steps here are about taking a break, walking away from the problem, and letting your mind work on its own. You’ve probably had the experience of solving a problem when you stop consciously thinking about it—indeed, sometimes we have our greatest insights when we’re focused on something unrelated to the problem.
Chris Bailey, author of Hyperfocus, explains why this happens: Unfinished tasks tend to stick in your memory—the Zeigarnik Effect—and your subconscious mind keeps working on the problem even when you’re not actively trying to solve it. That means that you’re examining every new piece of information you come across and trying to connect it to the problem that you’ve “stopped working on.”
Because it’s not a conscious process, finding the right piece of information to make the right connection feels like a sudden flash of insight.
The second part of Peale’s system for a good life is positive thinking: He believes that a positive mindset will allow us to take control of our lives and reach our goals.
Peale argues that we create our own happiness in this life, and we get to decide if we’re happy or unhappy. If you want to be unhappy, filled with fear, worry, resentment, and hate, you can choose unhappiness by going around complaining that things aren’t going your way. Even though bad things in life can and do happen, we can manufacture unhappiness by thinking unhappy thoughts and having unhappy attitudes.
However, Peale suggests that you choose happiness instead. He says every one of us can achieve happiness, if we want it and if we apply the right formula. For example, instead of telling yourself that things never go your way, you can focus on telling yourself that life is good.
(Shortform note: A 2020 study found that smiling—even faking a smile—can improve your mood and cause others to respond to you more positively. This effect seems to stem from a subconscious connection between the physical act of smiling and the good mood that usually accompanies it. In other words, Peale is correct: We can force ourselves to be happy, at least to some extent.)
Peale’s first suggestion for a positive mindset is to develop the habit of being happy. When you develop the happiness habit, life becomes more enjoyable every day. Because habits are something you can develop, you have the power to create your own happiness.
When cultivating the happiness habit, stick to some simple principles proven to help you live a happy life, such as keeping your heart free of hate, giving more and expecting less, thinking of others, living simply, and keeping the mind free of worry.
Peale says that practicing these principles for one week will bring you to the beginnings of a happy life.
The Anatomy of a Habit
Atomic Habits by James Clear teaches you how to intentionally form a new habit, such as the happiness habit that Peale recommends here.
Clear says that there are four parts to a habit:
Cue: This is what triggers the habit, like how the smell of cigarette smoke might make a smoker want to indulge. For Peale’s happiness habit, the cue might be waking up in the morning, or feeling negative emotions creeping in.
Craving: This is the emotional response that the cue triggers. In other words, it’s what prompts you to perform your habit. For someone with a happiness habit, the craving would be the desire to feel good.
Response: This is the actual behavior, like when the smoker from the previous example lights a cigarette. In a happiness habit, the response might be reciting a Psalm as Peale suggests, or replacing a negative thought with a positive one.
Reward: This is the satisfaction you gain from performing your habit. As your brain comes to associate that satisfaction with the previous three steps, you’ll form a habit. In other words, your brain will remember what prompted you to do a certain thing, and that you felt better after doing it, so it’ll prompt you to keep repeating that behavior.
According to Clear, you can intentionally use this process to form positive and helpful habits: Recognize your cue and the craving it triggers, then choose a healthy response to that craving. Use that same response each time you feel the craving, and it will eventually become a habit.
Choosing to be happy is in your power.
One way to develop the happiness habit is by thinking happy thoughts. Make a list of happy thoughts you can run through your mind throughout the day. Write them here.
Showing compassion for others is one way to create happiness for yourself. Think about the people you encounter on a daily basis in your life. What are some concrete ways you can reach out to these people and show them compassion?
The author suggests that mornings set the stage for your daily happiness. Tomorrow morning, what are some positive affirmations you can use to start your day?
Peale promises that when you expect the best in life, you get the best. When you expect the worst, that’s what you get. When you change your mental habits to a state of constant belief instead of doubt, everything becomes possible.
Peale contends that expecting the best and believing it’s possible triggers the Law of Attraction, and you draw the best to you. But when you expect the worst, you’re actually releasing the power of repulsion—pushing away the best outcome.
Another possible explanation for the Law of Attraction is that people who expect good outcomes are simply better prepared for them, compared to people who don’t think a good outcome is possible.
For example, a 10-year study of “luck” concluded that optimistic people seem to attract good luck because they’re more open to unexpected opportunities. Pessimists are less likely to recognize or pursue those opportunities.
Peale says that we can use The Bible to enhance our faith, expect the best in every situation, and put our whole hearts into whatever we want to accomplish.
His technique begins with reading the New Testament and noticing how many times faith is mentioned. While reading, choose about a dozen statements about faith—whichever ones appeal most to you. Next, memorize each of those faith statements. Say them over and over again, allowing them to sink into your subconscious mind. As a starting point, he suggests Matthew 17:20: “If you have faith, nothing will be impossible to you,” and Matthew 9:29, “According to your faith, be it unto you.”
Peale says that, when you’ve fully absorbed these faith tenets, you’ll have the strength of belief and willpower to get what you truly want from life.
Peale’s faith statements are, in essence, Christian mantras: Phrases that you repeat over and over to ingrain them into your mind and your belief system.
There’s scientific evidence that mantras may help boost people’s moods, concentration, and optimism. A group of doctors in Ireland performed a systematic review of studies that claimed to show the effectiveness of mantras and meditation; they concluded that mantras may offer “minimal to moderate” mental health benefits.
When your heart isn’t in your endeavor, you are easily defeated; but when your heart is fired up, you’re free from self-doubt. Peale says that faith power works because it allows you to put everything you’ve got into what you want to accomplish.
Faith and belief unleash the ability to go after your dreams wholeheartedly. Faith allows you to bring physical, emotional, and spiritual resources to your endeavor, which is incredibly powerful.
According to Peale, we prevent ourselves from living and acting wholeheartedly because of doubt. His solution is to overcome doubt with faith.
The self-help book Daring Greatly, by Brené Brown, suggests another possibility: We hold ourselves back because of shame, and we must overcome shame through vulnerability.
According to Brown, shame is an internalized feeling that you’re not “good enough,” and that you don’t deserve to have all that life can offer you. She urges you to identify those feelings when they arise, and to think about where they’re coming from. Once that’s done, share your experience with someone you trust. You’ll be revealing part of your internal shame—you’ll be leaving yourself vulnerable and seeing that you aren’t hurt by doing so.
Brown promises that, once we overcome our fears and our shame, we’ll be able to bring our full attention and energy to everything we do—to live wholeheartedly.
Peale insists that to achieve what you want in life, you have to clearly define your goal. Belief, faith, and expecting the best can only happen when you have a clearly defined objective. Too many people go nowhere because they just don’t know where they want to go—no objective means no end result.
Specificity is important in faith power; great things don’t happen for some people because they’re not being specific enough. Use your faith power to attract the one thing you need in the moment, or to attack your single greatest obstacle.
In The Secret, Byrne warns that the Law of Attraction—another term for Peale’s “faith power”—doesn’t consider whether something would be good for us or not; if our thoughts are negative, angry, or hateful, we’ll attract more negativity, anger, or hate into our lives.
Therefore, in addition to making our thoughts clear and specific (as Peale says), Byrne adds that we should be careful what we think about. Make sure that you’re thinking only about things that you actually want to attract.
Don’t allow doubt to creep in; doubt chokes off the flow of faith power. Never speak or even think about a poor outcome.
To eliminate doubt and boost your faith power, Peale suggests telling yourself every day that God gives you the power to achieve what you want. Repeat many times daily that you expect the best, and that God can help you get it. This conditions your thoughts toward the best outcomes and will guide the best to you.
Again, The Secret helps explain this concept in more depth. According to Byrne, there are actually two ways that doubt interferes with the Law of Attraction:
You’re not sure what you want. If your wishes are muddled and doubtful, you won’t be sending clear “signals,” so your powers of attraction will be much weaker.
You’re not sure that you’ll get what you want. If you don’t fully believe that you’ll receive what you’re asking for, the universe won’t believe it either. Again, this means that your powers of attraction will be much weaker than they could be.
No doubt you’re facing any number of personal challenges at the moment. What if, instead of feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, you imagined that every problem would resolve itself in the best possible way?
Think about a challenge you are currently facing. What would be the best possible outcome for that situation?
Fix the image of that outcome clearly in your mind. Now, what’s an action or behavior you can take to start turning that image into reality?
When you think about defeat, you tend to get defeated. Instead, Peale advises, adopt a mindset where you don’t believe in defeat. This mindset requires faith; remember one of Peale’s favorite Bible passages, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
The first step is to not be afraid of whatever obstacle you are facing; instead, stand up to it. Practice believing God is with you, and together you can handle whatever the problem is. When you stand up to your obstacles, the obstacles don’t seem quite as strong.
In this section, Peale warns against the fear of defeat. Purple Cow, by marketing guru Seth Godin, offers a tidbit on the dangers of fear.
Godin says that fear creates a logical paradox:
When things are going badly, we think we can’t afford to take risks.
When things are going well, we think we don’t need to take risks.
In short, fear paralyzes us—we’ll always find a reason not to act. Peale is suggesting that we adopt a mindset where defeat doesn’t exist so that we don’t get paralyzed by that fear.
According to Peale, faith is what keeps you going when things get hard. When facing difficulties, try to remember that—as unique as you may think your situation is—other people have experienced it before you.
People have overcome every conceivable situation, so someone has overcome your situation, no matter how impossible it may seem. There’s no difficulty you can’t overcome.
In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Manson approaches this same issue from a different angle, and bluntly tells us that we’re not special. In other words:
Your problems aren’t unique.
Other people have it worse than you.
Whatever you’re going through, it’s not an excuse to give up.
Manson’s suggestion is to take responsibility for your own situation, whatever it is. That doesn’t mean taking the blame—rather, it means accepting that you have the ability and the obligation to work through your difficulties and improve your life.
Whereas Peale urges us to have faith in God, Manson’s advice is to have faith in ourselves; to trust that there’s no problem so dire that we can’t overcome it.
How we handle obstacles stems from our mental attitude. Most of our obstacles are mental in nature. Even when obstacles are physical or external, our attitude toward them dictates our response.
Peale says that, if you take the mental attitude that an obstacle is impossible to overcome, you won’t get past that obstacle. But when you firmly believe that the obstacle is removable, you start the process that leads to the obstacle’s eventual defeat.
We all face difficulties and obstacles. While real, they aren’t as insurmountable as they seem when you keep faith, believe that God has given you the power to lift yourself out of the situation, and affirm that with this power you can do anything.
Use Faith or Reason Against Obstacles
While Peale suggests that we overcome obstacles with faith, other schools of thought claim that we can do so with logic.
Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is one of the definitive books on Stoicism. In it, Aurelius urges us to examine every situation rationally, instead of emotionally. By doing so, Aurelius says, we’ll realize that the only thing that can really impede us is ourselves—no external force can prevent us from doing what we know is right, or force us to do something that we know is wrong. Therefore, the only reason we haven’t been able to overcome a certain obstacle is that we’ve convinced ourselves that we can’t do it; that the situation is too difficult or too unfair.
In truth, all we have to do for any problem is approach it rationally, determine the solution, and then do what needs to be done. To give a simple example: If you’re about to eat an apple and you find that it’s rotten, you simply throw it away. You immediately recognize that there’s no benefit to complaining about the rotten apple or keeping it in your house; you just solve the problem and move on.
Ryan Holiday’s book The Obstacle is the Way takes this concept a step further, saying that the most successful people are those who can turn apparent obstacles into advantages. For example, in the “Rumble in the Jungle” between boxing legends Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, Ali took advantage of his opponent’s immense strength and brutality: He used the rope-a-dope to trick Foreman into exhausting himself with ineffective punches, then struck back in a later round to win the match.
Understand that with faith, all things are possible.
Peale says that all the “little negatives” in our daily conversations can add up to create a negative mindset that blocks our faith in ourselves. What is a particular “little negative” you find yourself saying regularly? What can you replace it with?
One way of taking a positive approach to a problem is to attack it from the angle of least resistance—in other words, to find the easiest way to solve it. What is a specific problem you are facing now? What is the “least resistance” approach to this problem?
Write down a current problem you are facing. Crumple up the paper and throw it in a basket, imagining and believing that you’ve put the problem into God’s hands. Go back to the problem a few days later. Does it seem less insurmountable? Did you gain any insight on the problem?
Your thoughts are powerful; they dictate the type of life you lead, the kind of person you are, and the experiences you have. Your thoughts can create or change the conditions around you. You can think yourself into or out of a situation.
Peale reiterates that positive thoughts create positive outcomes, while negative thoughts lead to negative outcomes. If you’re unhappy with your current circumstances, you can remake your life by getting rid of your old, negative thoughts and filling your mind with new thoughts that reflect faith, creativity, love, and goodness.
Whether or not you believe that your thoughts can literally change the world around you as Peale claims, there’s no denying that your thought patterns have a major impact on your happiness and mental well-being.
A major lesson of Stoicism, which Aurelius teaches in Meditations, is that outside forces cannot harm you. Aurelius insists that you don’t get hurt or upset by what happens to you; you get hurt or upset by how you respond to it. For a Stoic like Aurelius, controlling your thoughts isn’t about removing hardships from your path, but rather making yourself immune to those hardships.
Aurelius also believed that physical pain was meaningless, and the only thing that could truly hurt you was something that hurt your character or your sense of self. He’s not claiming that you can make yourself immune to injury or disease, just that you can toughen yourself mentally so that physical pain doesn’t stop you.
To start thinking differently, form a positive mental picture of how things should be—don’t just accept the way things are.
Hold that mental picture and believe it deeply; pray about it, and do what you can to make it a reality. This process will unleash creative thinking, helping you realize the outcome you want. Peale calls this ability to actualize your mental image one of the “greatest laws in the universe.” He says it is the key to prosperity, happiness, and success.
Tony Robbins’s book Awaken the Giant Within suggests another way in which imagining the outcomes we want can be a powerful tool for reaching our goals.
Robbins believes that we often limit ourselves by using experience, rather than imagination, as our reference point for making decisions. While using past experience to predict what might happen sounds reasonable, the problem is that we apply our past experiences far too broadly.
For example, someone who does poorly on a math test might conclude that he’s a bad student, rather than recognizing that he was just struggling with one subject. Instead of applying his experience with that test to all schooling, Robbins would suggest that he imagine what other subjects he might do well in and how exciting it could be to learn new things.
Peale suggests some practical techniques to help you change your mental attitude from negative to positive. He claims that, by doing so, you can release creative new thoughts that will help you actualize what you visualize.
Speak positively: Try optimism for 24 hours. During this time, speak optimistically about all aspects of your life, health, and future. After speaking optimistically for 24 hours, try next for one week. Then give yourself a day or two off to be “realistic.” You may see that what you used to think of as realistic thinking is actually pessimistic thinking.
Think positively: Feed your mind positive thoughts. Peale recommends reading and memorizing Bible passages about faith. Though this will take time, think of how much time you’ve spent becoming a negative thinker. Say prayers of thanks for all the wonderful things God is giving you. The idea is that God wants to give you great blessings, but he can’t give you anything greater than what you can believe in. So believe big.
Spend time with positive people: Determine which of your friends are positive thinkers and which are negative thinkers. Stay closer to the positive thinkers for a while, then go back to the negative friends; you'll be able to share your positivism without absorbing their negativism.
Peale’s suggestions here are mostly about how you interact with other people and with your Higher Power (when he suggests you think positively, he primarily means that you fill your mind with thoughts about God). In consequence, he misses a crucial and science-backed technique for changing your thoughts: positive self-talk. This is slightly different from Peale’s suggestion to speak positively about all aspects of your life: While you may have many opportunities throughout the day to speak about your life with others, you still likely aren’t addressing the thousands of negative thoughts you don’t express out loud.
In Awaken the Giant Within, Robbins suggests an approach that addresses these negative thoughts more directly: changing the way you talk to yourself.
Robbins says that thinking is just asking yourself questions and then answering them. Therefore, the questions you ask yourself form the foundation of your thought patterns.
For example, if you ask yourself negative questions like, “Why can’t I do anything right?” you’ll force yourself into harmful, disempowering thought patterns. However, by asking yourself positive, empowering questions like, “What went well?” or even, “What can I do better next time?” you’ll put yourself into a more confident and practical mindset.
Creative thinking can help you actualize what you visualize.
Think of something specific in your life’s circumstances you want to change. What is it?
Create a mental image of how you’d like things to be. Pray about it. What are some concrete things you can do right now to help the process along?
Think about your friends who are more positive thinkers. Who are they? How can you spend more time with them?
We’ve discussed the importance of faith and positive thinking according to Peale. Now we move on to the third and final part of his system: concrete, practical methods of incorporating faith and positive thinking into your life.
Peale says that living with strain and anxiety is difficult, but living in a state of inner peace makes for an easy, calm existence. A mind full of anxiety leads to turmoil and unhappiness, but a mind full of peace promotes health and well-being.
(Shortform note: There is a strong connection between mental health and physical health; each bolsters (or harms) the other; for example, anxiety can cause nausea and insomnia. Therefore, as Peale says, inner peace helps promote outer health.)
Peale suggests several methods by which you can gain a calm and peaceful mind:
(Shortform note: The Jewish ritual of tashlich (“casting away”) is one way of emptying the mind. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year), congregants symbolically cast their sins—often physically represented by bread crumbs—into a body of running water. This ritual helps Jews to let go of their fears and regrets from the past year, and face the coming year with a fresh mindset.)
(Shortform note: What Peale calls “suggestive articulation” is a practice more commonly referred to as reciting a mantra; a word or simple phrase that you can repeat many times in a row. Doing so focuses your attention and your willpower on what you want to do, or who you want to be. For example, someone struggling with self-esteem issues might repeat, “I am strong, I am intelligent, I am worthy.”)
Social media didn’t exist when Peale wrote this book, but—for better or worse—we now have more social interactions, on and offline, than ever before. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that those interactions are positive ones.
One study found that sites like Facebook have a direct impact on young people’s self-esteem and overall mental health. Positive interactions on such sites improve their well-being, while negative interactions worsen it. We can cultivate our social media experiences based on who we connect with and follow online, and who we block from interacting with us.
The two exercises that Peale suggests—emptying the mind and sitting in silence—are different forms of meditation.
The first is a variation on candle meditation. The idea of candle meditation is to either look at a candle flame or picture one in your mind, and think of nothing else. You should acknowledge any thoughts that intrude on your meditation, and then dismiss them; as you continue to practice, those intrusive thoughts should come less frequently and disappear more quickly. This is because candle meditations help you to develop focus and mental discipline.
Peale’s second exercise is a type of visualization meditation that’s designed to put you into a calm, content state of mind. Some would call this particular exercise a “happy place” visualization.
Peale’s emphasis on silence and solitude is meant to help you avoid distractions, so that you can just be alone with your thoughts.
Peale says that we may lack inner peace because we’re punishing ourselves for some real or imagined sin. When you’re unable to forgive yourself for something, you live in a state of constant anxiety that punishment is coming. In these situations, people often work constantly to try to ease whatever guilt they’re feeling.
Peale suggests you find peace of mind in this predicament by releasing your guilt and putting it in God’s hands.
If you feel guilty or live in fear of punishment, it’s because you’re blaming yourself for something that you’ve done or think you’ve done. In Meditations (one of the definitive Stoic texts), Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius offers this advice about blame:
Blame is pointless. People cause harm either because of ignorance, or by accident. Blaming people (including yourself) for what they don’t know, or because they made a mistake, is pointless; it’s much better to teach them (or learn) how to avoid that issue in the future.
Blame is useless. Even if you could reasonably blame someone (again, including yourself), doing so wouldn’t make the situation any better. Therefore, assigning blame is a waste of time and energy.
Living without strain creates a peaceful existence.
Peale says it’s important to fill your mind with positive thoughts and peaceful images. What is your “memory visit” that you can call up when you need to find peace? Describe it in detail and explain how it makes you feel.
Meditating on peaceful words is another method for restoring peace. The author likes the words “tranquility” and “serenity.” What words or lines from a poem or Bible passage resonate for you? Write them here.
Sometimes a sense of guilt can diminish our inner peace. Peale says the answer is to put the situation in God’s hands. Is there something you feel guilty about that’s eating away at your inner peace? Try putting the situation into higher power’s hands, and letting it go. How does this make you feel?
Our thoughts affect how we feel physically. When your thoughts tell you you’re tired, the body accepts this and feels tired. But when your mind and thoughts are engaged and interested in what you’re doing, you have the energy to keep going indefinitely. Peale believes that thoughts involving faith are especially powerful because they bring you feelings of endless support and power, which further fuel you.
Peale’s idea is that God is the source of all energy; maintaining contact with God taps us into all of this energy, giving us access to the very same energy that God used to create the world.
Robin Sharma’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari shows how spiritual health can boost your energy through a parable:
Julian Mantle is a famous and wealthy lawyer, but he suffers from his unbalanced lifestyle: He overworks himself, has unhealthy eating and drinking habits, and never makes time for his spiritual health. This all culminates in a mid-trial heart attack.
Julian recovers, but quits practicing law and travels to India to seek spiritual guidance. When he returns, he claims to have found inner peace—and, as a result, he now has the strength and energy of a man half his age.
Sharma says that you can achieve similar results to Julian’s through a combination of meditation or prayer, physical and mental exercises, and clean, simple living.
Peale believes that people who are capable of immense amounts of work, fueled by seemingly endless energy, are in touch with what he calls the natural rhythm of God. Such people don’t necessarily have more energy than others; instead, they use their energy efficiently. They exert effort at the proper times and places, and they never waste their energy trying to force something to happen at the wrong time or in the wrong way.
Peale suggests you get in touch with the proper tempo of life by listening to the sounds of nature, or by hearing the word of God at church. However, he adds that you can also find it in your daily life. To boost your energy and avoid exhaustion, find the natural rhythm in everything you do by relaxing your body and mind.
What Peale calls “God’s rhythm” is better known by another name: flow. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term in his book of the same name. He describes flow as an optimal state in which we’re both completely focused and completely happy. While in a state of flow, we can do our best work seemingly without effort, and we often lose track of time.
Csikszentmihalyi says that reaching a state of flow requires a few conditions:
Your task must be enjoyable. A major part of flow is losing yourself in your work. That won’t be possible if you hate what you’re doing.
You must have a clear goal. People often talk about focusing on their work, but they’re really focusing on a goal—the work to reach that goal is incidental.
Your task must be challenging, but not frustrating. Something too easy will be boring, while something too hard will be discouraging. Neither situation will allow you to reach a flow state.
Sometimes people are tired and have no energy because they're not interested in anything. They are so wrapped up in their personal concerns that nothing outside of themselves moves them. As a result, they’re constantly bored and lacking in energy.
(Shortform note: Disinterest and lethargy can also be signs of depression. If you think that might be the case for you, recall that Peale suggests seeking professional counseling when needed.)
To fight this, Peale advises you to get interested in something worthwhile outside of yourself, and throw yourself into it wholeheartedly. When you lose yourself in something bigger than you, you’ll have more energy.
In The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Sharma says that knowing your purpose in life is like having a lighthouse to guide you through dangerous waters. To find your purpose, Sharma suggests setting specific, attainable, long-term goals for yourself in key areas of your life (physical health, spiritual health, relationships, career goals, and so on).
He also suggests keeping a “Dream Book.” In this book, you keep track of all the different goals you set for yourself, and your progress toward those goals. By doing so, you’ll be able to easily see which goals come naturally to you, and which ones you’re most excited to work toward. That will be important information in determining your ultimate purpose in life.
Another cause of low energy is staleness—feeling a sense of monotony that undercuts the freshness you need to do your work successfully. When you feel bored and stale, it takes more energy to do things you used to do easily.
Peale’s advice for those suffering from such staleness is to reconnect with God, the Bible, and nature.
Ennui is another word for this kind of staleness. Ennui is more than simple boredom; it’s a deep-seated dissatisfaction with your life, coupled with a total lack of drive to change things.
Whereas Peale suggests overcoming ennui by reconnecting with meaningful things such as God and nature, Kieran Setiya—a professor of philosophy at MIT—claims that a shift in perspective may be all that you need. He suggests these four steps to overcome ennui (or staleness):
Forget about FOMO. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is the regret that we all feel about the things we didn’t do. For example, if you go to school for business, some part of you might regret that you didn’t go for English or computer science. The key to overcoming FOMO is to recognize that there will always be paths you didn’t take—it’s not possible to make every choice at once. Since “missing out” is unavoidable, there’s no sense in dwelling on it.
Trade regret for appreciation. Take time to think about everything you currently have: your friends and loved ones, your current career, and all the different ways your life is adding value to the world. Focus your attention on those positives, instead of on worries or regrets about what you chose not to do.
Make small changes. Ennui is about boredom just as much as it’s about regret. Therefore, you can fight ennui by making changes to your current life. For example, try taking up a new hobby (or rekindling your interest in an old one). Alternatively, take on an interesting challenge at work.
Enjoy the process. Goals are important, but it’s equally important to enjoy the day-to-day work that you put into reaching those goals. Take each moment as it comes, and relish each opportunity to put your skills to work.
When you lose your zest for life, how do you get it back?
Have you ever experienced a loss of energy—or are you experiencing one right now? Do you think it stemmed/stems from boredom, guilt, a loss of rhythm or something else?
Peale says that finding God’s rhythm in your work can put you in touch with an easy flow of energy. In your work, are you in rhythm or do you find yourself exhausted? What are some ways you could get in harmony with the flow of your work?
Is there an area of life in which you’re bored? How can you get out of this rut, taking into account Peale’s methods for regaining interest?
Peale tells us that prayer can be a source of great power, helping to change your life positively, tapping forces and strength that aren’t normally available to you. Prayer can even restore physical health and well-being and is used by some therapists and other practitioners to help people with their health issues.
Prayer is a manifestation of energy; you can generate spiritual energy through the mechanism of prayer. Prayer power can help you feel youthful energy as you age, keep your spirits up, send you out each morning refreshed and renewed, guide you in solving problems, help you react properly to situations around you, and release your inner power.
(Shortform note: A 2009 study showed that prayer has a number of mental health benefits. Subjects who prayed regularly showed better emotional states, and less severe symptoms of anxiety and depression than those in the control (non-praying) group.)
Perhaps you haven’t had this kind of experience with prayer. You may associate it only with religion, and not with creating change in your life. If so, understand that there is a scientific side to prayer, with different patterns and formulas that you can apply to get better results.
Peale advises us to experiment with prayer power methods; new techniques are always being discovered to help harness the power of prayer. The idea is to find the method that works for you—that helps you open your mind to God, and let God’s power flow into your life.
There are many different ways to pray; this article from JustDisciple offers 25 methods you can experiment with. A few examples are:
Prayer journals. Write down what you’re praying about, so that you have something physical to focus on.
Group prayer. This method is especially helpful when many people have the same wish, such as asking God to help an area that was struck by a natural disaster.
Inner prayers. Instead of just reciting prayers by rote and then moving on, pray silently, and listen for what God might be saying back to you.
Routine prayers. Set aside a time each day for prayers—the same time each day, if possible. Having a routine like this will make sure that you don’t skip your prayers, as well as strengthening your focus and your discipline.
Peale suggests another prayer formula consisting of three parts: “pray,” “imagine,” and “create.”
Peale says that utilizing prayer power is a practical faith technique, and it isn’t always what people picture when they think of religion and prayer. It can be used in business or any area of life.
Should You Spread Your Power, or Focus It?
Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, advocates a similar approach of using visualization and faith to will what you want into being. However, Hill’s advice has one key difference: Whereas Peale advises you to use imagination and prayer to handle day-to-day problems, Hill argues that you should focus your mind completely on one clear and defined purpose. In fact, he goes so far as to say that your goal should border on an obsession—that it should be all you imagine or think about.
There are benefits and drawbacks to each of these ideas. Peale’s method—using visualization and prayer to tackle individual issues as they arise—is a more balanced way to approach your life. However, Hill’s method of focusing all of your time and energy on a single purpose is more effective for achieving major life goals (assuming those goals are reasonably achievable).
Peale believes that everything in the universe is made up of vibrations. Prayer is simply sending out vibrations to God as well as from one person to another.
When you pray for someone else, you are sending that person a sense of support, love, and helpfulness. This process awakens vibrations in the universe, and God responds by helping to make whatever you’re praying for come to pass.
The author has made it a habit to send out prayers all day long to the people he encounters, even briefly, letting the power of God move through him, to the people he prays for, and back again to God, creating an endless loop of prayer power.
Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret uses similar imagery to Peale’s “vibrations:” Byrne says that we’re like transmission towers sending out signals to the universe. Just as a television shows a picture based on the signals it receives, the signals we send out can shape the world around us. According to Byrne, by sending the right signals, we can create whatever kind of life we want for ourselves.
Byrne’s theory is an extension of the Law of Attraction, a New Thought philosophy stating that positive people bring more positivity into their lives, while negative people only attract negativity. In short, we attract the same kind of energy that we emit.
In this chapter and with these tips, Peale gives a “quick-fix” guide to prayer. While these are helpful incremental changes, Peale’s approach overlooks the fact that it takes time and effort to become good at praying and to feel the full effects of it.
The Book of Joy, by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, frames prayer as a muscle that needs to be built. They caution us to temper our expectations; deep, meditative prayer doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people, and getting good at it takes work.
However, if you continually practice Peale’s techniques for getting effective results from prayer, they should become easier and more rewarding for you over time.
To make prayer or meditation a regular practice, find the joy in it, don’t expect it to be a magic bullet, and take advantage of pockets of time during which you’d otherwise be on your phone, like when you’re waiting for your turn at the DMV.
Use the power of prayer in your life.
Peale talks about the “pray, imagine, create” formula for prayer. What is a problem in your life you’re currently dealing with? Try praying about it right now by speaking directly to your Higher Power. What is your prayer? Write it here.
Now imagine the solution and hold it firmly in your mind. What does it look like?
How confident do you feel that you’ve created your solution, or that you soon will?
We often make life more difficult for ourselves by getting agitated and worked up about situations. Peale calls this “fuming and fretting.” To gain power and live life to the fullest, he urges us to overcome that agitation; to find our calm and our focus. Here are several ways you can do that:
Peale’s first step is to reduce the frantic pace of life. Many people drive themselves too hard and too fast, and this tempo leads to overstimulation, which can cause physical and emotional sickness. Slowing down brings you back in line with God’s pace. God’s pace is unhurried; things get done when they are meant to get done. When you slow down and practice being peaceful, you will feel a sense of quiet power rise within you.
Another aspect of slowing your pace is to infuse the peace of God into your mind, soul, and body. By getting the peace of God into your body, you may experience less pain. To do this, relax and think of each muscle and reflect on the peace of God touching it.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck explores the ways in which society constantly drives us to want more of everything, with the result that we never slow down—we’re constantly stressed, exhausted, and unhappy.
Like Peale, Manson finds this unhealthy and unsustainable. Manson suggests that we take a hard look at our lives, determine what’s actually important, and stop giving a f*ck about everything else. Commit yourself deeply to just a few things (for example: your marriage, charity work, or a hobby that you’re passionate about), instead of chasing every fad and passing high that advertising and social media push on you.
Thinking peaceful thoughts will help you attain a peaceful way of life, teaching you to tap new resources of strength. This is Peale’s antidote to anxiety and agitation.
Just as we have a series of daily actions designed to keep our bodies healthy (brushing teeth, exercising, bathing), we must give time and effort to keeping our mind healthy.
One method is to sit quietly and run a series of peaceful thoughts through your mind, for example the memory of a beautiful place you once visited. It’s recommended you do this once every 24 hours, preferably when you’re at your busiest, and practice being calm and serene.
Peale suggests that we meditate once a day, but doesn’t mention how long it will take to achieve results.
In The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Sharma recommends a similar practice: Taking 15-50 minutes each day to sit quietly with your own thoughts. You’ll probably find even 15 minutes difficult at first; however, as you continue to practice, that time will keep increasing.
Another step toward achieving calm is to control your physical reactions. Peale suggests you start by keeping physically still. Don’t move, pace, wring your hands, or let yourself get worked up. Sit, stand still, or lie down. A physical attitude can guide your mental attitude, diffusing all the emotional heat you may be feeling.
Peale says to practice being indifferent or “sluggish” if you’re too keyed up. This will bring you back to a more balanced emotional state.
Naturally, the times when we’re stressed and overwhelmed are when we’ll find it hardest to sit quietly in prayer or meditation. However, that’s exactly when we need it the most.
There’s an old Zen proverb that teaches that lesson. The proverb says that you should meditate for 20 minutes every day. If you don’t think you have time for that, then you should meditate for an hour every day.
In other words, if you’re so busy that you don’t want to take 20 minutes to meditate, that’s a sure sign that you need to calm down and recenter yourself—to practice being relaxed and indifferent.
To help you reign in your anxiety and help restore you to a peaceful, calm state, Peale suggests you picture your mind as the surface of a stormy lake and watch as the lake becomes calm. Then think about a peaceful scene you once saw. Finally, think about times in your life when you were worried and anxious, but God took care of you and everything turned out fine, and repeat this phrase from Isaiah 26:3: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” These words will help relieve your mind of tension.
A more practical option that Peale doesn’t mention is to have a fallback plan in case the thing you’re afraid of comes true.
For example, Phil Knight (co-founder of Blue Ribbon Sports, which is known today as Nike) passed a CPA exam to become an accountant when his company's future was looking treacherous. As a result, Knight knew that he could fall back on something if his business didn't work out. That gave him the security and confidence to continue running his business, and grow it into the giant corporation it is today.
Relieve your mind of tension.
The frantic pace of life can increase our tension and anxiety, leading to a lack of peace. Peale found himself hurrying from obligation to obligation. What is a common situation in your life that leads to you feeling overwhelmed and lacking peace?
The next time you’re in a situation like that, what is something you can do to take a step back and regroup?
Controlling your physical reactions is one way to keep calm. For example, it’s hard to be mad if you’re lying down and hard to argue when you’re whispering. Think of something that makes you angry, then try lying down or whispering. Write down how it works!
Worry is a destructive and unhealthy mental habit that can actually cause health problems. The word worry is derived from a word whose literal meaning is “to choke.” Think of worry as choking the flow of your power.
Peale adds that worry is also dangerous; when you fear something for a long time, you can actually draw that thing to you. In other words, you might cause the very thing you fear happening.
It may help us to first get a working definition of “worrying”—what exactly is Peale warning us against here?
In How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie starts with a simple but effective definition: Worrying is when you focus on something outside of the present moment. Thus, the solution to worrying is simply to stop doing that; instead, take life one day at a time and be fully present in each moment, instead of thinking about the past or the future.
Unfortunately, letting go of your worries is easier said than done. This chapter will offer some practical techniques to help you get started.
Peale likens eliminating worries to cutting down a large tree. First, tree cutters snip off small branches, followed by bigger ones, and then the top. The trunk is last but is brought down more easily since it has been stripped of all branches.
Think of your worries as a big tree built up over a number of years. It’s much more manageable to make it as small as possible by cutting off the little worries rather than trying to attack the whole thing at once. Eventually, you’ll snip off all the smaller worries and hit the main trunk of worry, but at this point, you’ll have developed the skills to defeat worry and eliminate the worry habit entirely.
One way to cut small worries is to stop using worry words in your conversation and replace them with faith words. For example, instead of saying, “I’m worried that I'll be late,” vow to leave extra early so that there’s no chance of being late. Without worry, your mind is clearer, making it more likely that you’ll be timely.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck has some useful advice on how to make major changes, such as letting go of worries. Much like Peale suggests that you attack your small worries first, Manson says that in order to make any major change, the key is to start with something easy. Accomplishing a small, easy goal will then motivate you to take the next step.
For example, if you want to develop more empathy, your first goal might be to simply listen to someone else’s problem. Hearing that problem might make you want to help. Wanting to help could drive you to think of a solution, and then implement it. Each small step drives the next, and eventually you reach your larger goal of developing empathy.
Create a ritual that will help you move on at the end of each day, without dwelling on whatever hardships you faced or whatever mistakes you might have made. For example, as you leave your office at the end of each day, you could place your hand on the doorframe and take a deep breath. As you exhale, release all the day’s negative energy into the frame and leave it there as you walk away.
A ritual like this will provide a “bookend” to your day: a clear sign that it’s now in the past, and not worth worrying about.
Tara Brach, in Radical Acceptance, offers a Buddhist perspective on worrying: Obsessing over the past and worrying about the future are unhealthy coping mechanisms. They create the illusion of control in our lives but disconnect us from our moment-to-moment experiences.
We must realize that thinking about the past and the future only serves to build up walls around our present experiences. Instead, we should simply accept each experience (positive or negative) as it comes, and move on with life once the experience has passed.
We’ll end with Peale’s other tactics to defeat worry. Like most of the book, he focuses on overcoming worry with faith and positivity:
Defeat Worry With Reason
As is typical of his philosophy, Peale advises us to overcome worry with faith and positivity. While positivity is an important aspect of coping with anxieties, focusing solely on positivity excludes other valid approaches to dealing with worry.
For instance, Marcus Aurelius suggests adding reason to your toolkit. In Meditations, Aurelius contends that worrying is useless (it won’t fix anything), and he suggests that we overcome worry by approaching every situation rationally.
First, Aurelius advises us to see things for what they really are, instead of getting distracted by the hype or the stories built up around them. For example, if you’re stressed because you can’t afford the luxury car you want, consider what that car really is: A collection of metal and plastic that helps you get from one place to another. There’s no reason to spend so much money on it, when you could get a much cheaper one that works equally well.
Secondly, he advises us not to concern ourselves with what other people think and do. The only person you can control is yourself; worrying about what someone else thinks is a waste of time and energy.
Finally, Aurelius says to distinguish between what’s really important and what’s trivial. When we consider things rationally, we’ll realize that a lot of what we do isn’t worth the time and effort we spend on it. By focusing only on what’s important (Aurelius would say our duties, but your personal beliefs about what’s important may vary), we avoid exhausting ourselves worrying about things that are not important.
Break the worry habit and live with faith.
Emptying your mind of all your worries, and refilling it with positive thoughts, is one method to break the worry habit. Try thinking of specific worries you harbor and visualize yourself plucking them out of your mind one by one. How does this make you feel?
Now think of affirming, positive thoughts to refill your mind. What are they?
Are you someone who dwells on past mistakes? Try the doorframe method: At the end of the work day, place your hand on your workplace’s doorframe and breathe all the negative energy into it. Leave the worries and anxiety of the day behind as you walk away. How does this exercise make you feel?
Thought patterns have an effect on your physical state. If you are harboring ill will or resentment toward someone, it can manifest in decreased energy or even physical illness. Your mental and physical health are linked; if one is ailing, the other will suffer.
Medical and scientific studies have shown that Peale is correct: Prolonged emotional stress puts a great deal of strain on the body, and it can lead to various physical illnesses. The reverse is also true—people who suffer from chronic physical illnesses often struggle with their mental health as well.
However, you can use that fact to your advantage. If you take care of your body (get enough sleep, exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet, and so on) you’ll naturally boost your mood; you’ll find that you feel better mentally as well as physically and are less prone to anger and the other negative feelings that Peale warns against.
When you feel yourself getting angry at someone or a situation, Peale suggests the following methods to restore your emotional well-being.
The Buddhist Approach: The Book of Joy
The Dalai Lama’s The Book of Joy offers a mixture of similar advice on how to counteract negative emotions and embrace happiness, but from a Buddhist perspective. The Dalai Lama advocates a more holistic approach than Peale’s reliance on positive thinking and prayer; The Book of Joy recommends that you both strive for happiness and learn how to make yourself more resilient to mental and emotional pain.
The Book of Joy lays out nine obstacles to joy that we must overcome or reject within ourselves, as well as eight pillars of joy that we should embrace.
Nine Obstacles to Joy:
Critiquing oneself
Fear and stress
Frustration and anger
Sadness and grief
Despair
Loneliness
Envy
Suffering and adversity
Illness and fear of death
Eight Pillars of Joy:
Different perspectives
Humility
Humor
Acceptance
Forgiveness
Gratitude
Compassion
Generosity
Buddhists often confront their shortcomings and strive for happiness through meditation and faith, much like Peale urges us to do.
Peale ran a clinic where ministers and psychiatrists worked side by side to help people with the tension and stress in their lives. According to Peale, their teamwork was based on mutual respect and recognition that psychiatry and Christianity are both sciences with their own methods and systems.
When someone came to the clinic, a psychiatrist would study the person’s problem to understand the root causes of their unhappiness. Then the psychiatrist would send the person to a minister, who would prescribe therapies based in prayer, faith, and love. Psychiatrists and ministers pooled their techniques and therapies, and many of their patients had good outcomes—they were able to move past whatever problems were causing their stress and their tension and live their lives with joy and hope.
One of the key lessons in The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is to do whatever you need to do calmly and efficiently, without rushing or stressing yourself about it (in fact, too much stress at work was what caused Julian’s heart attack at the start of the book).
Like the patients at Peale’s clinic, Julian used meditation and other spiritual techniques to free himself from the stress and anxiety that had previously ruled his life. As a result, he found that he was more productive and efficient than ever before.
Through the characters of Julian and John, author Robin Sharma observes that the most productive people are the ones with time to spare, not the workaholics as one might expect. The key, Sharma says, is to use your time and energy effectively—in short, to relax.
Peale claims that tension was one of the main problems his clinic dealt with. People have difficulty relaxing, and that stops them from living a full life. One method to reduce tension is simply to slow down. Consciously do everything more easily, slowly, and without pressure.
Remember: A master of any skill is efficient at it. A master is someone who can produce maximum results with minimum effort—that’s why people often say that masters “make it look easy.”
Martial arts illustrate the importance of taking things slowly and easily. The best martial artists are the ones who can move and strike fluidly, without tension or strain. Fighters who exert too much energy or who are too stiff in the ring exhaust themselves, telegraph their moves, and are overall much less effective than those who stay loose.
Sitting quietly and relaxing—getting yourself in tune with God—renews your power and gives you the energy you need to do your best work. That’s why it’s important to keep a quiet mind and practice peaceful thinking, especially during stressful times.
During the day, stop frantically reacting to every little thing that happens; instead, keep your tempo down and conserve energy. Relaxing during the workday is especially difficult, but it’s important because you ultimately get more done.
In Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach talks about what she calls the essential pause: Taking a moment to process and accept what’s happening before you react to it.
Much like Peale, Brach warns us against immediately and frantically reacting to events. Her reasoning is that when we just react, we’re usually in a negative mindframe: We’re lashing out to try to quickly fix something that we think is “wrong.”
Instead, Brach says that before tackling a difficult or upsetting situation, we should do several things:
Take a breath
Recognize and acknowledge our feelings
Look for the right way to take action—and do nothing until we find it
Brach says that the essential pause will allow us to take mindful and effective action, instead of wasting our energy on unhelpful reactions.
Peale offers techniques to help you relax and do your work more easily and effectively.
Peale’s suggestions primarily fall into one of two categories: increasing efficiency (by creating a plan, developing your skills, and enjoying your work) and tapping into the power of your thoughts and prayers. One crucial aspect Peale overlooks in this list is the importance of setting and meeting goals. Experts and self-help authors have noted that reaching goals is one of the best ways to motivate yourself and to stay engaged with your work.
For example, in Flow, Csikszentmihalyi says that activities with clear, achievable goals help us to reach the “flow state” (an ideal mental state where we are completely focused and achieve our best work apparently effortlessly).
Similarly, in Switch, the Heath brothers say that setting short-term goals is crucial in keeping your emotional side engaged in a lengthy task. Each small goal that you reach boosts your emotional state and keeps you striving for the next small victory on the way to achieving a larger goal.
We all want to be liked; it’s a fundamental longing. William James once said, “One of the deepest drives of human nature is the desire to be appreciated.”
Being liked is important for more than just boosting your ego. It’s important to your success in life and in relationships. People who are isolated, with no support system, may end up feeling not wanted or needed—negative emotions that can even lead to illness.
Striving for popularity won’t work, and no matter what you do, you won’t get everyone to like you. Again, it’s simply human nature that not everyone will get along; it’s not a failure or a reflection upon you as a person.
However, while you won’t get everyone to like you, there are ways to make yourself into a person whom other people tend to get along with. This is possible even if you’re not a very social person, or if you’re considered “difficult” to be around.
In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson says something similar: You can’t control what other people think of you, and it’s unhealthy to try. For that reason, Manson says that popularity is a negative value—something that will hurt you and the people around you if you pursue it. Instead, Manson says that you should turn your focus inward; work on becoming happy and comfortable with yourself, and others will find you more likable.
In practice, Manson’s method and Peale’s method look more or less the same. The main difference is that Peale’s method focuses on other people; he says that developing genuine interest and love for others will make you more likable. Manson’s approach is to become a better person for your own benefit; increased popularity is just a side effect.
No matter what your life has been like, you can become a well-liked, popular person. Becoming well-liked is a skill that can be developed.
First, be easygoing and natural; be someone other people can be around without a sense of strain. Peale calls this being a “comfortable person.” When you’re too reserved and stiff, people don’t know how to act or what to say around you.
If you’re not a “comfortable person,” look inward. Don’t assume people don’t like you because something is wrong with them—assume the trouble lies with you. Be honest about your less-than-attractive personality traits and know they can be changed.
To get other people to like you, you have to like them, and this isn’t always easy. Some people are a lot less likable than others. Understand that when you get to know anyone, even someone who isn’t likable on the surface, you’ll find admirable and loveable qualities.
To do this, Christianity suggests developing one trait: a sincere interest in and love for people. Once you can develop this trait, other positive traits like kindness and generosity will follow.
Counterpoint: Love Yourself First
Peale’s advice for becoming a “comfortable person” is to develop a sincere love of others. However, he doesn’t mention that being a comfortable person requires being comfortable with yourself.
Any number of self-help books advise us to accept and love ourselves just as we are (while recognizing that there’s always room for improvement), but we can go too far in the opposite direction. In No More Mr. Nice Guy, Robert Glover discusses the so-called “Nice Guy” phenomenon, wherein people (particularly men) fall into a cycle of people-pleasing: Trying to make others happy with no regard for their own needs.
“Nice Guys” think that, if they make others happy, those people will naturally reciprocate by giving them what they want—and they can get extremely angry if that doesn’t happen. Furthermore, their people-pleasing behavior often comes off as insincere or desperate.
Therefore, Glover’s advice for how to be liked is to put yourself first: Be honest with yourself and others about your needs, and don’t be afraid of rejection or scorn. According to Glover, when you meet your own needs first, people will find you much easier to be around. That’s because you aren’t relying on others to meet those needs, and you don’t have ulterior motives for your friendly behavior.
Another factor in getting people to like you is to build up their ego. Everyone wants to feel important. Think about how you feel when someone deflates your ego; you feel wounded and disrespected, and you won’t like that person very much.
Imagine someone telling a joke to a group of people. Everyone laughs, except you. You tell everyone you heard that joke a month ago. Nobody in that group is going to like you much; you deflated a person’s moment and took away their joy.
When you build people up, they’ll feel respected, and they’ll love you for it. If someone contributes to your self-respect and self-worth, they are helping you be your best self, and you’ll be grateful toward them.
Build up as many people as you can; let them know the possibilities you see in them and the genuine love you have for them. They’ll reward you with their own respect and affection.
Dale Carnegie’s classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People says that everybody likes to feel important, so one of the surest ways to get someone to like you is to stroke his or her ego.
Carnegie adds that the effect is especially strong with people who often get overlooked and dismissed. For example, elderly people and people who work customer service jobs are frequently looked down on by others; those are the people who will most appreciate it if you take a moment to build up their self-esteem.
To get others to like you, you have to like them.
Think of a person in your life you don’t get along with very well. As Peale advises, look inward. What trait do you have that may be impeding this relationship?
Building up someone else’s ego is one method to boost likeability. What are some honest things you could say to this person that might generate feelings of appreciation toward you?
One method to build up positive feelings for others is to pay attention to the people you see during the day. Is there a person you see often that you have never taken the time to get to know? What about this person can you sincerely appreciate or be interested in?
Grief, sorrow, and other forms of heartache and inner suffering are part of being human; it happens at some point to everyone. Peale encountered a young man who was having trouble rising above his sorrow. He asked for a “prescription for heartache.”
Peale suggests concrete things to do when you are hurting emotionally:
One helpful tool that Peale overlooks here is grief counseling. Speaking with a professional therapist or a spiritual leader (or both) can be invaluable in helping you come to terms with grief and sadness.
One major thing grief counselors recommend, which Peale’s list excludes, is seeking support from your friends and loved ones. This article specifically recommends that you seek out people who won’t feel uncomfortable in the face of your grief; you need people whom you can share your deepest feelings with and who will listen when you tell them how to help you.
It’s also important to note that grieving isn’t always about the death of a loved one. People can grieve for relationships, jobs, homes, and so on—any major life change means losing something, and it’s natural to grieve for what you’ve lost.
There is no greater heartache than the death of a loved one. A spiritual way to help live with this heartache is to gain an understanding of the deeper meaning of life and death. When you carry with you the faith that all life is connected—and that when you die, you merely continue your journey in another form—you gain a deep peace and comfort about the loss of a loved one.
For Peale, coming to the realization that there is no death—that “here” and “hereafter” are all part of one universe—brought him great comfort. This philosophy doesn’t take away the sadness when a loved one dies, but it will help lift and dissolve grief.
Visiting Heaven?
People of many different faiths take comfort in the belief that there’s some sort of afterlife waiting for us. Some people even claim to have seen it; that’s the case with Heaven is For Real, a book by pastor Todd Burpo, who relates his young son’s memories of a near-death experience.
When Colton Burpo was just under four years old, he became extremely sick. The doctors concluded that there was nothing they could do to save him. That night, Todd’s congregation came together to pray for Colton; by the next day, he had almost completely recovered.
Colton told his father that he’d visited Heaven while he was in the hospital. Todd was initially skeptical, but Colton’s memories of that time were so vivid that the pastor came to believe that his son had indeed seen the afterlife.
Some highlights of Colton’s memories were:
Attending a “school” where Jesus was the teacher
Meeting his great-grandfather, whom he only knew as “Pop.”
Meeting his sister who died in the womb—Colton’s parents are shocked, as they had indeed suffered a miscarriage in the past, but had never told him about it.
Seeing God’s throne, with Jesus’s throne to the right of it.
Of course, there’s no way to prove that events played out as the book says they did, or that what Colton saw was really Heaven. However, Colton’s parents—and Colton himself—found great comfort in the belief that Heaven was real and their loved ones were waiting for them there.
Many people are depressed and unhappy, but they don’t have to live that way. Peale’s answer is to draw upon God or the Higher Power. The Higher Power can do everything for you.
How do we do that? State your problem, then ask for a specific answer. Believe you will get that answer and believe that right now you are gaining the power to deal with your problem. An important element of drawing upon the Higher Power is to relax and rest into that power.
Another important element in drawing on the Higher Power is to be positive; keep an optimistic attitude toward every problem. The level of your faith is the level of power you will receive to meet your obstacles. No matter what your problem is, drawing upon the Higher Power can help you through it.
Counterpoint: The Power of Negative Thinking
The Power of Positive Thinking focuses on keeping a positive attitude and having faith that you can accomplish anything. However, Peale essentially encourages us to bull through our problems with sheer willpower and confidence, an approach that some critics feel is simplistic and shortsighted.
For example, famous basketball coach Bob Knight wrote The Power of Negative Thinking specifically to rebut The Power of Positive Thinking. There are several points within Knight’s book that directly counter Peale’s ideas:
It’s important to know when to quit rather than stay in a situation that won’t improve, as opposed to Peale’s “no defeat” mindset.
One needs to eliminate bad ideas, or ideas that have lived past their expiration date, which requires looking at the downsides of those ideas, as opposed to Peale’s emphasis on blind positivity.
Anticipate and realize when one’s typical style or approach won’t work and when it needs to be changed, as opposed to Peale’s absolute faith in oneself and in God.
It can be useful to doubt, think about, and delay a decision, rather than charge ahead and believe it will work out—again, in opposition to Peale’s emphasis on faith and positive thinking.
Most critically, Knight believes that negative thinking, when it results in preparing for the worst, can help avoid unintended consequences down the line.
Knight says that everyone wants to win, but the winner will be the one who wants to prepare. In other words, you can’t just walk into a situation believing that your desire and your faith will get the results you want; you have to put in the work and prepare for the worst.
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