If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost,
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow’s will;
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you’re outclassed, you are.
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the one who thinks he can.
“Thinking” (also called “The Man Who Thinks He Can”) by Walter D. Wintle
And later, probably inspired by this poem, Henry Ford is supposed to have said much the same thing with; “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.”
And you know what? They were both absolutely correct. If you think you can’t do something, then you almost certainly can’t do it, and so you won’t even try to do it. Sometimes you’ll try and then surprise yourself, but most of the time you’ll meet your own expectations.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Take a look around you now. Just about everything you can see was once an idea in someone’s head. From the screen you’re looking at now, to the content that you’re reading on it were ideas that other people have had. I’d even go as far as to say that most of the supposed natural world in developed countries were planned and sculpted by mankind.
Take my back garden for instance.
Somebody planned that it was going to be that shape, and so the garden was built that way. Somebody else decided which plants and trees it would contain, and later when I bought the house and garden, I started to leave my mark on it too.
Because people thought it would be a good idea to do certain things, my back garden is the result.
Do you see what I mean? What you think is very important, and if you wander around in an “I can’t do it” cloud then that’s exactly what will happen. No surprises there.
But if you can learn to believe in yourself, then you can make incredible changes in your life.
If you believe you can make a full time living online, and even become rich, then you will. Lots of people do all the time.
Just stop and think for a moment about wealthy people you may have met, business owners and the like. Have you ever thought to yourself “Well she’s actually not that clever, how is SHE running her own business?”
The answer to that one is dead easy. She thought she could, and so she did.
Here’s a big BUT though. It may not have been at her first attempt. She may have tried 3 other businesses first and failed before she found something that worked for her. BUT instead of giving up like so many other people do, she kept on trying.
When it boils down to it, those are the only two things that separate the successful from everyone else.
#1 – They THINK they can do it – they believe it.
#2 – They don’t give up until they achieve what they believe they can.
And there you have it – the recipe for success.
I’ll just give one more example before closing.
A British comedian responded to an interviewers comment that he’d achieved incredible overnight success.
“Yes,” he said “and it only took me 15 years of hard work and failure to do it.”
So if you’re stuck in a job you hate, or just feel there should be more to life, then maybe it’s time to start thinking about what you can do about it, and most importantly believing you can do it.
-Frank Haywood