Norman Vincent Peale - Have a Great Day: Daily Affirmations for Positive Living

Have a Great Day

Daily Affirmations for Positive Living

Norman Vincent Peale

Contents

JANUARY

January 1

At the New Year, we usually resolve to quit something. There is a psychological law of quitting. Its this: The more you keep quitting, the easier quitting becomes. I know, for Ive spent a lot of time quitting fattening foods. But I finally discovered how to quit successfully. Quit for one meal, then two, then three. By now it begins to get tough. So, you get tougher, quit the next day and the next. After a while, pride enters the picture to help you. You begin to boast about all the things you havent eaten. Then you point with pride to your belt, for you have tightened it to the last notch. This is called positive quitting and can be applied to anything you want to change in your life.

January 2

Anybody can do just about anything with himself that he really wants to and makes up his mind to do. We all are capable of greater things than we realize. How much one actually achieves depends largely on: 1. Desire. 2. Faith. 3. Persistent effort. 4. Ability. But if you are lacking in the first three factors, your ability will not balance out the lack. So concentrate on the first three and the results will amaze you.

January 3

The way to success: First have a clear goal, not a fuzzy one. Sharpen this goal until it becomes specific and clearly defined in your conscious mind. Hold it there until, by the process of spiritual and intellectual osmosis of which I wrote in my introduction to this book, it seeps into your unconscious. Then you will have it because it has you. Surround this goal constantly with positive thoughts and faith. Give it positive follow-through. That is the way success is achieved.

January 4

To affirm a great day is a pretty sure way to have one. When awakening, get out of bed and stretch to your full height, saying aloud, This is going to be a great day. What you say strongly is a kind of command, a positive, affirmative attitude that tends to draw good results to you.

January 5

Go forward confidently, energetically attacking problems, expecting favorable outcomes. When obstacles or difficulties arise, the positive thinker takes them as creative opportunities. He welcomes the challenge of a tough problem and looks for ways to turn it to advantage. This attitude is a key factor in impressive careers and great living.

January 6

At Dunkirk, the fate of the British nation hung upon getting the fighting men off the beaches and back to England. During the most difficult hour, a colonel rushed up to General Alexander, crying, Our position is catastrophic! The general replied: Colonel, I dont understand big words. Just get busy and get those men out of here! Thats the kind of thinking needed in crises. Do the simple necessary.

January 7

Fear can infect us early in life until eventually it cuts a deep groove of apprehension in all our thinking. To counteract it, let faith, hope, and courage enter your thinking. Fear is strong, but faith is stronger yet. The Bible tells us, And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not (Revelation 1:17). His hand is always upon you, too.

January 8

As an emotion, anger is always hot. To reduce an emotion, cool it. Some people count to ten, but perhaps the first ten words of the Lords Prayer will work even better: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name (Matthew 6:9). Say that ten times and anger will lose its power.

January 9

Once, when I felt I had done an especially poor job in the pulpit on a Sunday morning, forgetting the best things I had to say and saying the poorest things, I was pretty discouraged. An old preacher, a polished orator in his day, patted me on the back. Dont let it bother you, son, he said consolingly. Forget it. The congregation will, and you might as well make it unanimous.

January 10

I shall never forget Ralph Rockwell. He was the farmer on our place in the country. Ralph was a New Englander of the old school, always caring for the place as though it were his own. He said to me once, when I was presuming to give him advice: Tell you what, Dr. Peale, you do the preaching. Ill do the farming. It is good to remember to take advice as well as give it.

January 11

George Reeves was a huge man, 6 feet 2, weighing 240 pounds. He was my teacher in the fifth grade. In class, he would suddenly shout, Silence. Then he would print in big letters on the blackboard the word CANT. Turning to the class, he would demand, And now what shall I do? Knowing what he wanted, we chanted back, Knock the T off the CANT. With a sweeping gesture, he would erase it, leaving the word CAN. Dusting the chalk from his fingers, he would say, Let that be a lesson to youyou can if you think you can.

January 12

The place was Korea, the hour midnight. It was bitter cold, the temperature below zero. A big battle was building for the morning. A burly U.S. marine was leaning against a tank eating cold beans out of a can with a penknife. A newspaper correspondent watching him was moved to propound a philosophical question: Look, he said, if I were God and could give you what you wanted most, what would you ask for? The marine dug out another penknife of beans, thought reflectively, then said, I would ask for tomorrow. Perhaps so would we alla great tomorrow.

January 13

My college classmate Judson Sayre started with nothing and became one of the most successful salesmen in our country. At dinner, in his apartment on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, we got to talking about having a great dayfor he was expert at it. Come look at my mirror, he said. He had pasted a sign there which read:

Want a great day?

Believe a great day.

Pray a great day.

Deserve a great day.

Take God with you for a great day.

Get going and make it a great day.

January 14

At one time I lived in upstate New York, where the winters are quite cold. And the roads would freeze and melt and freeze again. Come springtime, they were pretty badly broken up and rutted. One early April day, I came to a bad stretch of road where someone had put up a handmade sign: Choose your rut well. Youll be in it for the next twenty-five miles. Pretty good idea to get into the right rut, isnt it?

January 15

Obviously, he was a happy man. He was Joe of Joes Place, a little lunch counter I found one night. There were about a dozen stools occupied, for the most part by elderly men and a couple of older women from the neighborhood. He set a steaming bowl of soup before an old man whose hands shook. Mamie made it special for you, Mr. Jones. One elderly and rather stumbling lady started to go out the door. Be careful, Mrs. Hudson, the cars go pretty fast out there. And, oh yes, look at the full moon over the river. Its mighty pretty tonight. I sat there thinking that Joe was happy because he really loves people.

January 16

The as if principle works. Act as if you were not afraid and you will become courageous, as if you could and youll find that you can. Act as if you like a person and youll find a friendship.

January 17

Attitudes are more important than facts. Certainly, you cant ignore a fact, but the attitude with which you approach it is all-important. The secret of life isnt what happens to you but what you do with what happens to you.

January 18

You can do amazing things if you have strong faith, deep desire, and just hang in there.

January 19

The best of all ways to get your mind off your own troubles is to try to help someone else with theirs. As an old Chinese proverb says, When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own.