Hilton - Initiative Psychic Energy

Initiative Psychic Energy
First published in 1914.

ISBN 978-1-775413-27-1

2008 THE FLOATING PRESS.

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Being the Sixth of a Series of Twelve Volumes on the Applications of Psychology to the Problems of Personal and Business Efficiency

BY

WARREN HILTON, A.B., L.L.B.
FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY

ISSUED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF
THE LITERARY DIGEST
FOR
The Society of Applied Psychology
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1920

COPYRIGHT 1914
BY THE APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO

Sticking to the Job

Are you an unusually persevering and persistent person? Or, like mostof us, do you sometimes find it difficult to stick to the job until itis done? What is your usual experience in this respect?

Is it not this, that you work steadily along until of a sudden youbecome conscious of a feeling of weariness, crying "Enough!" for thetime being, and that you then yield to the impulse to stop?

The Lagging Brain

Assuming that this is what generally happens, does this feeling offatigue, this impulse to rest, mean that your mental energy isexhausted?

Suppose that by a determined effort of the will you force your laggingbrain to take up the thread of work. There will invariably come a newsupply of energy, a "second wind," enabling you to forge ahead with afreshness and vigor that is surprising after the previous lassitude.

Nor is this all. The same process may be repeated a second time and athird time, each new effort of the will being followed by a renewal ofenergy.

Reserve Supplies of Power

Many a man will tell you that he does his best work in the wee watchesof the morning, after tedious hours of persevering but fruitlesseffort. Instead of being exhausted by its long hours of persistentendeavor, the mind seems now to rise to the acme of its power, toachieve its supreme accomplishments. Difficulties melt into thin air,profound problems find easy solution. Flights of genius manifestthemselves. Yet long before midnight such a one had perhaps felthimself yield to fatigue and had tied a wet towel around his head orhad taken stimulants to keep himself awake.

The existence of this reserve supply of energy is manifested inphysical as well as mental effort.

Men who work with their heads and men who work with their hands,scholars and Marathon runners, must alike testify to the existence ofreserve supplies of power not ordinarily drawn upon.

"Blue" Mondays

If we do not always or habitually utilize this reserve power, it issimply because we have accustomed ourselves to yield at once to thefirst strong feeling of fatigue.

Evidence of this same fact appears in our feelings on different days.How often does a man get up from his breakfast-table after a longnight's rest, when he should be feeling fresh and invigorated, and sayto himself, "I don't feel like working today." And it may take himuntil afternoon to get into his workaday stride, if, indeed, hereaches it at all.

How to Strike One's Stride

You cannot yourself be immune from the feeling on certain days thatyou are not at your best. Somehow or other, your wits seem befogged.You hesitate to undertake important interviews. Your interest lags.And though crises arise in your business, you feel weighted down andunable to meet them with that shrewd discernment and decisiveness ofaction of which you know yourself capable.

But you realize, in your inmost self, that if you continue to exertthe will and persistently hold yourself to the business in hand,sooner or later you will warm to the work, enthusiasm will come, theclouds will be dispelled, the husks will fly. Yet you have had norest; on the contrary, you have, by continued conscious effort,consumed more and more of your vital energy.

The Spur of Desire

Obviously it was not rest that you needed.

What you required was the impulse of some strong desire that shouldcarry you over the threshold of that first inertia into the wide fieldof reserve energy so rarely called upon and so rich in power.

Under the lashings of necessity, or the spur of love or ambition, menaccomplish feats of mental and physical endurance of which they wouldhave supposed themselves incapable. Here is what a certain lawyer saysof his early struggles:

How to Release Stored-Up Energies

"When I was twenty-three years old, married, and with a family tosupport, I entered the law course of a great university. Of the manystudents in my class, seven, including me, were making a living whilestudying law.

"By special arrangement, I was relieved from attendance at lecturesand simply required to pass examinations on the various subjects, andwas thus enabled to retain my place as principal of a large publicschool. During the third and last year of my law course, I wasprincipal of a public day school of two thousand children and analternate night school with an enrolment of seven hundred and fifty,and I worked at the law three nights in the week and all day Sunday.

The Lawyer Who "Overworks"

"After eight months of this, the final examinations came around. Theyconsumed a full weekfrom nine in the morning until five or six atnight. I had no opportunity for review, so I rented a room near thelaw school to save the time going and coming and reviewed each nightthe subjects of examination for the following day.

"I did not sleep more than two hours any night in that week. OnThursday, while bolting a bit of luncheon, a fishbone stuck in mythroat. Fearful of losing the result of my year's effort, I returnedto my work, suffering much pain, and kept at it until Saturday night,when the examinations were concluded. The next day the surgeon whoremoved the fishbone said there was no reason why I should not havehad 'a bad case of gangrene.'

"When I look back on that year's work I don't see how I stood it. Idon't see how I kept myself at it, day in, day out, month after monthwithout rest, recreation or relief. I am sure I could never go throughit again, even if I had the courage to undertake it.

"I ranked second in a class of one hundred and eighty in my lawexaminations, won the second prize for the best graduating thesis,received a complimentary vote for class oratorship, and much to mysurprise was soon after offered an assistant superintendency of thepublic schools by the school board, who knew nothing of my studies andthought my work as a teacher worthy of promotion.

"It was not only the hardest year's work but the best year's work Iever did.