ODDmopolitan- Fear Shuts Down All Creativity

Fear Shuts Down All Creativity

I have been reading a book called, How to Be Motivated All The Time by Peter J. Daniels. I am reading it because I too struggle with how to stay motivated in these hard times. Yes, I know those of you who know me find that hard to believe. My children often said to me, "Is that another 'you can do it' book Mom?" But sometimes my old negative tapes start to play in my head too.

I have been a believer in positive mental attitude since I was 17 years old. I, as a high school graduate, have accomplished remarkable things in my life time. All because at the age of 17 I latched onto, and began to believe with all my heart, the notion that I could do anything I put my mind to (except things like becoming 5'10" of course).

Let me tell you about Peter Daniels, one of these authors, and why I like what he has to say. Peter Daniels begins each of his speeches with, "Mrs. Phillips... you were wrong." He tells about when he was a young boy in Australia, the nun at his school would crack her ruler on his knuckles, rattled his jaw until his teeth banged together, and say loud enough for everyone to hear, "Peter Daniels you're a bad, bad, boy and you will never amount to anything!"Peter dropped out of school. So, at the age of 24, Peter was an illiterate brick layer in Australia. He attended a Billy Graham meeting and heard the positive message that he could do anything. He embraced it and believed it. He is now worth multiple millions of dollars, speaks 7 languages fluently, and is sought as a speaker from organizations around the world. Now I don't have as much as to overcome as Peter, so surely I can be successful too. He has written many books and I have them all. I am a lifetime student of positive mental thinking. I read about it, I listen to tapes about it, and I do truly believe it. However, the facts of life can sure make you doubt it sometimes.

Here is an excerpt from one of his books, "A positive mental attitude is an act of faith, accepting, hoping, and working toward a good result in every situation. A positive mental attitude is constructive and affirming, while a negative metal attitude is destructive and unsettling. Negativism is powerful because it has locked within its framework the threat of fear, doom, gloom, and calamity and requires us to generally do nothing. Negative actions can control a situation. A positive mental attitude means spending your creative energies on finding ways things can be done rather than exhausting your emotional and metal powers dwelling on the way things cannot be done. It means turning a problem into a solution. By focusing on the thing you do not want to happen you are, in a sense, majoring on the catastrophe and not the solution."

Here are some ways to keep negative thinking at bay. One is to read about how others have overcome tremendous odds and yet succeeded. Read history books, says Roger W. Babson a famous economist who wrote comments in the book How to Stop Worrying and Live by Dale Carnegie. He said when you read pages of history they fairly shriek with tragic tales of war, famine, poverty, pestilence, and man's inhumanity to man. Read that for an hour and it helps you to put things in perspective. Things have been bad before and got better, so they can again.

According to Dale Carnegie, we spend much time worrying about things that might happen but rarely do happen. Look at today. What can I do today to make things better? Stay in today.

Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Ask yourself: How do I KNOW this thing I am worrying about will really come to pass?

Just a note of encouragement for you and for me today. Keep the faith.

Carol Bass