As A Man Thinketh

As A Man Thinketh is an essay and self-help classic, which argues that the key to mastering your life is harnessing the power of your thoughts and helps you cultivate the philosophy and attitude of a positive, successful person.

The very first argument Allen lays out is that man is the sum of his thoughts. Just like tiny seeds turn into big plants, a single thought often turns into a major decision, which makes your thoughts the roots of your actions.

Over time, these actions shape into patterns, which will eventually make up our character. This is why most pessimistic people tend to give up more easily on the things they care about, because your attitude and your actions are directly linked to one another. If you don’t start out with confidence and expect very little of yourself, that’s exactly what you’ll deliver.

But if your thoughts shape your actions, then by changing your thoughts, you can change your actions and subsequently, your character too!

The time to start weeding out bad thoughts is right now. Today is the day to stop accepting negative thoughts as normal and fight back. Take control of your mind, and you’ll take control of your life.

The reason your thoughts and actions are so deeply connected is because they live in a constant cause-and-effect relationship with the outside world.

What does that mean? You might see your life as mostly determined by external factors. The weather, the economy, politics, your co-workers, your boss, whether you have good luck or bad luck, your life depends on so many things you can’t influence. But it’s not as black and white as that. Playing the victim is easy. You can just push off responsibility and blame the world for everything.

In reality, your thoughts, your actions, your character, they all take at least as much influence on the world, as the world does on you. The thoughts and attitudes you have are what lead you into the situations of your life, some of which you then end up assigning to good or bad luck, when it’s really yourself that got you there.

Therefore, you can’t describe a person’s character just by looking at the environment she lives in, or predict the circumstances she’ll end up in, because of the way she is. There are many admirable and probably genuinely good people in jail, while some greedy bastards live happily off other peoples’ misery.

A crucial aspect almost no one looks at when examining thoughts is your health. When we talk about the power of positive thinking, we usually speak of affirmations, goals, priorities, etc. But not about health. Yet, what you think massively impacts your heart rate,…