CHAPTER 7
Self-Confidence In Action
Above all, be of a single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it.
—James Allen
One of the most valuable exercises you can engage in, to accomplish any goal you can set for yourself, is to ask yourself, “What is my limiting step?” What is the one factor that determines the speed at which I achieve my goal, or whether I achieve it at all?
Your ability to identify your limiting step is one of the best demonstrations of your intelligence. Your capacity to eliminate this limiting step is one of the best demonstrations of your overall competence in achieving anything you want.
Self-Confidence Is Critical
In studying everything that has been written or said about personal success, the conclusion I came to was that your level of self-confidence is probably the critical factor in everything you accomplish. When you have enough self-confidence, you will try almost anything. Because success is largely a matter of averages, or probabilities, the more things you try, the more likely it is that you will achieve greatly.
For many years, Amoco Petroleum was famous among oil companies for having consistently developed and maintained higher levels of oil and gas reserves than any other major oil company. The president of Amoco was asked why his company was so successful in this area. He replied simply that, “We drill more holes.”
They didn’t purport to be better or smarter than their competitors. They just focused on ...
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