Courage is the leader in the mental realm, and when it is down all the other faculties go down as well. Until courage says the word, neither initiative nor any of the other faculties will take a step forward. They refuse to work under discouragement. But when courage leads the way, all the others are activated and come together in team work. Courage is also known as faith and confidence. That is why the first mental principle to work on is faith and confidence. When you have that, you’ve everything else.

What most people in great failure need is to have their courage restored, renewed. The discouraged have their backs turned toward the light, so that all the black shadows fall across their path. They are walking in their own shadows instead of in the glorious sun of God’s light and love. They need mental treatment, treatment that will let the light into their souls and show them what they still can do. The first step to rise into is courage and then the rest of the other powers will be returned and ready for utilizing.
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Remember that whatever you dread, fear, you are attracting, because the mind always relates with whatever dominates the thought. That which we think about most, we tend to get, and it is the easiest thing in the world to kill the possibility of realizing our ambitions and drawing to us the thing we fear by holding it in mind, by allowing doubt thoughts, anxious, discouraged thoughts to get possession of us and strangle our efficiency. Either think courage or think discouragement. Only one will have place.

Comparatively few people realize how much self-faith has to do with achievement. The great majority never seem to think that it is a real creative force. Yet faith is not only a real power, but one of the greatest we know. In fact, men do great things in proportion to the intensity and the persistency of their faith. Faith is the very core power of achievement. No faith, no achievement. All-absorbing faith, great achievement. See a great achiever is a man of great faith, faith in himself, in his ability to achieve his aim.

Faith has always been the miracle worker of the ages. Faith is the connecting link between God and man. It is man’s strength, the cornerstone of all his building, all his achieving. The trouble with those of us who are not doing what we can and should do is that we lack faith. We do not believe that we can go into the great within of us and simply and naturally make connection with divine force, with the all-supply, with the Power that made us, that Power which creates the universe and gives us our strength.

Lack of faith is the supreme cause of failure. How can any one accomplish anything worthwhile when one’s very executive power is paralyzed, disheartened, discouraged by the thought, amounting almost to a certainty, of failure? Your achievement will never rise above your faith. That is the high standard of your attainment. We never can get farther than our faith in ourselves. We cannot do anything bigger than we think we can. You need to rise in faith in order to rise in standard and ability to achieve more.

The size of our faith indicates the size of the cable which connects us with our Maker. If this faith cable, which carries the omnipotent current, is small we get but a little of the force from the mighty current that runs heavenward. If our faith were large enough we would be larger men and women, and we would travel Godward infinitely faster than we do. Your faith is the channel which you access God’s power as well as the degree by which you manifest Godlike beingness. Increase your faith to use all power.

We are not independently separate and unrelated units of the universe. There is still just as vital a connection between ourselves and our Maker as there is between the branch and the vine. We are a projection of His mind, a definite part of His plan, and our ambitions, our longings, are in a way a reflection of the universal plan. Those who have faith in themselves feel that their ambitions are evidences of ability to back them by accomplishment to make their dreams realities. God’s will is expressed in yours.

It makes a tremendous difference how you approach your life work, whether you come to it with a superb faith in yourself, an unshakable belief in the Power that sustains you, and a firm determination to make a triumphant success of it, or whether you come to it with a faint heart, a doubting, wavering mind, and weak endeavor. Approach everything you do from a position of power. Believe in yourself and the power you have. There is only one power, and that’s the power of God or Consciousness to be used.

The world classifies men by their faith in themselves, in their mission in life, their faith in what they undertake to do. The faith of such men impresses us with a conviction of their power. We all feel that there is something about the man who believes in his destiny that commands our respect, our admiration. The world itself makes way for the man who believes he was born to play a big part in the scheme of things. The man who lacks faith in himself inspires no faith in others. Exert your power in this world.

The lack of self-confidence, of a vigorous faith in one’s mission is a weak link in most lives. The most difficult thing in the world is to make human beings believe in their own bigness, the greatness of their mission, in the vastness of their possibilities. The greatest service that can be rendered to a human being is to help him to discover his possibilities, for this establishes his faith, inspires him to pursue his ambition. The greatest power that can be given to you is to help you discover your power for anything.[/hidepost]