Part 8 · Follow It Back to Its Origin · points 24–29 of 33 in this Part

Hold the ideal like a working man

Successful people keep an ideal in front of them and work toward it steadily.

6 numbered points · 2 study questions · 2 min read

The one line to keep

Successful people keep an ideal in front of them and work toward it steadily.

Successful men and women make it their business to hold ideals of the conditions they are building. Stay faithful to the ideal and you will hear the call; the outer situation will start to correspond. Then the diagnosis that matters for anyone who has been knocked around: the things you can see are effects. Somewhere, always, there is a cause that was set in motion first.

Why this matters to you

Everything you can see was somebody's thought first. That includes the version of your life you are trying to leave behind.

Study questions for this sublevel

Haanel put a review question at the end of every part. Answer out loud first — the recall is what moves it into memory.

78. What pre-determines the result?

The ideal held steadily in mind attracts the necessary conditions for its fulfillment.

79. What is the result of a keen analytical observation?

The development of imagination, insight, perception, and sagacity.

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Haanel's own words — points 24–29

Quoted exactly from The Master Key System (1912, public domain). The translation above is ours; this is his.

Successful men make it their business to hold ideals of the conditions which they wish to realize. They constantly hold in mind the next step necessary to the ideal for which they are striving. Thoughts are the materials with which they build, and the imagination is their mental work-shop. Mind is the ever moving force with which they secure the persons and circumstance necessary to build their success structure, and imagination is the matrix in which all great things are fashioned.

If you have been faithful to your ideal, you will hear the call when circumstances are ready to materialize your plans and results will correspond in the exact ratio of your fidelity to your ideal. The ideal steadily held is what pre-determines and attracts the necessary conditions for its fulfillment.

It is thus that you may weave a garment of spirit and power into the web of your entire existence. It is thus that you may lead a charmed life and be forever protected from all harm. It is thus that you may become a positive force whereby conditions of opulence and harmony may be attracted to you.

This is the leaven which is gradually permeating the general consciousness and is largely responsible for the conditions of unrest which are everywhere evident.

In the last Part you created a mental image, you brought it from the invisible into the visible. This week I want you to take an object and follow it back to its origination, see of what it really consists. If you do this you will develop imagination, insight, perception, and sagacity. These come not by the superficial observation of the multitude, but by a keen analytical observation which sees below the surface.

It is the few who know that the things which they see are only effects, and understand the causes by which these effects were brought into existence.