As part of my trip to Rome, I decided to take some ‘Self Help’ books with me. Why bother, I hear you say? As many of my readers know, I am happily retired from the workplace, so what do I need with Self Improvement, Goal Setting or anything else? However, just because I have retired doesn’t mean I have stopped thinking or doing. If my family history is anything to go by, I will have another 30 years ahead of me. That’s a long time to vegetate.
Week 1, has just gone by, and today I finished The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. I am part of a few ‘closed’ Facebook groups where people are positively working on themselves, their future, making the most of their lives in a myriad of different ways. So this article is written from the point of view – why would I take the time to read this book, what willl it do for me.
Intended Audience
This book was originally written in 1959/64, although it has been revised a few times. It has to be read as a product of its time. Life has moved on greatly since then. Men are no longer the main wage earners and wives don’t always stay at home. So while originally written for a young man setting out, and suggesting techniques he can use to make his work, family and social life better, if you ignore the regular use of ‘fellow’, and concentrate your mind on the thoughts and techniques, it pretty much fits anyone, at whatever time of their life.
What were the key messages?
There were many individual messages that came across, but for me the main one was ‘Just Do It‘. He or She who procrastinates gets nowhere. You have to make a move or you will find very good reasons why you can’t do something – the time isn’t right, you aren’t ready, you haven’t the time….
Several other key ideas were
- Think Big – if you only think what you can do tomorrow, but dont have a big goal, you won’t achieve anything big. He suggested setting a 10 year goals. Where do you want to be in 10 years? What does it look like? Think about your 10 year goal every day
- Build Your Self Confidence – If you believe in yourself and take every opportunity you can to better yourself, your job, your goals
- Give Yourself a pep talk several times a day. Stop talking yourself down, talk yourself up. You are what you think you are.
- Go first class in everything you do. Cheap things often don’t last. Buy once, buy good quality.
- Be pleasant and fair to people. If you treat the people who work or live with you, as inferior, you will not get anywhere, neither will you be happy
Do I recommend this book?
Yes, I do. It didnt take long to read, and as I was reading it, I kept thinking I should be taking notes, so many of his ideas jumped off the page at me.
OK, I also got bugged about some of the terminology – the working woman in me (and in my mother in the 40’s and 50’s) kept getting offended about the ‘fellows’ and how everyone who was doing well was always male… But I decided I was bigger than that, and read the messages, not the way they were presented.
I have been a big fan of Dream Big for several years. While sometimes big dreams take a bit longer than expected, as David Schwartz said in his book, if you hit a road closed sign, you don’t go back home again, you just work out a different way to your goal. So while some of my 2017 were indeed Big Dreams, and some of them have taken into 2018 to realise, if I hadnt dreamed them, I wouldn’t have achieved them at all!
So follow your star, make it a far away one, and enjoy the journey to get there!
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