EBS7: Your Success Pattern

Many have believed that Jesus possessed a special dispensation from God, but He specifically allayed that notion when He said, “All that I have done ye can do too, if ye have faith.” We have misunderstood and misinterpreted the meaning of His life, and in doing so, we have inhibited our own dynamic potential in life.

Any thoughtful person can discern a pattern in his or her life. Some persons can’t understand why life seems to be mistreating them, why they habitually have things going the wrong way. It even seems at times that certain persons are born under an unlucky star while others reveal a pattern of success, popularity, prosperity and happiness. Is this a simple matter of luck? Jesus taught that every person can create his own pattern for success, for health, for good, and that nobody ever need suffer a continuous flow of difficulties. As Paul puts it, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Have you ever considered that your thought actually has shape and form, and that the dominant character of your beliefs and ideals is a fabric that has been woven, strand by strand, just like a fine-textured and many colored carpet? The power of thought to determine that weave is startling and impressive, yet many have never considered the way they think. We have an experience and think our reaction is only natural under the circumstances. But we need to know that thought is an active force, causative and creative, and is the very stuff of which our outer life is formed. Through what we chose to think, we can alter our lives.

Some people say that they are tense because tension is in the air. But no one gets tense from the air... tension is in the thoughts of those who breathe the air.

It is our hope that by listening to these broadcasts and reading these essays you can find the key to releasing tensions in your thoughts and go on to build your faith and stability impervious to the fluctuations of the world around you.

We all have desires, ideals and urgent needs. Whatever may be your personal ideals, whether they be success in your career or just finding a decent job or becoming more socially appealing, the first step is to change your mind about yourself and begin to build and weave a new pattern of thought about yourself. As one writer suggests, “turn on the green lights.” There is a pattern of greatness within you already. There is a dynamic possibility within that will lead to success and fulfillment if we will just learn to release it and let our light shine.

Many of us limit our expression and inhibit our abilities because of fears of inadequacy. We have not allowed ourselves the luxury of believing that we can do or be anything outstanding or exceptional. When business people come to me I try to convince them that they can succeed if they really want to and are willing to work at it and if they have faith enough to simply act as if they had unlimited faith.

“Positive thinking” has become a byword of many progressive religions, and certainly I believe it can be a key to a new life (I should, because this is a concept that began primarily with Unity almost a century ago!). But merely thinking positively without doing anything about it is a sterile effort usually leading nowhere. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “All mankind is divided into three classes, those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.” The Bible urges: “Be ye doers of the word and not just hearers only...Arise and be doing, and Jehovah shall be with thee.”

The success pattern calls for a new sense of balance. We must give to receive, we must have faith coupled with works, and we must pray with our feet in motion. Herbert Spencer says, “Amid all the mysteries by which we are surrounded, nothing is more certain than that we are ever in the presence of an infinite and eternal energy from which all things proceed.” We must know this and expand our thoughts and visions and ideals to encompass it. No matter where we are or are not, no matter what we have or have not, we are ever one with that Infinite and eternal energy. This should be a challenge to you to grow in open-mindedness and to reach for greatness in thought. As the poet says, “Think big, and your deeds will grow; Think small, and you’ll fall behind; Think that you can, and you will. It’s all a state of mind.” So, expand your horizons, enlarge your vision—think big!

It is certain that those who seem forever to be getting ahead have simply created a success pattern in which expanded horizons are the important coloration. The only limit to your capacities are those you place upon them. There is no law of limitation, only of all-sufficiency, so aim high. It has been said, “Shoot for the moon; you might miss and hit a star.”

People often think of their job as being just so big and no bigger, while the truth is that any position is entirely what you make of it. One man was earning about ten thousand a year in commissions from a sales territory, and he felt that he had exhausted the possibilities. His employer thought otherwise and gave the same territory to another salesman who was shortly earning twenty-five thousand at exactly the same commission. The difference was in the man and his vision of the unlimited possibilities in the territory. He thought bigger thoughts.

When you think big with an open mind, you are receptive to new ideas and you are quick to follow them. Wealth is in the mind and can be expanded by the free flow of ideas. You are, remember, possessed of the same mind that is in every successful man in the world.

Working on an assembly line putting the same bolt into the same hole, a bored mechanic came upon an idea; he suggested to the man on the other side, who had been tightening the bolts that the two change sides occasionally to relieve the monotony. The foreman noticed approvingly as the men began to enjoy their work and accomplish more, and the idea spread throughout the entire plant. In time, the by-product was that efficiency increased and the mechanic was promoted to be the “idea” man for the entire company at many times his previous salary.

Form the habit of thinking big in your work and in your efforts to find work. Keep your mind open and receptive to new ideas. Never let a day go by without trying to discover a better way to accomplish your tasks. This will weave a new pattern of success and will work wonders for you.

I can’t give you a proper pattern nor suggest any secret formulas because there already is a pattern in your life. For better or worse, it has been created by you from day to day by your attitudes, habits, tendencies and ideals. All that can be done at this point is to challenge you to strengthen your spiritual self little by little by starting to change the weave.

In a churchyard of an obscure English village an inscription on a weaver’s tombstone reads: “Once the shuttle has missed a throw the pattern is spoiled. I am trying to weave the pattern right. What is rolled up is finished, not to be looked at until the web is completed. That which is woven cannot be changed, but before us we still have the loom, and we can control the color of the thread, we can master the throw of the shuttle for a future pattern.”

You can weave a pattern of success by building into your consciousness the things that make for success. Turn on the green lights. You can succeed if you really want to and if you work at it and if you let the light of your God-self shine in and through you. Work for balance and positive thinking and positive action in faith and in works, in praying and moving your feet. Think big, expand your horizon and keep an open mind. You are ever one with that infinite and eternal energy from which all things proceed. Keep your mind open and alert to guidance, to new ideas, to new success. You will begin to reflect the presence of a pattern of success which will be an influence in bringing fulfillment and affluence and prosperity to everything you do.