Mental Strength and Iron Will

I was recently inspired by the book “Iron Will” by Orison Swett Marden.  It resonates so much with my philosophy of mental strength.  I’m going to take some of the passages from “Iron Will” and translate them into mental strength language. 

Part I

“The education of the will is the object of our existence,” said Emerson.  

This is an understatement, if we look at the human will in its relations to the divine. This agrees with what J.  Stuart Mill said “a character is a completely fashioned will.”  

In respect to everyday matters, the development and discipline of one’s will-power is critical in relation to personal success. It’s difficult to estimate the power of will. It is a part of our divine nature, and an element of the power of creation.

The achievements of history have been the choices, the determinations, the creations, of the human will. It was the will that men like Wilberforce and Garrison, Goodyear and Cyrus Field, Bismarck and Grant, made them determined and mentally strong. They simply would do what they planned. These men can no more be stopped than the sun or the oceans tide can be. Most men fail, not through lack of education or agreeable personal qualities, but from lack of dogged determination, mental strength and lack of bold will.  

“It is impossible,” says Sharman, “to look into the conditions under which the battle of life is being fought, without perceiving how much really depends upon the extent to which the will-power is cultivated, strengthened, and made operative in right directions.” All people need to be educated and trained for the development of will. We live in an era of abundant athletic competitions. Those who are determined to have athletic will-power utilize the kind of mental and physical exercise required to develop their mental strength and will.

MENTAL STRENGTH DISCIPLINE

The athlete trains for his race; and the mind must be put into training to win life’s race and reach personal peak performance.   

“It is,” says Professor Mathews, “only by continued, strenuous efforts,  repeated again and again, day after day, week after week, and month  after month, that the ability can be acquired to fasten the mind to one  subject, however abstract or knotty, to the exclusion of everything  else. The process of obtaining this self-mastery–this complete command  of one’s mental powers–is a gradual one, its length varying with the  mental constitution of each person; but its acquisition is worth  infinitely more than the utmost labor it ever costs.”  

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education,” it was said by Professor Huxley, “is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson which ought to be learned, and, however early a man’s  training begins, it is probably the last lesson which he learns  thoroughly.”  

DOING THINGS ONCE

When Henry Ward Beecher was asked how it was that he could accomplish so much more than other men, he replied:  

“I don’t do more, but less, than other people. They do all their work three times over: once in anticipation, once in actuality, once in rumination. I do mine in actuality alone, doing it once instead of three times.”  

This was by the intelligent and mental strength exercise of Mr. Beecher’s will-power in concentrating his mind upon what he was doing at a given moment, and then turning to something else. Anyone who has observed business men closely has noticed this characteristic. One of the secrets of a successful life is to be able to hold all of our energies upon one point, to focus all of the scattered rays of the mind upon one place or thing.  

See how this contradicts with the notion of multitasking?  

CENTRALIZING FORCE

The mental strength reservoir for most people is like a leaky dam, where the greater part of the water flows out without going over the wheel and doing the work of the mill. This is the habit of mind-wandering and worrying about this and that,  

Genius, the power which amazes us eyes, is often nothing but perseverance in disguise.

People with fragmentary efforts, disconnected attempts, lack of concentration and uncontrolled by any fixed idea, will never bring personal success. It is definiteness of purpose alone that achieves results.  

LEARNING TO SWIM

The way to learn to run is to run; the way to learn to swim is to swim.  The way to learn to develop mental strength and will-power is by the actual exercise of will-power in the business of life. “The man that exercises his will,” says an English essayist, “makes it a stronger and more effective force in proportion to the extent to which such exercise is intelligently and perseveringly maintained.” The use of will-power is a means of strengthening will-power. The will becomes strong by exercise. To stick to a thing till you are master, is a test of intellectual discipline, mental strength and will power.  

DR. CUYLER

“It is astonishing,” says Dr. Theodore Cuyler, “how many men lack this power of ‘holding on’ until they reach the goal. They can make a sudden dash, but they lack grit. They are easily discouraged. They get on as long as everything goes smoothly, but when there is friction they lose heart. They depend on stronger personalities for their spirit and strength. They lack independence or originality. They only dare to do what others do. They do not step boldly from the crowd and act fearlessly.”  

THE BIG TREES

What’s needed by a person who desires to succeed and reach their peak potential is careful planning. They must accumulate reserved power equal to all potential emergencies. Thomas Starr King said that the great trees of California gave him his first impression of the power of reserve. “It was the thought of the reserve energies that had been compacted into them,” he said, “that stirred me. The mountains had given them their iron and rich stimulants, the hills had given them their soil, the clouds had given their rain and snow, and a thousand summers and winters had poured forth their treasures about their vast roots.”  

Nobody can hope to do anything above that of being average that has not made their life a reservoir of power on which they can constantly draw, which will never fail them in any emergency. Be sure that you have stored away, in your power-house, the energy, the knowledge that will be equal to the great occasion when it comes. “If I were twenty, and had but ten years to live,” said a great scholar and writer, “I would spend the first nine years accumulating knowledge and getting ready for the tenth.”  

“I WILL”  

“There are no two words in the English language which stand out in bolder relief, like kings upon a checker-board, to so great an extent as the words ‘I will.’ There is strength, depth and solidity, decision, confidence and power, determination, vigor and individuality, in the round, ringing tone which characterizes its delivery. It talks to you of triumph over difficulties, of victory in the face of discouragement, of will to promise and strength to perform, of lofty and daring enterprise, of unfettered aspirations, and of the thousand and one solid impulses by which man masters impediments in the way of progression.”  

As one has well said: “He who is silent is forgotten; he who does not  advance falls back; he who stops is overwhelmed, distanced, crushed; he  who ceases to become greater, becomes smaller; he who leaves off gives  up; the stationary is the beginning of the end–it precedes death; to  live is to achieve, to will without ceasing.”  

Be thou a hero; let thy might Tramp on eternal snows its way, and through the ebon walls of night, Hew down a passage unto day.”  – Park Benjamin

I hope you enjoyed my rendition of Chapter One of “Iron Will”

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below.