Do you ever feel like you’re on the sidelines of your own life, watching others achieve the success, happiness, and financial security you crave? Do you feel that there’s a gap between the life you’re living and the one you’re capable of living? This feeling is a universal human experience, but the solution is far more accessible than you might think. It doesn’t reside in a stroke of luck, a genius-level IQ, or a privileged background. The secret lies in the most powerful tool you already possess: your mind.
The timeless principles from David J. Schwartz’s groundbreaking book, “The Magic of Thinking Big,” offer a powerful and practical roadmap to unlocking this potential. This isn’t about wishful thinking; it’s about a fundamental shift in your mental framework. It’s about learning how to think in a way that cultivates success, attracts opportunity, and builds a life of purpose and joy.
This comprehensive guide will walk you through these transformative principles. You will learn how to build unshakable belief, conquer the fears that hold you back, cure yourself of the “failure disease” of making excuses, and develop the mindset of a leader in your own life. Prepare to replace small, limiting thoughts with big, bold, success-oriented thinking. Your journey to an extraordinary life starts now.
Part 1: Believe You Can Succeed, and You Will: The Cornerstone of High Achievement
The very first and most crucial step on this journey is cultivating an unwavering belief in your ability to succeed. Belief is the thermostat that regulates what you achieve. If it’s set low, your accomplishments will be meager. If it’s set high, you’ll reach for and grasp incredible success. Belief is the fuel for action, the antidote to doubt, and the magnet for positive outcomes. Here’s how to build and strengthen this foundational power.
1. Think Success, Not Failure
Your mind is a thought factory, constantly producing thoughts that shape your reality. You are the manager of this factory, and you have the power to choose the kind of thoughts it produces.
- Substitute Success for Failure Thinking: In every situation, consciously choose the vocabulary of success. When faced with a challenging project at work, your internal monologue shouldn’t be, “This is too difficult; I’ll probably mess it up.” It must be, “This is a challenge, and I will find a way to win.” When you look at a competitor, think, “I am equal to the best,” not “I’m outclassed.”
- Let “I Will Succeed” Be Your Master Thought: This single, powerful thought should dominate your thinking. Thinking “I will succeed” conditions your mind to start creating plans, seeking out resources, and generating the energy needed to produce success. Conversely, thinking “I will fail” conditions your mind to look for evidence of failure, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of defeat. It’s the difference between programming your internal GPS for “Success” versus “The Ditch of Failure.”
2. Remind Yourself Regularly: You Are Better Than You Think You Are
One of the most common traps is to underestimate ourselves while overestimating others. We look at successful people and assume they possess some “superpower” we lack. This is a myth.
- Deconstruct the “Superman” Myth: Successful people are not supermen or superwomen. They do not possess a mystical “success gene” or a level of intellect that is unattainable. They are ordinary people who have systematically and deliberately developed a powerful belief in themselves and in what they do. They’ve learned to manage their brains effectively.
- Never Sell Yourself Short: Imposter syndrome—the feeling that you’re a fraud and will be found out—is rampant. The cure is a regular, conscious acknowledgment of your strengths. Take inventory of your assets. Are you a good listener? Are you persistent? Do you have a creative spark? Focus on these, build on them, and remind yourself of them daily. You are not defined by your weaknesses but by how you leverage your strengths.
3. Believe Big: The Scale of Your Success Is Determined by the Scale of Your Belief
The size of your life is a direct reflection of the size of your thinking.
- Think Big Goals, Win Big Success: If you set a goal to simply “get by” or “make a little extra money,” your mind will deliver on that small request. It will generate small plans and produce small results. If you set a goal to become a leader in your field, to achieve financial freedom, or to build an exceptional family life, your mind rises to the challenge. It begins to ask, “How can we achieve this big goal?” and starts generating the big, creative ideas necessary for big success.
- Big Plans Are Often Easier: It’s a counterintuitive but powerful truth. Big, bold plans and ideas have a unique power to inspire you and others. A big vision generates enthusiasm and attracts support. A small, timid plan inspires no one, least of all yourself. It takes just as much, if not less, energy to aim high as it does to aim for mediocrity.
Part 2: Cure Yourself of Excusitis: How to Stop Justifying Mediocrity
Every person who has fallen short of their potential has a story to tell, and that story is often filled with well-reasoned, logical-sounding excuses. Dr. Schwartz calls this “Excusitis”—the failure disease. It’s a condition of the mind that seeks to justify inaction and mediocrity. Curing yourself of excusitis is non-negotiable for success. Let’s diagnose and treat the four most common forms.
1. Health Excusitis: “But My Health Isn’t Good.”
This is the classic excuse used to avoid responsibility, hard work, and living a full life. People complain about ailments, real or imagined, to explain away their lack of achievement.
- The Cure:
- Refuse to Talk About It: The more you verbalize an ailment, the more real and powerful it becomes in your mind. Talking about bad health is like fertilizing a weed. It bores others and positions you as a complainer, not a person of action.
- Refuse to Worry About It: Constant worry over health can manifest into real physical symptoms. As Dr. Walter Alvarez noted, many people convince themselves they are ill despite all evidence to the contrary. Stop seeking validation for your perceived illness and start focusing on the health you do have.
- Practice Gratitude for Your Current Health: Shift your perspective. The old saying holds true: “I felt sorry for myself because I had ragged shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” Be genuinely grateful for your ability to walk, see, hear, and think. This gratitude is a powerful vaccine against new, imagined ailments.
- Embrace the Mantra: “It’s Better to Wear Out Than to Rust Out.” Life is meant for living. Don’t let the fear of “overdoing it” cause you to do nothing at all. Use your body, engage your mind, and live actively.
2. Intelligence Excusitis: “But You’ve Got to Have Brains to Succeed.”
This is the excuse of those who have convinced themselves they lack the required IQ for high-level success. They worship intellect and, in doing so, devalue their own abilities.
- The Cure:
- Never Underestimate Your Own Intelligence (or Overestimate Others’): The most successful people are not always the ones with the highest IQs. History is filled with brilliant failures and “average” individuals who achieved greatness. What truly matters isn’t the raw horsepower of your brain, but how you use it.
- Focus on Your Attitudes: Remind yourself daily: “My attitudes are more important than my intelligence.” A positive, persistent, and creative attitude will take you infinitely further than a high IQ paired with a negative mindset. Put your brain to work finding reasons why you can succeed, not reasons why you can’t.
- Prioritize Thinking Over Memorizing: The ability to think—to create, to solve problems, to innovate—is far more valuable than the ability to recall facts. Are you using your mind to make history or merely to record the history made by others? Focus on generating ideas and finding new, better ways to do things.
3. Age Excusitis: “It’s No Use. I’m Too Old (or Too Young).”
This excuse traps people on both ends of the age spectrum, providing a convenient reason to postpone their dreams.
- The Cure:
- Look at Your Age Positively: If you’re young, don’t see it as a lack of experience; see it as a surplus of energy, fresh perspective, and time. If you’re older, reframe “I’m already old” to “I’m still young.” Focus on the new horizons you can still explore.
- Compute Your Productive Time: Do the math. A person at 30 still has 80% of their productive life ahead of them. A person at 50 still has a massive 40%—often the best, most experienced, and wisest 40%—left to invest. Life is much longer and more full of opportunity than you think.
- Invest Your Future Time Wisely: It is only too late when you decide it’s too late. Banish the failure thought, “I should have started years ago.” Replace it with the success thought, “I’m going to start now. My best years are ahead of me.” This is a cornerstone of professional development and lifelong learning.
4. Luck Excusitis: “But My Case Is Different; I Attract Bad Luck.”
This is the excuse of the passive observer, the person who believes success is something that randomly happens to people rather than something that is created by them.
- The Cure:
- Accept the Law of Cause and Effect: Take a closer look at someone’s “good luck.” You will invariably find a history of preparation, planning, persistence, and success-producing thinking. Look closely at “bad luck,” and you will find specific causes and missteps. The successful person learns from a setback; the mediocre person blames bad luck and learns nothing.
- Don’t Be a Wishful Thinker: Stop dreaming of an effortless path to victory. Success isn’t won in a lottery. It is earned by mastering the principles that produce success. Instead of hoping for luck, concentrate on developing the qualities of a winner: persistence, creativity, confidence, and a positive attitude. Make your own “luck.”
Part 3: The Action Plan – From Fear to Fulfillment
Belief is the foundation, and curing excusitis clears the path. Now, it’s time to build. This section provides the practical, actionable strategies to turn your big thinking into tangible results.
Section 3.1: From Fear to Forward Motion: Your Action Plan for Unshakable Confidence
Fear is the single greatest enemy of success. It paralyzes, shrinks our thinking, and keeps us from seizing opportunities. The good news is that confidence is a skill that can be learned, and fear can be conquered.
- Action Cures Fear: Inaction is the fertilizer for fear. The longer you wait and do nothing about a situation, the stronger the fear grows. The antidote is immediate, constructive action.
- Step 1: Isolate Your Fear. What exactly are you afraid of? Define it clearly.
- Step 2: Take Action. Don’t overthink it. Take one small, concrete step. Afraid of public speaking? Volunteer to say a few words at a low-stakes meeting. Afraid to ask for a raise? Draft the email or script out the conversation. The very act of doing what you fear makes the fear disappear.
- Curate a Positive Memory Bank: Your mind will feed on what you put into it. Consciously refuse to dwell on past embarrassments or failures. Don’t let them grow into mental monsters. Instead, deliberately recall your successes, your moments of triumph, and your small wins.
- Put People in Proper Perspective: We often fear others because we see them as bigger, more important, or more critical than they are. Remember, they are just human beings, with their own fears, insecurities, and problems. Most people will bark, but very few will bite. Develop a balanced, understanding view.
- Practice Doing What Is Right: A guilty conscience erodes confidence. When you act with integrity and do what you know is right, you build a powerful inner strength and eliminate the poisonous self-doubt that comes from cutting corners.
- Make Your Physicality Say “Confident”:
- Be a Front Seater: In meetings and gatherings, don’t hide in the back. Sit up front. It signals engagement and confidence.
- Make Eye Contact: Looking someone in the eye says, “I am honest, and I believe in what I am saying.”
- Walk 25% Faster: A brisk, purposeful walk tells the world (and yourself) that you have somewhere important to go and something important to do.
- Speak Up: Don’t be a mumbler. Speak clearly and with conviction.
- Smile Big: A genuine, big smile radiates confidence and warmth, disarming others and making you feel better instantly.
Section 3.2: Unlocking Your Inner Genius: How to Think and Dream Creatively
Creative thinking is not the exclusive domain of artists and inventors. It is a critical skill for finding solutions, improving processes, and seeing opportunities that others miss.
- Believe It Can Be Done: This is the non-negotiable first step. When you believe a solution is possible, your mind actively searches for it. Eliminate phrases like “impossible,” “won’t work,” and “can’t do” from your vocabulary. They are the enemies of creativity.
- Don’t Let Tradition Paralyze Your Mind: Just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Be receptive to new ideas. Be experimental. Be progressive in everything you do.
- Ask Yourself Daily, “How Can I Do Better?”: This simple question unlocks limitless potential for self-improvement. There is no ceiling on “better.” When you ask this question, your mind will deliver answers.
- Ask Yourself, “How Can I Do More?”: Capacity is a state of mind. By asking this question, you push your mind to find intelligent shortcuts and increase your efficiency. The ultimate success combination is to improve the quality of your output and increase the quantity of your output.
- Practice Asking and Listening: Big people monopolize the listening; small people monopolize the talking. Ask questions, then listen intently to the answers. This is how you gather the raw material for sound decisions and innovative ideas.
Section 3.3: Your Environment, Your Success: Curating a First-Class Life
Your mind is constantly being shaped by your environment: the people you associate with, the information you consume, and the standards you accept. To think big, you must place yourself in an environment that fosters big thinking.
- Be Environment-Conscious: Understand that your mind, like your body, becomes what you feed it. Your “mind diet” is critical.
- Make Your Environment Work for You: Actively seek out positive, successful, and supportive people. Don’t let the negative, “you-can’t-do-it” forces suppress your ambition.
- Don’t Let Small-Thinking People Hold You Back: Jealousy and pettiness from others can be a drag on your progress. Don’t give them the satisfaction of seeing you stumble. Rise above it.
- Get Your Advice from Successful People: Your future is your most valuable asset. Never risk it by taking advice from freelance advisors who are living failures themselves. Seek counsel from those who have achieved what you want to achieve.
- Go First Class in Everything You Do: This isn’t just about spending money. It’s about a commitment to quality. It means giving your best effort, associating with the best people, and holding yourself to the highest standards. You cannot afford to go any other way.
Section 3.4: The People Factor: Turning Your Attitudes into Your Greatest Asset
Success is rarely a solo endeavor. Your ability to work with, influence, and lead others is paramount. This begins with your internal attitudes toward people.
- Grow the “I’m Activated” Attitude: Results are directly proportional to the enthusiasm you invest. To activate yourself, dig deeper into subjects that don’t initially interest you—familiarity breeds enthusiasm. And act alive! Project energy in your smile, handshake, and walk.
- Grow the “You Are Important” Attitude: People will move mountains for you if you make them feel important. Show appreciation at every opportunity. Call people by name. Listen to them. Acknowledge their value.
- Grow the “Service First” Attitude: Whether you’re in business or any other field, the principle holds: if you focus on giving people more than they expect to get—more value, more service, more kindness—the rewards, including money, will take care of themselves. This service-first mindset is a hallmark of high-performance habits.
Part 4: The Resilient Mindset: Turning Defeat into Victory
Setbacks are not optional on the path to significant success; they are guaranteed. The difference between a high-achiever and a mediocre performer lies not in avoiding failure, but in their response to it. This is how you develop the resilience of a true leader.
- Study Setbacks to Pave Your Way to Success: When you lose, don’t just move on. Learn. Analyze what went wrong. What can you do differently next time? Every setback contains a lesson. Your job is to find it and use it.
- Be Your Own Constructive Critic: Have the courage to seek out your own faults and weaknesses and then work diligently to correct them. This is what separates amateurs from professionals.
- Stop Blaming Luck: Research every setback. Find the root cause. Blaming luck is an abdication of responsibility and ensures you will repeat the same mistakes.
- Blend Persistence with Experimentation: Stay committed to your ultimate goal, but don’t beat your head against a stone wall. If one approach isn’t working, be flexible. Try new methods. Experiment.
- Find the Good Side in Every Situation: Even in disappointment, there is something to be learned or gained. Find that silver lining. It will give you the strength to whip discouragement and move forward.
Start Thinking Big Today: Your Journey to an Extraordinary Life
The magic of thinking big is not a complex formula reserved for a chosen few. It is a choice—a series of choices you can start making right now. The principles outlined here are your tools for a complete life transformation, touching everything from your career advancement strategies to your personal relationships and financial well-being.
The journey begins with a single step. You have absorbed the knowledge; now you must apply it.
- Believe with unshakable conviction that you can and will succeed.
- Cure yourself of the disease of excusitis in all its forms.
- Act with confidence, dream creatively, and manage your environment for success.
- Respond to setbacks with the resilience of a leader.
Don’t wait for the “perfect” moment. Choose one principle from this guide and implement it today. Decide to sit in the front seat at your next meeting. Write down your 10-year goals tonight. Consciously choose a thought of success over a thought of failure.
The size of your bank account, the size of your happiness, and the size of your contribution to the world are all limited by one thing: the size of your thinking. Break free from the shackles of small, timid thoughts. You have within you the power to create a life of immense success, fulfillment, and joy.
Think Big, and you will live Big.