Rule 9

Practice doing disagreeable things. This will strengthen the will wonderfully, for reasons that should be apparent to every student. What would be the condition of your muscles if you never had to use them? And what will be the condition of your will if you never have to exercise it by doing something unpleasant or disagreeable! Anyone, even the weakest, can do a thing along the lines of non-resistance - pleasant, agreeable things, without opposition or resistance. But it takes a true man or woman - a true individual - to do things against resistance from without or from within. And when one has learned to master himself, that is his own moods and feelings - then he is able to master the outside world. And not until then, either I Therefore often set yourself an unpleasant or disagreeable task to perform, for by so doing you acquire mental muscle, which is but another name for will.

Prof. James, the eminent psychologist, advises his readers to systematically exercise themselves in the direction of doing some particular things for no other reason than that they would rather not do it. Even if the task be nothing more than rising and giving up a seat in a street-car when you want to retain it very much indeed. Prof. James compares this exercise to the paying the premiums on insurance on one's property - one is laying up reserve resources for a day of need. He tells us that a man who trains himself in this way can be counted upon in any emergency - he may count on himself to manifest Will-Power. As Prof. Halleck says, in speaking of such a man: "While another would be still crying over spilt milk, the possessor of such a will has already begun to milk another cow." The men who have attained great success have, in nearly every case, so trained their wills that they can undertake a difficult or disagreeable task with a minimum of effort. They have acquired the habit. When one learns to say "Yes! or No!" to himself, he can say "yes!" or "no!" to others with the greatest force.

Rule 10

Cultivate fixity of purpose. The man of strong will must learn to see an object ahead of him and then to "want it bard enough," and then to fix bis will upon it and hold it there, while he moves to it in as straight a line as possible. But no matter bow he may have to swerve from his straight line of approach, by unforeseen obstacles, nor bow many times be may stumble, he still always remembers what he is after - and he keeps after it. The shifting, changeable, weathercock sort of men manifest but little will, and accomplish little or nothing. The successful men are those who know what they want and never forget it. It may take them some time to find out just what they do want, but when once they find it out they hold firmly to it to the end with an invincible determination and unswerving purpose - and these qualities always win in the long run, if for no other reason than because so few possess them and the majority of men get tired of the struggle and drop out of the race. It's the fellow with the "staying qualities" that pulls through in the end no matter how much of a start the others may have had on him in the beginning. Concentrate and cultivate "stick-to-it-iveness."