“The Art of Concentration” by Napoleon Hill

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First: When you wish to be sure of your ability to recall a sense impression, such as a name, date, or place, be sure to make the impression vivid by concentrating your attention upon it to the finest detail. An effective way to do this is to repeat, several times, that which you wish to remember. Just as a photographer must give an “exposure” proper time to record itself on the sensitized plate of the camera, so must we give the subconscious mind time to record properly and clearly any sense impression that we wish to be able to recall with readiness. 

Second: Associate that which you wish to remember with some other object, name, place, or date with which you are quite familiar, and which you can easily recall when you wish,—for example, the name of your home town, your close friend, the date of your birth, etc.—for your mind will then file away the sense impression that you wish to be able to recall with the one that you can easily recall, so that when bringing forth one into the conscious mind, it brings also the other one with it. 

 Third: Repeat that which you wish to remember a number of times, at the same time concentrating your mind upon it, just as you would fix your mind on a certain hour at which you wished to arise in the morning, which, as you know, insures your awakening at that precise hour. 

The law of association is the most important feature of a well-trained memory, yet it is a very simple law. All you have to do to make use of it is to record the name of that which you wish to remember with the name of that which you can readily remember, and the recalling of one brings with it the other. 

Your ability to train your memory, or to develop a desired habit, is a matter solely of being able to fix your attention on a given subject until the outline of that subject has been thoroughly impressed upon the “sensitized plate” of your mind. 

Concentration itself is nothing but a matter of control of the attention! 

Learn to fix your attention on a given subject, at will, for whatever length of time you choose, and you will have learned the secret passageway to power and plenty! 

This is concentration! 

This is an exclusive excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s The Law of Success. This official publication of the Napoleon Hill Foundation offers a condensed version of Hill’s original 8-volume work that established his Law of Success philosophy. Curated by the executive board of the Napoleon Hill Foundation, it is the best distillation of Hill’s seminal work. It is available from Sound Wisdom on March 23, 2021. Preorder your copy now!