A delightful children’s story tells of a little blue engine who looked at his impossible task of pulling a train up a steep hill and said, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” Filled with determination, the little blue engine huffed and puffed and pulled up the hill. But in an amusing twist to the original story, another author wro te:
“He was almost there, when — CRASH! SMASH! BASH! He slid down and mashed into engine hash On the rocks below…which goes to show If the track is tough and the hill is rough THINKING you can ain’t enough. The winner glories in the good; the whiner majors in the mediocre. Winners’ thinking processes differ from other people’s. As part of their normal, moment-to-moment stream of consciousness, winners think constantly in terms of I can and I will. Losers concentrate their waking thoghts on…what they should have done…would have done…what they can’t do. When the mind’s self-talk is positive, performance is more likely to be successful. The huge majority of our negative doubts and fears are imaginary or beyond our control.”
