It is of the utmost value to learn how to concentrate. To make the greatest success of anything you must be able to concentrate your entire thought upon the idea you are working on. The person that is able to concentrate utilizes all constructive thoughts and shuts out all destructive ones. The greatest success in life is usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. The common life of every day, with its cares, necessities, and duties, affords ample opportunity for acquiring experience of the best kind and its broad fields of action provide the most excellent training ground for developing the highest qualities and powers in us. When we speak of concentration we mean the ability to control our thoughts and fix them on a given subject at will. Concentration is much misunderstood by the masses of people. There are those who mistake concentration for narrowness. They assume that to concentrate means to become narrow, limited, and contracted. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we concentrate, we expand our mental capacity to its fullest extent.

Concentration is not a shrinking but an expansion of consciousness. The whole secret of concentration lies in the control of the attention. Attention is the first step in all mental action. The power of attention can be developed by practice. When you learn to focus your attention upon a subject, you are concentrating. The person that is able to concentrate can direct his mental and physical energies to the task at hand. This power of concentration manifests itself physically in the firm, erect bearing of the person, in the clear, decisive way he acts, and in the definite way he speaks.