THE SUCCESS PRINCIPLES by Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield’s book is considered a fundamental in the field of personal growth. I first heard about it from Brian Tracy. He cited Seven Habits and The Success Principles as two books he would highly recommend from beyond his own books. When I later saw some promotional material from Jack Canfield himself, I took a look. He provides a series of short lessons based on the book, and I took those combination of written and audio lessons and decided on the book. I also ordered and read the teen version of the book as a sort of primer for this book.

The book is 473 pages including the index, plus an additional thirty or so pages in the introduction. Once you get into the meat of the book, there are 64 Principles covered in a relatively short chapters (some really short, some a little longer than others). All in all, it takes only a few minutes to read a given chapter. I think this would make a really good study for a group for more than a year – with weekly meetings. There is also a teen version of the book that only deals with versions of the first 21 principles.

I. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF SUCCESS

1. Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life

This is the only way to have power: be 100% responsible for your own life. This does not mean you always have control over outside circumstances, but you take full responsibility to take control of yourself in those situations. You have to give up all your excuses.

E+R=O. Event + Response = Outcome. You can blame the Event or you can change your Response. Everything you are experiencing today is the result of choices you’ve made in the past and how those choices have interacted with circumstances. You must give up blaming and give up complaining (most people complain to the wrong person anyway – to people who cannot effect change).

You either create or