Thinking For Results

Thinking For Results is a book by American New Thought leader Christian D. Larson, first published in 1912. It is a short self-help book that encourages you to change your way of thinking in order to become more successful in life.

Larson discusses various ways in which to do this, how people should keep a positive mind, have end goals in sight, live in accordance with natural laws, and accept that mental conceptions will improve with greater concentration on the good things in one's life.


Man is as he thinks he is, and what he does is the result of the sum total of his thought. The average person, however, thinks at random and therefore lives at random and does not know from day to day whether good or evil lies in his path.

What he finds in his path is invariably the result of his own thinking, but as he does not know what results different kinds of thought produce he creates both good and evil daily not knowing that he necessarily does either of these.

When he knows what each mental state will produce, however, and has gained the power to think as he likes under all sorts of circumstances, then he will have fate, destiny, environment, physical conditions, mental conditions, attainments, achievements and in fact everything in his own hands. You never think scientifically unless you think for a purpose; it is therefore purposeless thinking that you must avoid.

To train the mind to think only in the right states of mind we must learn to distinguish between right and wrong mental states, though this is a matter that becomes very simple when we understand that the difference between right and wrong states of mind is found in this, that the former tends to relate the mind properly to the laws, the principles and the powers of life, while the latter tends to prevent that relationship.