Attention & Focus · “You Become What You Hold”
Definite as to Standard, Unlimited by Matter
Concentrate force on one chosen ideal by making it definite as to its standard of worth and excellence, while refusing to pin it to a particular place, time, or material form that would needlessly cramp it.
Pick one ideal. Make it definite as to its standard of worth and excellence — exact about how good. But don’t chain it to a single place, institution, or timetable (“president of the college in my home town“ is the trap). Keep it worthy enough to “impel you to do something.” Hold the standard fixed; stay flexible on the route.
What it is
Landone’s rule for how to define the one ideal you concentrate on — the counterpart to the scattered or over-pinned aim. His instruction is a single sharp sentence: “Make your ideal definite as to standards, but do not limit it by material restrictions.” Most people fail one of two ways: their aim is vague (no standard to pull toward), or it is over-specified to a particular building, town, person, or timetable that needlessly forecloses the routes by which it could arrive.
Landone’s correction: be exact about the standard of worth and excellence, and loose about the material particulars. His example is pointed — Charles wanted not just to become a college president but “to become the president of the college in his home town.
His ideal was limited materially,” and the needless material pin worked against him. He pairs this with a worthiness test: “Your ideal should be so worthy that it urges you to climb out from under limitations, that it impels you to do something, that it makes you a leader.” It sits in attention focus because it is about concentrating force on one definite aim instead of dissipating or cramping it.
The Method
- Choose one ideal to concentrate on. Landone’s whole system runs on a single ideal carried through examination, plan, and doing — not a scatter of half-wants. Pick the one.
- Make it definite as to standard. Fix exactly the level of worth, quality, and excellence you are aiming at, so attention has a precise target: “Make your ideal definite as to standards.”
- Do not limit it by material restriction. Refuse to chain it to one place, one institution, one timetable, one form: “but do not limit it by material restrictions.” Charles’s “president of the college in his home town“ is the cautionary case — the material pin was a self-imposed limit.
- Apply the worthiness test. Keep only an ideal big enough to pull you upward: “so worthy that it urges you to climb out from under limitations, that it impels you to do something, that it makes you a leader.” If the aim doesn’t impel action, raise it.
- Hold the standard, stay flexible on the route. Let the how and where remain open so force can flow through whatever channel opens — while the standard of the ideal stays fixed and demanding. (Sourcing note: “Make your ideal definite as to standards, but do not limit it by material restrictions,” the Charles example “limited materially,” and “so worthy that it urges you to climb out from under limitations…makes you a leader” are verbatim from The Success Process. Step ordering is an attributed paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Brown Landone (1847–1944), The Success Process (1920). The “definite as to standard, unlimited by matter” formula is his characteristic refinement of the New Thought “definite chief aim” idea (cf. the broader New Thought / early success-literature emphasis on a single dominating purpose). → (landone brown).
Common refinements
Vague aim. “Be the best” with no standard gives attention nothing to lock onto — fix the level precisely.
- Over-pinning the particulars. “President of the college in my home town“ — naming the exact institution/place/date can be the very restriction that defeats you. Pin the standard, not the address.
- Scattering across many ideals. The force is in one definite aim carried through; diffusion is the failure mode this guards against.
- An aim too small to impel you. If it doesn’t make you “climb out from under limitations,” it isn’t worthy enough — raise it.
- Mistaking flexibility for vagueness. Open on route, exact on standard — not the reverse.