The core principles across multiple printable pages.
Quick-Start Cheat Sheets
Your Forces and How to Use Them
Apply the Teaching
Quick-Start Cheat Sheets for Your Forces and How to Use Them
Your Forces and How to Use Them - Quick-Start Cheat Sheets
Larson's inner forces framework distilled into a clear practical reference guide.
Inside the Cheat Sheets
One page per core principle
The Ruling Principle
The conscious 'I Am' is the sovereign inner monarch of the human system.
Building vs Fighting
No effort should be made to destroy undesired habits or qualities.
Subconscious Direction
The subconscious mind is the primary source of creative energy and personal capability.
Constructive Speech
Spoken words carry active energy that shapes the personal atmosphere and subconscious patterns.
The Optimist Creed
The twelve promises of 'Promise Yourself' are a cognitive-behavioural contract - each promise is a self-regulation commitment treating mental states as disciplines to be practiced rather than conditions to be waited for..
Imagination as Blueprint
Imagination creates mental moulds that the subconscious works to physicalize.
The Method
CBT, NLP and somatic principles built into every line
Every line on the cheat sheets is written in NLP presupposition structure - language that treats the principle as already true rather than something to aspire toward. This is not a stylistic choice; it is a functional one. The subconscious mind processes language that presupposes reality more readily than language that frames it as a goal. “Your attention filter is already working for you” lands differently than “try to change your attention filter.”
The layout applies CBT chunking principles: each principle sits in its own distinct block so the brain processes it as a discrete unit rather than as part of an undifferentiated wall of text. Cluttered reference material is processed as noise. Clean, spaced, visually distinct content is processed as signal. The design decisions are functional, not decorative.
Printed and placed visibly, the cheat sheets work as environmental priming - a principle from somatic psychology. What you see repeatedly, without actively reading, shapes your default perceptual set. A cheat sheet pinned above your desk works not only when you read it deliberately but when your peripheral vision catches it during ordinary work. The subconscious is always receiving.
Why we built it this way
Your Forces and How to Use Them is a direct predecessor to the DAR Rewire phase. Larson's displacement principle - build the new pattern rather than fight the old one - is the foundational logic of the Notice-Decode-Challenge-Choose-Decide sequence. You do not argue with the old story; you build the new one consistently until the old one loses its neural grip. Larson understood this experientially a century before neuroscience confirmed that focused positive attention literally starves competing neural pathways of the repeated firing they need to maintain their strength.
The Optimist Creed maps onto the DAR identity work in the Dream phase. It is not a set of aspirations but a set of identity declarations - statements about who you are becoming that the subconscious begins to treat as self-concept. In DAR terms this is the future self becoming the present self: the Optimist Creed is a twelve-point future self script spoken as present reality.
How to Use It
Three uses that actually work
- 1
Print and pin visibly
Pin the pages where you will see them without actively looking - above your desk, on the kitchen wall, beside the mirror. Peripheral exposure is the mechanism. You do not need to read it every day; you need it in your visual field.
- 2
Scan before a decision or challenge
Before a difficult conversation, a business decision, or a moment when the old pattern is likely to activate - read one principle deliberately. A 90-second scan primes the attentional filter before it is tested.
- 3
Use as a nightly anchor
The pre-sleep window is the subconscious's most receptive state. Reading one principle immediately before sleep is the highest-leverage moment in the day for impressing a new pattern. Two minutes - one principle, read slowly, felt rather than just processed.
Worth knowing
This is a reference tool, not a practice system
The cheat sheets give you the principles in a scannable, always-available format. They will not give you thirty days of structured daily practice - that is what the workbook is built for. If you want the 30-day practice system, it is here.
Who This Is For
You'll get the most from this if…
- ✓You feel like you have untapped inner resources but have never had a clear framework for accessing and directing them
- ✓You want to understand how the 'I Am' concept works as a psychological anchor rather than a spiritual claim
- ✓You struggle with negative habits and have found willpower-based approaches exhausting and ineffective
- ✓You are drawn to the Optimist Creed and want the full philosophy behind those twelve promises
- ✓You want a structured, chapter-by-chapter system for building mental sovereignty rather than scattered inspirational advice
- ✓You recognise the cycle of discouragement feeding more discouragement and want a practical exit strategy
Complete the Practice
Complete the Your Forces and How to Use Them practice
30-Day Challenge Workbook
Build the teaching into 30 days of structured daily practice.
Habit Tracker & Goal Planner
Track the micro-habits that compound into lasting change.
52-Week Daily Affirmation Calendar
52 weeks of daily affirmations - one for every day from May 2026 to April 2027.
Affirmation Card Deck
52 cards to carry the teaching into every part of your day.
The Toolkit
All five products for this work in one discounted bundle. Save 30%.
Annotated Edition
Christie L. Russell's annotated edition with neuroscience and NLP commentary.
About the Work
Your Forces and How to Use Them - New Thought, 1866-1954
Larson's comprehensive guide to unlocking and directing the inner forces - mental, emotional, and physical - that determine every outcome in life. One of his most practically structured works.
The Science Behind It
Larson's prolific optimism-based approach is the closest New Thought comes to positive psychology as a formal discipline. His emphasis on the 'promise yourself' principle maps to self-compassion research - treating yourself as you would a good friend is one of the most evidence-backed interventions for sustained positive change. His insistence on consistency over intensity anticipates what we now know about neuroplasticity: small repeated actions create stronger and more durable neural pathways than occasional dramatic ones.
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