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How to Practice Suggestion and Autosuggestion
Émile Coué
About the Author
French psychologist and pharmacist, Émile Coué (1857–1926), helped transform modern self-help with his pioneering insights into autosuggestion. Rather than relying on willpower, Coué taught that the subconscious mind could be guided through conscious, repeated affirmations.
About the Book
"How to Practice Suggestion and Autosuggestion" explains exactly how to implement conscious autosuggestion in daily life. This concise yet practical book teaches how to harness the power of repeated suggestion to influence behavior, thought patterns, health, and confidence.
Summary
Much of Coué's work laid the foundation for today's affirmations and cognitive behavioral techniques. Takeaways from this book include:
- You Are Always Suggesting Something: Whether you're aware of it or not, your thoughts constantly influence your subconscious. Coué shows how to stop reinforcing self-doubt and start planting positive, creative ideas instead.
- Why Willpower Fails: Coué explains that the imagination wins over willpower. When you try to force change but your inner beliefs resist, your subconscious blocks your efforts. Autosuggestion bypasses this by directly feeding the subconscious.
- The Simple Formula That Works: Regularly repeating phrases like "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better" can help plant new beliefs in your unconscious mind.
- How to Practice Autosuggestion Properly: Autosuggestion is most effective when practiced with rhythmic repetition and emotional sincerity. Coué offers specific instructions for when, how, and how often to repeat your chosen suggestion.
- Neutralizing Negative Suggestion: Poor self-talk, fear, and criticism are also forms of suggestion, albeit highly harmful ones. Coué teaches you how to neutralize them with conscious redirection and new mental habits.
- The Subconscious Mind Doesn't Argue: Your subconscious accepts whatever ideas it's given, good or bad. That's why repetition and mental imagery are powerful: they imprint new "truths" without resistance.
- Everyone Practices Autosuggestion, Consciously or Not: You're always influencing yourself through thought and speech. The difference between success and failure lies in whether this influence is intentional and constructive.
- Health, Habit, and Happiness as Natural Outcomes: When you re-educate your subconscious with positive ideas, your physical health, self-control, and peace of mind naturally follow. These aren't miracles. They are the logical results of new inner conditioning.
Frequently Asked Questions
"How to Practice Suggestion and Autosuggestion" is a hands-on manual for mastering your subconscious mind through positive repetition. It provides the how-to for reshaping thought patterns and habits using Coué's simple yet profound autosuggestion method.
It's a short and accessible read, usually around 130 pages.
"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."
"Our actions spring not from our Will, but from our Imagination."
"Whatever idea we put in our mind, never mind what that idea may be, becomes true for us, even if it be actually untrue. Further, every idea that we put into the mind becomes a reality."
Originally published in the early 1920s, it remains one of Coué's most practical works for those interested in daily mental training and self-guided healing.
Yes, it's available in print, digital, and audiobook formats. It's often paired with Coué's other works or included in personal development collections.
This book is in the Focus Mindset Online Library on the Secrets of Success book club website. It's especially helpful if you're looking for a daily mental routine to build confidence and reprogram limiting beliefs.
You can read this book through the Secrets of Success Library, your personal vault of classic teachings that unlock high-performance thinking and self-leadership. Join now to access this and more.
"Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion" by Émile Coué: Offers the foundational philosophy behind autosuggestion and explains how belief shapes physical and mental outcomes.
"The Power of Concentration" by William Walker Atkinson: Trains your ability to focus thought, a perfect complement to autosuggestion practice.
"The Science of Being Well" by Wallace D. Wattles: Reinforces the link between thought patterns and beliefs, echoing Coué's claims about health and suggestion.
"Thought Vibration" by William Walker Atkinson: Focuses on aligning repeated thoughts with desired results, emphasizing vibration and resonance, much like Coué emphasizes repetition and belief.
"The Mental Equivalent" by Emmet Fox: Shows how the images you hold in mind shape your outer reality, giving further metaphysical depth to Coué's techniques.
Click here to read reviews of this book.
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"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."
Émile Coué
In this day & age where ‘affirmations’, ‘the law of attraction’ etc. are part of our everyday vocabulary, there are plenty of idiots posing as experts on the subject. Reading a book by someone who wrote it when such things were largely unheard of, he was sure to build a compelling case. He also offers a good argument as to how imagination, not will, is man’s driving force. He’s particularly famous for something known as the Coué method, which is the repetition of the phrase, “Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better.”
Now this slim book might not seem revolutionary to any modern-day reader, but it is a good book if you’re interested in the subject but are fed up with the circus that is the modern self-help genre!
among many others
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