How to Use Burning Desire to Manifest Anything You Want According to Napoleon Hill

Think and Grow Rich is an international bestselling book written by Napoleon Hill in 1937. It’s sold over 20 million copies and is responsible for creating tens of thousands of millionaires worldwide.

Of all the principles listed in Think and Grow Rich, the most powerful is what Napoleon Hill calls the power of true desire.

Most people think they understand what desire is. But there’s a vast difference between true desire and a simple want or wish!

This is where many people who study the Law of Attraction become discouraged, because they think that if they simply want something badly enough, the object will magically manifest.

But in order to transform a desire into reality, the feeling of wanting has to be turned into what Napoleon Hill calls “a burning desire,” because there’s actually an art and a science to transformation.

The art to transformation requires you to dream about and envision the object of your desire. The science of transformation requires that you align your vibration to the object of your desire.

When you put the art and science of transformation together, it becomes what Napoleon Hill calls a burning desire.

Take water, for example. If you put water into a pot and put it on a stove, the water becomes hot. But the water doesn’t become steam unless there’s a shift in the temperature of the water at a certain point.

The Law of Attraction works in much the same way. In order for there to be a state change in the state of your love life, or when it comes to your health, finances, business or career, you must change the pitch of the vibration you’re living from. And it can’t just be a casual now-and-then.

Attraction and abundance just doesn’t work that way.

In his book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill writes about desire

“There is one quality which one must absolutely possess to win. And that is definiteness of purpose. The knowledge of what one truly wants, and a burning desire to possess it.”

In other words, in order to create results, you must have a clear vision of what you truly want and a burning desire to possess it – meaning you must be a vibrational match to the object of your desire.

I will add here that you must also be willing to do some things you haven’t been doing, and to do what you can do with what you have.

Think about something that you’d really love to transform in your life. This may be something that’s been the same for a very long time. You may have stories about why this person, place or thing is a certain way. Some of your stories may sound something like this:

• It’s not God’s will.
• It’s just not in the cards for me.
• If only I hadn’t __________.
• If only my parents hadn’t _________.

But for a moment, set aside the stories you may be telling yourself and feel your deep desire to change this situation…

Just for a moment, feel the pain of how long this situation has been going on, how often you’ve said you wanted it to change, and how much you meant it.

There’s nothing wrong with you. You didn’t have someone to help or train you. You didn’t have anyone to teach you how change occurs.

And that’s why you keep wanting change but not having it. It’s also why your mind makes up stories about your situation.

Now, imagine that the change you want has occurred.

What would your life be like? Would you be married? Would you be traveling? What would you be doing? What would you have and give if things changed?

This is your vision – a clear picture of what you want.

Picture yourself living where you want to live, doing what you want to do, having the relationships and health you want. Feel what it’s like to be you living this life.

How much do you really want what you’ve envisioned? Do you want this change enough to be willing to turn it from a simple wish into a burning desire?

How do you know if you’re only wishing for something?

Now that you recognize that there’s a vast difference between a wish and an authentic, burning desire, notice what you would be thinking and feeling if you only had a wish.

Wishes won’t move molecules. Wishing is actually generating a sense of gap between yourself and the object of what it is that you would like.

For example, the love of your life, money in the bank, freedom to travel, work that has meaning and purpose, health and vitality.

Transformation literally means to move beyond the current form of things.

Napoleon Hill studied the physics of transformation and said that,

“Burning desire is the key element. Know where you want to end up, and have a burning desire to have that and be that in your life.”

Some common thoughts of those who have a simple wish instead of a burning desire are:

• Maybe I’ll have _______.
• Wouldn’t it be great if…
• If only I could have ______.

You have a simple wish if you have a sense that what you want is out there, when the truth is that you can never get there. Your desire can only come from inside yourself.

When Henry Thoreau said, “If one advances confidently in the direction of their dream, endeavoring to live the life they’ve imagined…” he wasn’t saying to get to the life they would eventually live, but live the life they’re imagining, right where they are with what they have.

So if you catch yourself thinking that the object of what you want is out there, then you know you are simply wishing for something, and as long as you continue to think those thoughts, what you want will never manifest in your life.

Change your attention to match your intention, and you’ll start to notice that you’re building a burning desire and a commitment to your goal that will literally change the landscape of your life.

You can commit to a goal without knowing everything that’s required.

If you’ve ever had a child and committed to raising that child, you knew beforehand that there was going to be so much you didn’t know you’d have to learn and do in order to keep that commitment to raise that child.

Or if you’ve ever gotten married and decided to build and commit to your married relationship, you likely accepted the fact that didn’t know everything that would happen.

And if you’ve ever enrolled in a four-year university program, you had no idea all the things you were going to have to do, but you committed to graduating and earning your degree.

You see, when you make a commitment, there’s a sense of connection to the object of your desire. In other words, a burning desire comes with a commitment – you’re willing to do whatever it takes.

And so, if you’re willing to do whatever it takes, then you’re a person who looks for any way you can to move your desire into form. Sometimes that means walking away from your imagination while you’re going about your daily tasks, but refusing to be discouraged.

Certain things won’t move immediately.

Transformation may take a little longer than you prefer. But trust that if you plant corn in a garden and you nurture it, by spiritual law and by physical law, that seed must bear the fruit of the seed that it is.

In the same way, if you’ve turned your wish into a burning desire, know that things are being changed and moved right now, some of which you’re aware of, and much of which you’re not aware of. And as you move into this reality in your mind, imagine your changed life as if it were already yours.

Right now, take this idea that you can have a burning desire and begin to use it as fuel for what it is you would really love. You have within you the power to turn your wish into a burning desire, so that you can live a life you truly love living.

Would you love to DO what you want to do, HAVE what you want to have and GIVE what you want to give?

If so, I have a gift for you!

Besides studying books like Think and Grow Rich, many of the world’s most successful people use meditation to quiet their minds, tap into their intuition and more easily follow its guidance toward a freer, fuller and more expansive life.

If you’d like a powerful guided meditation that will help you tune your thoughts to the frequency of abundance, so that more and more opportunities to create what you desire present themselves to you each and every day, click here for my free Abundance Activation Meditation!