If it is to be dislodged, this will not be accomplished by mere struggle but by the persuasive power of another and superior auto-suggestion.

Further, in respect of any habit that we seek to establish, the more desperate our struggle and sense of effort, the smaller will be our success.

In small matters we have all experienced the working of this law: in frustrated struggles to attend to that which does not interest us, to check a tiresome cough, to keep our balance when learning to ride a bicycle.

But it has also more important applications.

Thus it indicates that a deliberate struggle to believe, to overcome some moral weakness, to keep attention fixed in prayer, will tend to frustration: for this anxious effort gives body to our imaginative difficulties and sense of helplessness, fixing attention on the conflict, not on the desired end.
True, if this end is to be achieved the will must be directed to it, but only in the sense of giving steadfast direction to the desires and acts of the self, keeping attention orientated towards the goal.